Kaine totally agree, i think most companies come out with a dude at sometime... look at the the original Freelander Sports puts coat on

But seriously I would always consider seriously the MAC route if, a). if the person is not computer literate, in particular trying to negotiate the quirks of Microsoft, b). MAC is pretty bullet and fool proof and consequently c). they are less likely to be able to screw it up in terms of the OS side of life.. The MAC requires far less intervention and maintenance and i am only just a recent convert (18 months).

Cheers Another Pommie Bar Steward down under

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Zilch wrote:

Kaine totally agree, i think most companies come out with a dude at sometime... look at the the original Freelander Sports puts coat on

But seriously I would always consider seriously the MAC route if, a). if the person is not computer literate, in particular trying to negotiate the quirks of Microsoft, b). MAC is pretty bullet and fool proof and consequently c). they are less likely to be able to screw it up in terms of the OS side of life.. The MAC requires far less intervention and maintenance and i am only just a recent convert (18 months).

Cheers

But generally the mac books costs more than windows based machines and component wise offer a lot less.

OR - I am talking out of my a e  WINNER - 2009 Best Newcomer Award
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I have a HP Pavillion laptop, can't fault it other than the battery is knackered due to having it on charge all the time.

My grandad has a PC, and we are forever having to delete viruses from it, even though he has virus checkers on or fix one thing or another, since the MAC books are less prone to virusus it could be something worth thinking about,

In my experience, people only get viruses when they increase their attack surface. I have only ever run the same AV tool at home but I just don't download and install everything that pops up and asks me to. You often find that people who complain of multiple virus attacks also have a whole pile of crap installed on their PCs. I literally don't remember the last time I had to manually clear a virus.

I know it's easy for me to say when I know what I'm looking for, but a lot "Windows is crap because it's always getting viruses" isn't strictly correct.

I'm surprised nobody's popped up and helpfully suggested 2nd's folks should be using Linux  

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The Gadget Show on Channel 5 did a review of broadband providers and the packages available, results were interesting

http://gadgetshow.five.tv/search/clips?q=broadband%20deals

Wozz wrote:

But generally the mac books costs more than windows based machines and component wise offer a lot less.

OR - I am talking out of my a e

Wozz it depends what you want it for. Most Macs come fully equipped out of the box with blue tooth, wifi (airport), 160 GB hard disk, 2 Gig of memory, DVD player, Itunes, iphoto, etc etc etc, for basic Office apps and internet its more than able. MAC OS is also based in UNIX, built for multi-tasking and many threads

Schmoog, Linux now there's a thought  Another Pommie Bar Steward down under

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Thanks all so far!!

Zilch, whereby I'm not really knowledgable with Apples, just on price a Macbook would seem to be 200 - 300 Sterling more than the Dell I was eyeing up??

http://store.apple.com/uk

Linux may also be a bit much for my 70 year old mum

Depends on application - I just got a Samsung NC10, one of the new series of netbooks - small, compact, and works with a 160GB hard drive - great for net browsing, music etc etc, and iplayer works a treat. One great find also - Vodafone do a Dongle on pay as you go, UNLIKE any other provider, you top it up in £15 increments but there is not use by date - you can let it go on for 6 months - whereas the others also expire after 1 month - sppeds and access great too. I keep this computer and dongle for the car when I need access to work from. Crazy though why Macs haven't developed a dongle to work from their computers......

2nd Rower wrote:

a Macbook would seem to be 200 - 300 Sterling more than the Dell I was eyeing up??

fair point.. just wondering how much the late night calls will cost to blighty whilst you are trouble shooting/shouting  Another Pommie Bar Steward down under

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They'd needn't cost anything in addition to your ISP fees over Skype or Netmeeting or RDP (with a bit of initial firewall setup). For each problem there is a solution  

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