fed up with old technology issues!!

[Zoe Girl]

So I am getting a bit frustrated. This is in 2 major areas, work and personal.

Work is that I am doing a summer camp with 20 laptops, a short presentation 2 times a day for 3 groups, that includes speakers, projector and a DVD of our summer literacy program. Awesome right? I have had 2 different work laptops and my personal one that is in rather bad shape. I finally on Friday (my day off) went down to tech support in person, got the laptop that actually plays the DVD with sound to also talk to the internet. They took the other one for a hardware checkup on playing the DVD. So in one of my groups today I switched the projector to a kid laptop and show them how to play a specific game, after that and changing back to my laptop the DVD did not have sound, it went back to windows media player instead of power DVD, and I unplugged and rebooted everything. My last group did not get to see the video part. This has happened before (my assistant of the day offered to help by blowing on the plug in for the speakers, really after 6 weeks of my program I think it is not blowing on the plugin) I am going to plug in everything at home tonight and try it again.

Now personally. We have crappy internet even though we are 2 blocks from the ritzy neighborhood. I have a little Acer and a really old Toshiba lap top. I am getting dropped websites, I turn off the pop up blocker to get something through and it just keeps looping back to the same message, I cannot get the one laptop to talk to the internet at all right now so that puts a stop to my ongoing job search, sigh. It is the one that can handle my resume and all. I basically spend a lot of time with flashdrives and 2-3 computers being juggled.

I need to shop for a new personal laptop while I get extra pay for summer camp. I want to really research this but I have a serious budget. Also I need to email or call my personal friend in tech support. I feel like an idiot even though they told me these computers are really old. I am wanting to ask for a newer laptop for next year. I have had continual issues and I am a little more capable than some of my coworkers.

Any advice to shop personally, to ask for a computer upgrade (i work in public schools) and a reason to not just throw them in the bath tub! :doh:

[SteveinMN]

Well, Zoe, throwing them in the bathtub would pollute the water. ;)

Seriously ... I'm guessing these are Windows laptops. If they are, then the first thing I would do is make sure the anti-virus/malware software (you do have that, right? for Windows it's a must) is up to date. Run it and see what you can find. You may need to run it a couple of times; there also are a number of inexpensive free AV/malware solutions out there, and sometimes it pays to run more than one of them once because each of them catches (and eradicates) different things. There also is software out there called CCleaner that gets rid of a lot of the cruft that builds up on (Windows) PCs.

If you (or someone you know) can reinstall Windows for you, I would copy the files that you care about on each computer (copy 'em twice "just in case") and then format the disk and reinstall Windows. My experience with Windows in a commercial setting over years of use is that it can't go much beyond two years without needing a rebuild. Make sure Windows and the programs you install are set to update themselves -- frequently the updates fix bugs and security issues. If these are really old laptops, you may find that the version of Windows you have is no longer supported. You may have to limp along till you can get a newer one.

As for buying another one, I'm personally a Mac fan. But I realize not everyone can make that choice. I know Dell sells on their Web site refurbished computers at a serious discount to the new ones, and they have enough turnover that, if you have some time, you can pick the features you want. I'm not crazy about Dell's customer support, but a budget is a budget. If your finances can stretch, August usually sees some good laptop sales as people go back to school. If you live in a larger city, there may be a store that sells reconditioned computers or off-lease computers. Those usually are much cheaper (and older, but newer than you have now). I don't recommend craigslist for older computers because laptops lead hard lives.

As for asking for a computer upgrade at work ... I don't know if your camp/school (or district) has a central IT or Purchasing department that buys computers in a lot or even if they lease them. At work, they leased the computers. 2-3 years and they were back to the lease agent. Anyway, assuming they're purchased, you might add up the cost of the computer no longer working properly. They're paying you to present this info; when you have to fiddle with the computer during presentation time, it costs $$. Figure out how long times your "hourly" pay and that's how much the malfunction costs. I also can tell you that when we had to have our laptops rebuilt at work, it was a minimum of five hours of labor (both for the tech and for me to install the software and files [s]he could not) at around $35-45/hour. It doesn't take too long at that rate to come up to a third to half the cost of a new laptop (which, presumably, would be trouble-free).

It seems I've written another novella -- sorry. Good luck!

[cjones]

Zoe, I feel your frustration. My suggestion is to try to get an upgraded or newer model laptop from your school and take it home to use for your home computer--unless that is against school policy. Technology will rip giant holes in your pocket, and it's a never ending beast. I do think it's a valid expenditure to buy a decent working computer for professional reasons---I just suggest you explore the possibility of getting your school to fund it. I really resent how expensive technology is!

[Zoe Girl]

Thank you for all the valuable info. That will help so much.

Guess what?? I found out today our grant has enough money for a new laptop and a new cell phone! woot, my old cell phone was cracked and about to split in 2 peices, the lap top you know about. I have been juggling technology to just get through my summer, so next year I will be up to date at least at work.

I am not sure I can use the work lap top, at least not for some of my things. I save anything personal off as it is and it is okay to check email and do simple things. Bu the refurbished Dells sound like a good idea to me.