Mac or Windows? Dell or Sony? Laptop or desktop? I have two Dells, a desktop and a laptop. I am still getting used to the keyboard and mouse on the laptop. Both have Windows XP, though the desk is home, and the lap is preofessional. I love bother operating systems. Why do you like what you do? I'm especially interested to see if we have many Mac users. I know nothing about Macs.

I probably shouldn't say this (tempting providence) but I love my Compaq Presario (Windows 98). I have had it for 6 years, in constant daily use, and have never had one iota of trouble with it ever.

I was happy with my Windows 98, and when I got the new computer in January I tried to transfer it, but as it couldn't be done I was given Windows XP Pro. As I've never used XP, apart from the built in security I have no ideas what extras Pro has, but the 4 month 'rental' we got of Norton security means I both now get no new updates, plus a daily popup demanding money, which I am never going to give them. Otherwise XP seems to be fine, and probably easier to navigate than 98.

I had a slow old Compaq before then, and wanted a flat screen and floor unit to free up desk space. I now have a make no one's ever heard of, apparently for professional use, and Asus Terminator. These are built to order only from spare parts, and your choice of disk and processor are added basically depending on your budget.
As I spend a couple of days a week with my family I have just ordered an ancient laptop which is coming this week so I can spread my use evenly rather than have a weekly queue to plough through. This (if it arrives and works) is an Olivetti with a 10mb memory, so will serve very well as a spare and also means I can teach my family the internet as well.

All I need now is broadband as I only get 2 hour periods online before I have to redial, not much use in the chatroom, but that will remain a pipe dream as we were told not to expect it in our part of London as the modern cables aren't in place.

I use XP Pro. However, it has a whole lot of functions that a home user (such as me) is unlikely to make use of. I went for this version rather than the Home one because I read it gives better support for peripherals and software. Not sure whether this is true but for better or worse, I have XP pro. I have been making a study as to what services can shut be down in XP Pro if it isn't being used for businesses purposes. The answer is, 'quite alot'. Have a read of this (scroll down the page a bit). I have set things as per the 'SAFE' list in this page and find the computer is faster in booting up and shutting down. Having less running could help with security aspects too.

Sometimes I wish I'd gone for a Mac. Part of what I do on the computer is make the insides for Mrs TW's hand made special occasion cards. Even the up-market computer I have now makes hard work of heavy graphics operations sometimes. Macs are reputed to be better at handling this type of task. Maybe when I win the lottery I'll get a Mac too

Satguru - Getting no security updates from Norton is bad news. This includes virus updates too presumably? If this is the case then it would be best to resolve the problem a.s.a.p. There are alternatives to Norton such as AVG Antivirus and ZoneAlarm (both provide free versions)

I use XP home and my PC is one that I more or less put together myself and have upgraded over the last couple of years. I used to use Win98, but when I upgraded to an Athlon XP processor I had trouble, so I went for XP home. Now I have quite a bit of software that I can't run because it was Win98. Oh well, you can't ' WIN ' them all.

Ren-

I used to have a Presario. I think I used it for 3 years or so. By the time my family was done with it it had taken such a beating. I was slow, falling apart physically, and froze all the time.

My very first computer was an old Apple. It had the green and black screen, big really floppy floppy disks, and a black and white printer that had the paper with the holes in the sides. It had no mouse, just a keyboard, and used DOS prompts, I believe. I could never remember the codes to run programs.