Stuff

[lesliepear]

Tommorrow our software goes out the door, somehow. At least the last minute bugs I found today aren't super important.

Yesterday we got a recorded call from our district's superintendant. He's a nice guy, but looks and sounds like he should be on the Sopranos. He was telling us the computerized (first time this was done - can you imagine that!) report cards were coming today. I really don't think Alan would be hiding it from me at his age :)

He did well - most of his marks were S's (satisfactory) - he had a few P's (I think this is mastered) but nothing bad.

Tonight I let him play on my computer for the first time on his own - on dailynoggin.com. He ended up doing very well. I worry that I'll never see my PC again - I wonder if there are any good deals on laptops for Black Friday :) (I don't know if he'd do well on a laptop...maybe eventually he'd get one of our desktops.)

(Yes I've heard of the OLPC laptops, but do they get conventional websites?)

Anyway, he's also gotten into stuffed animals lately. He calls them his friends. He has a few of mine also I gave him, including one of the beanie cats that sit atop my monitor. He was asking for the animals from the computer - didn't realize at first he meant those!

Tonight he thought it funny when I was talking as his shoes - I was trying to convince him to wear a pair he hasn't worn in a while - he said "Shoes are not puppets!" I goofed with sock, then found some real puppets he had and didn't really use - had fun with those. Also as were in lying in his bed before he went to sleep, he was asking me for things that are a color and then imitating his teacher writing them on the board!

Comments

[marys-second.livejournal.com]

Walmart has an Acer laptop (Aspire something) for about $358. Get one with a gig of ram (or add some ram until it has a gig) and it is a very, very good deal.

I love my Acer. They are trying to buy their way into the US market so great deals are to be had cheap.

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

If it has Vista, don't even think about it with less than 2 GB. Theoretically, Vista can boot with less than 512 MB, but that's insane. Our Vista laptop came with 1 GB, and it was hopeless. Unfortunately, it had two 512 MB modules, so I had to pull one to upgrade, and went to 1.5 GB. It was faster, but still painful. I upgraded the other module, and now that it has 1 GB it's finally useful.

Part of the problem with the laptop is that it has a shared-memory video card, but we don't run video-intensive stuff on it, so that shouldn't make it hopelessly slow. But our Vista desktop, with 2 GB, is a whole lot snappier than the Vista laptop with the same amount, so I suspect that the shared-memory video card is part of the problem.

XP is happy with 1 GB and wonderful with more. Our main machine has XP and 3 GB, and it's great. I hope Vista is that good eventually, probably after a service pack or two, but it's not great yet.

[marys-second.livejournal.com]

Vista Home Basic runs fine with a gig of RAM but steve98052 is right about the 2GB if you want the eye candy and heavy applications. But, for internet browsing, email, or kid's sites, that Acer (or something similar) is fine.

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

You think so? I found 1 GB to be pretty much intolerable. One problem might be that I tend not to reboot our computers every day. Before we upgraded memory, the 1 GB laptop ran OK for maybe four hours of actual use before it really turned awful. Then it needed a reboot, or at the very least for all users to log out completely and log back in. I get the impression that it has serious memory leaks.

[marys-second.livejournal.com]

I took off most of the cruft applications which came bundled with the new laptop, turned off the visual effects, and trimmed down the applications which start up at boot. Now, her laptop uses about 350 - 400MB memory just for being turned on and jumps to about 800MB when she runs Sims, a browser, and her email.

She's not going to get any serious multitasking done but that's not how she uses the laptop.

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

Ahh, that would help. I typically have about six programs running, including at least a couple of big ones (browser, image editor, sometimes video editor), and my wife has a few running on her user too. At that point, no amount of cruft-trimming is going to make the machine run tolerably.

I suppose I should adjust my statement to emphasize that 1 GB on Vista is pretty much useless for my usage patterns, but that it might be usable for others.

Since I have a bit of Microsoft stock, I suppose it's good to hear that Vista is useful more useful with off-the-shelf configurations to some people than it was to me. Thanks for the information.

[siobhan-1.livejournal.com]

My kids do okay with the laptop as long as they have a mouse to use with it instead of the touchpad, which frustrates them

[msmichelle.livejournal.com]

Yesterday we got a recorded call from our district's superintendant. He's a nice guy, but looks and sounds like he should be on the Sopranos. He was telling us the computerized (first time this was done - can you imagine that!) report cards were coming today. I really don't think Alan would be hiding it from me at his age :)

By "looks and sounds" do you mean Tony Soprano...if so, I would be so distracted by his looks and accent...T is my fictional lust man! Odd, I know.

I'm surprised Alan is already getting report cards! We just get general info parent-teacher conferences once a semester.

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

No, he doesn't look like Tony Soprano, but he does sound like him - or any NJ italian guy.

Alan actually has gotten report cards since he's been in the district. I'm not sure they count officially, but I'm used to it already.

[msmichelle.livejournal.com]

I think some of the NJ Italian guys are the nicest people I've met in the world. Good conversationalists. And they actually care and listen to what you have to say. I spent some time in Metuchen once and that was my impression.

My also very kind uncle is from NJ...but he's irish and from south jersey by Phila. He's now a total Packers fan and very Wisconsin...but always personable and full of funny, endearing stories about his youth.

[butterflymama3.livejournal.com]

Peter calls his stuffed animals his dollies. He sleeps with a ton of them and has taken to taking a few of them (three or so) in the car with him too. So cute!

[mercy-rain.livejournal.com]

(Yes I've heard of the OLPC laptops, but do they get conventional websites?)

You mean, do they have Internet capability? IIRC, the XO has built-in wireless. And they're very durable.