HANG OUT YOUR SHINGLE

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

To order by mail, you must know precisely what you want. Order by phone, put it on your credit card, and the machine will be on its way the next day. Save the shipping boxes. If you get the wrong cable, as I did once (making the new machine unusable), you can call the

MO outfit, trot out the Visa again, get a shipping-order number, and you may receive a replacement or loaner from the same UPS driver who accepts your boxed machine for return shipment.

But that's the ideal. I've waited six months for a MO back order and am still trying to trace the MO retailer that sent me a bum program, then disappeared from the magazines, phone book, and Southern California for all I can tell. The program maker is still in business but won't make good on their product because it was sold by someone else.

If you live in the country, obtaining services you can't provide for yourself is a challenge, and relying on a machine as complicated as a computer makes it even more so. I find that in computing, as all else, the simpler the machine, the fewer things there are to go wrong; so think about what you really need a computer for. Start looking for reliable, well-established repair people. Find the most solid-looking mail-order firms advertising in the computer magazines and send off for prices and by-mail service practices.

Apple or IBM? Good question. For now, let me state flat-out that that for ease of learning and operation by a computer novice or non technical type, an Apple Macintosh of any post-1985 vintage is best. For ease of service particularly if you live in the far boondocks-your best bet is a simple, unadorned IBM-style machine assembled from "industry standard" modules and off-the-shelf components that any hacker or radio repairman can replace.

Built-In Obsolescence

The newest batch of central processing systems (the central chip that does most of the computer's thinking) is just now shipping in quantity. "Super chips," including Intel's Pentium for IBM-standard and Motorola's Power PC for Macintosh, and new operating systems such as IBM's OS/2 offer blinding speed, instant access to whole libraries of data, and will presumably serve as an on-ramp to the much-ballyhooed "information superhighway.' But, moving up the pipeline for introduction the year after next are even faster chips and even more capable software ...and on the drawing boards for the year 2000 are still faster versions ...and, by 2005, we'll see another dimensional leap, and so it'll continue till you can carry your entire business in a Dick Tracy wristwatch that you talk to and that answers in plain English (and that's no fooling!).

So think twice before you let the marketeers talk you into the very latest hot new hardware or software. You will be charged a premium price, you will be serving as an unpaid final-stage product tester, and your results might well be severely compromised by bug-ridden equipment.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print