[nfbcs] Choosing a Laptop and Speeding Up Existing Ones

[Nicole Torcolini]

There are several factors that go into choosing a laptop. When I was in
college, a smaller, lighter model was a must, but I paid for it in that it
was not as durable and it had unnecessary bells and whistles. Now that my
laptop mainly serves the purpose that a desktop would and only goes with me
when I travel, a slightly larger one is fine. Different models come with
different amounts of memory, and, although more memory can sometimes be
added, that is a hassle that some people prefer to avoid if possible.
Finally, different models come with different configurations already
installed. It depends on what configuration you want and if you are
willing/able to modify the existing configuration. My current laptop came
with Windows 7; however, as I prefer Vista over Windows 7, I had assistance
installing Vista.
    As mentioned in another thread, it is also a good idea to try doing a
little clean up on an existing laptop before just deciding that it is too
slow. Many programs, whether installed on purpose or by accident, configure
themselves to turn on automatically when the computer starts. Most of them
can be disabled by going to msconfig and unchecking the box for them on the
Start Up page; just be careful not to uncheck something that is crucial to
the computer running. Some programs do not show up there, and, for those,
there are third party programs that will give an exhaustive list of all of
the processes that are started at start up, but extreme care must be used if
that type of program is used to configure start up tasks. One way to know if
your laptop is starting a lot of processes at start up is to assign a sound
to the start process action in the sound configuration. This is also a good
way to know when your computer is done starting up and actually ready for
input. I find that there is a good half minute, maybe more, when my laptop
is still getting set up after the log on sound when it first starts. This is
also a good way to know if there is an uninvited program lurking in the
background. If your computer makes the start process sound a lot when you're
not working on it, then there might be something going on that is not good.