What I’m Buying Myself

Let me ask you a question…

Do you you use your laptop or your desktop computer at home as your “main computer”? Most probably, you’re like me in that you use your laptop all around the house and take it with you to different places. But you have a good ol’ desktop somewhere at home (probably with a nice LCD monitor) that you use somewhat regularly too.

In fact, you might even find yourself using your laptop at the same desk or table as the desktop computer.

What’s interesting about technology sometimes is that in the name of technology, we somehow adopt “lower” standards. A classic example is the telephone. We used to see commercials with the images of pins dropping by the phone to show off just how crystal clear the sound was when you’re calling someone. But there days, do you ever see any pins dropping on TV? Absolutely not! Because we live in a wireless world now, and strangely enough, everyone is pretty ok with the static-filled cell phone calls. Or the loud whooshing of the highway and cars in the background. Or the loud kids in the background while your shopping and talking at the same time with the kids down the aisles of Toys R Us. In the name of this “advancement” in technology to become tetherless on the phone, we all quietly accept the lower quality of voice transmission on cell phones…

Well, computing isn’t different. Users of laptops are forgiving for slower speeds, smaller hard drive space, etc…as well as smaller screens. And we forget about these sacrifices which we would never accept with desktop machines just because of the ‘portability’ laptops give us.

Long story short, it is interesting to visit friend’s homes squinting at tiny laptop screens when there’s a huge lcd monitor on the desk right next to them (powered off because it’s connected to the desktop computer).

Sacrifice no more…at least for this one factor of laptop computing at home… Read the rest of this entry »