The faithful Notebook

[insulin]

The faithful Notebook we older IT dudes call them laptops but yes these little pieces of kit makes the modern world go around. And it is true that without these little slabs of technology modern business would be impossible.

Sadly the large overbearing bloodsucking mega profit orientated companies tainted the virtues notebooks and made them profits of promotional trial ware. Yes you are right if you assumed that I am talking about trial-ware-software. Like the human immunodeficiency virus trial-ware-software is all over your little notebook and is ticking down there 30 day and 60 day trial-period and then they strike!

Your little notebook will never be the same. Yes those nasty pop-ups of “your software has expired� Now I came to write about this because I find that my day consist of removing every single piece of software from a notebook and then have to spend days on the internet to get software that is completely free or I go to the shop and find what things cost and just load the originals. Preferably software that does not need online activation because as we know internet in South Africa is expensive!

So I am going to give you some pointers on what to ask:

Is the OS legal “operating system�
Is the OS activated “if needed?�
Is the Antivirus freeware, trial or full version
Is the firewall freeware, trial or full version
Is the burning software freeware, trial or full version
Do I need to create Restore disks! “Important�

Now any IT technician will tell you that there is much more you can ask but again! This is the basic questions honestly not even basic but more entry level questions. Yet these questions if remained unasked can cost you a lot of money. An OS can go for R1000 up to R5000 depending on the type of OS.

The same with Office software and the CD-DVD burning software can also become expensive. So if you where to get yourself a nice new notebook I recommend you budged for some software as well. So phone them and ask what the prices are! Talk to them but don’t ask for a quotation! No!!!! First ask if the quotation will cost you a penalty if you decide not to take it!!!!!!!!!!!! Then you ask for a quotation.

Thanks for reading.