Making the Leap from Desktop to Laptop..

[Meow]

Hello My new Forumers!(Since i'm new at this forum bear with my Terminoligy or anything.. :3 )

After 8-9 years of Loyalty with my Windows XP Custom Built MESH computer, I'm Finally Making the leap to getting 'portable'. I'm getting a Hewlett Packard Laptop with a ATI Radeon Graphics card, 4GB Memory and 2Ghz RAM. Now, when i get it (about on the 26th June) i don't exacly know what to download/do first when i get my laptop and i was hoping this lovely community could advise me what to do . Also, i knwo the laptop comes with Norton and i want to remove it but i heard it can be a real pain and mess up your registry...So can anyone help me with this too?

Thank you vair vair Much :3

[yardbird]

Hello! well let me put in my 2 cents, others will follow. The 1st item would be a Good Anti-Virus Program, 2nd a software firewall. Norton can be removed from the control Panel, and then run a clean tool to get the rest of Norton out. A good anti spyware program like Malwarebytes. Then, when you connect to the net. You should go to MS updates, keep it updated. Windows Defender is good. A USB HUB will come in handy. A good case for the notebook. So I tossed those out for starters. Lets let some comments come in from some other members..... have fun & safe surfing!

[Guest victimized]

I stumbled along this once. Norton Removal Tool

[exile360]

Don't forget those all too important Windows Updates. They are vital for system security. Also have a visit here to make sure the Java version you're using is up to date.

[Porthos]

On a non security note.

Treat it like glass.

Don't drop it, Spill anything on it, remove the power cord from the ac jack with care at all times.

Parts and labor for replacement and repair are a lot more pricey than a desktop.

Because of its portability bad things are more likely to happen than with a desktop.

Price of repairs I have had here average.

Screen = 200.00 to 450.00

KBD = 60.00 - 150.00

AC jack replace/repair = 80.00- 180.00

DVD/RW =80.00- 350.00 (yes i said 350.00, it was a HP with a very expensive drive.)

Motherboards = 300.00 to 600.00 lately.

[d4rkn1ght]

Not from a technical but rather a personal point or view,

The programs I had wanted when I received my first laptop were Microsoft Office (Does your computer have it preinstalled?), a DVD burner, a hard drive temperature sensor (so you can monitor when your laptop is about to burst into flames ), a screen lock program (with its portability, you never know who's gonna use it), and a maintenance tool like Advanced Systemcare to clean it up every once in a while.

Besides that, it all really depends on what you need next.

Hope this helps!

Best Regards

[Meow]

Not from a technical but rather a personal point or view,

The programs I had wanted when I received my first laptop were Microsoft Office (Does your computer have it preinstalled?), a DVD burner, a hard drive temperature sensor (so you can monitor when your laptop is about to burst into flames ), a screen lock program (with its portability, you never know who's gonna use it), and a maintenance tool like Advanced Systemcare to clean it up every once in a while.

Besides that, it all really depends on what you need next.

Hope this helps!

Best Regards

(sorry for this late reply Internet is acting wierd)

I have Microsoft office on it. Do you have any ideas on where to get the other things. Advanced system care? Screen lock program? and a hard drive sensor temp thing?

Thanks everyone for your advice of adviceness

[YoKenny1]

What is SpeedFan

SpeedFan allows you to have a deeper view of the status of your computer. Almost every computer includes support for hardware monitoring. Accessing digital temperature sensors is really useful. If you are trying to figure out why your pc hangs when under heavy load or after some hours of usage, SpeedFan might help you to find the real cause. Very often it is a poor power supply, or an improperly installed heatsink that lead to behaviours that we tend to associate with errors from the operating system, but that are not. SpeedFan automatically searches your computer for interesting chips: the hardware monitor chips. SpeedFan can expose voltages, fan speeds and temperatures. On rare occasions, the BIOS doesn't activate such features. SpeedFan tries to enable them as long as this is a safe thing to do. Not only the motherboard is searched, but also some video cards and almost every recent hard disk. SpeedFan can access status info from EIDE, SATA and even SCSI drives, showing, in a consistent way, internal data that can be used to diagnose current and future hard disk failures. This is known as S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology). At the lowest level, SpeedFan is a hardware monitor software that can access digital temperature sensors, but its main feature is that it can control fan speeds according to the temperatures inside your pc, thus reducing noise.

http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

I don't use anything from IoBit due to its advertising.

Check out Installers Hall of Shame:

http://www.calendarofupdates.com/updates/i...;event_id=44514

I don't use a Screen lock program but Google showed this:

http://www.softheap.com/fstlock.html

[d4rkn1ght]

For a DVD burner I use Imgburn

http://www.imgburn.com/

For a screen lock I use Screen Lockdownload.cnet.com/Screen-Lock/3000-2056_4-10873550.html
For a hard drive sensor I use HDD Healthwww.panterasoft.com
Get Advanced Systemcare here:www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html

Hope this helps!

Best Regards

Edited June 26, 2009 by AdvancedSetup
Live links for untested software removed