# How many computers do you have?



## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

How many computers do you have? Apple? PC? Laptop? Desktop?


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

2 laptops + 3 desktops = 5 nightmares!

Martin, depressed...LOL


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

1 cheap windows laptop.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I have a Macbook pro, that's all.


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## TrazomGangflow (Sep 9, 2011)

1 old desktop. 1 new laptop. both PCs.


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

violadude said:


> I have a Macbook pro, that's all.


My son always tells me "go for Mac!" I started thinking he's right...I have no Mac

Martin


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

violadude said:


> I have a Macbook pro, that's all.


That's _all_? Any Apple computer is an indulgence.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

One, and with Danielle Steel as my desktop background.


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

1 desktop, 1 laptop, 1 where I work out of town, plenty nuff


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

I've got the same amount and kind as the OP.


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## lou (Sep 7, 2011)

Windows 7 PCs - 1 Desktop, 2 Laptops, 1 Netbook

Last year I splurged on a 27" iMac desktop computer. While the computer itself (and especially the screen) is a work of art, I'm still not converted. Perhaps it's after so many years of using strictly Windows, but I find the Mac operating system non-intuitive.


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

2 Desktop PC's that I built myself for gaming and audio production, my old one now is sitting in the closet, but can handle playing resource intense games like Arma 2 and Medieval 2, while the new one can quite easily. One junk mini PC for my mom, and soon a laptop for school. I dont like Apple and never will get an apple for the simple reason you cannot build or customize parts in it. 
AMD ftw


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

1. I'm assuming you're not counting the microchips all over the place. Did you know the average washing machine has more computing power than Apollo XI? (I made that up, but it could be true...)


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I can't bear to part with my old computers, so I have every computer I've owned squirreled around my house or garage somewhere.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I have a 2007 macbook pro, almost 5 years now and still going strong. I'm riding this pony till the day it dies!


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

I'm using the family computer, do I belong in the first or the last category?


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

3 

Business lap top which I also use for work purposes (XP professional). Small lap top which I used to lug around with me (XP home edition) and netbook (Windows 7 starter). Will have to replace the business version soon.

(+ 1 at work but it's not mine so I don't count that)


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

If we get to count work computers, then I have a double quad-core Xeon workstation.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

1 iMac (most recent version), 1 MacBook (one of the not so recent versions)


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Personally, just one desktop that I built myself (AMD Athlon II X4 processor, 4GB RAM, 1GB nVidia GeForce), but we have four total in the house (one for each of us). My mom uses the seven-year-old 17" 1.67GHz PowerBook G4 that I used for a long time, my dad uses a nice 19" HP laptop, and my little brother uses a 17" HP laptop handed down from Dad. The specs on my desktop and my dad's laptop are about the same, but my desktop is usually a little faster because I use Linux instead of Windows.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I'm assuming you're not counting the microchips all over the place. Did you know the average washing machine has more computing power than Apollo XI? (I made that up, but it could be true...)

You're probably not exaggerating. I ducked into the Aerospace Museum in Washington D.C. one frigid winter morning after discovering that the Hirschhorn Art Museum wouldn't open for more than an hour and my toes were rapidly freezing in the 1-degree F weather. I was awed by the old NASA capsules. I wasn't awed because of their technological complexity, but because they were virtually nothing more than tin-cans with a few switches. These mad-men sat in these tin-cans with less controls and less technology than the average 12-year old has in one of his hand-held games... and they sat atop what was essentially a bomb laden with several thousand gallons of rocket fuel aimed in the general direction of some sphere a quarter million miles away. We are talking about balls of steel here!


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I'm assuming you're not counting the microchips all over the place. Did you know the average washing machine has more computing power than Apollo XI? (I made that up, but it could be true...)
> 
> You're probably not exaggerating. I ducked into the Aerospace Museum in Washington D.C. one frigid winter morning after discovering that the Hirschhorn Art Museum wouldn't open for more than an hour and my toes were rapidly freezing in the 1-degree F weather. I was awed by the old NASA capsules. I wasn't awed because of their technological complexity, but because they were virtually nothing more than tin-cans with a few switches. These mad-men sat in these tin-cans with less controls and less technology than the average 12-year old has in one of his hand-held games... and they sat atop what was essentially a bomb laden with several thousand gallons of rocket fuel aimed in the general direction of some sphere a quarter million miles away. We are talking about balls of steel here!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://klabs.org/history/build_agc/

The first link is just Wikipedia with a bunch of general information about the Apollo Guidance Computer. Despite the fact that the chips are very slow compared to today's computers, and the fact that it was programmed in assembly, the system itself looks very sophisticated and rather complex. The second link contains instructions on how to build your own for about $3,000.


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Kopachris said:


> Personally, just one desktop that I built myself (AMD Athlon II X4 processor, 4GB RAM, 1GB nVidia GeForce), but we have four total in the house (one for each of us). My mom uses the seven-year-old 17" 1.67GHz PowerBook G4 that I used for a long time, my dad uses a nice 19" HP laptop, and my little brother uses a 17" HP laptop handed down from Dad. The specs on my desktop and my dad's laptop are about the same, but my desktop is usually a little faster because I use Linux instead of Windows.


wierd, those specs sound alot like the ones I built my older one with, same processor line, same ram and most likely same video card as well.

Wierd coincidence I guess


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

on a related note... i just finished converting my old AMD rig into a FreeNAS server. i installed Subsonic, which lets me remotely access my media through a web browser. basically, my music library from home becomes an online streaming jukebox that i can access anywhere from virtually any device connected to the internet.

the beautiful thing about it, is that it transcodes audio and video on the fly making them 'streamable', for example it converts lossless audio to LAME mp3, and HD videos into x264 flash compatible files (much like youtube).

you can setup a free dynDNS host to ease access if your IP is dynamic. in other words, say i want to access my music from a friends place, i login at "philip.mooo.com:4040" (don't bother, it's fake), enter a password, and there you go, everything at my finger tips.

additionally, you can securely access any other files in general through SFTP. all in all, it was a great way to recycle old parts, although i can't believe i didn't try this sooner.


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

1 desktop, 1 laptop (old, for kids use), one work laptop, plus a BBC micro 32K in the attic somewhere which I didn't count.


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> One, and with Danielle Steel as my desktop background.


LOL LOL triple LOL. What a nice background! Indeed!


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Philip said:


> on a related note... i just finished converting my old AMD rig into a FreeNAS server. i installed Subsonic, which lets me remotely access my media through a web browser. basically, my music library from home becomes an online streaming jukebox that i can access anywhere from virtually any device connected to the internet.
> 
> the beautiful thing about it, is that it transcodes audio and video on the fly making them 'streamable', for example it converts lossless audio to LAME mp3, and HD videos into x264 flash compatible files (much like youtube).
> 
> ...


All this seems like Chinese to me...Could you translate that for "normal" people...please???!!!!

Martin, overwhelmed


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Kopachris said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
> http://klabs.org/history/build_agc/
> 
> ]
> ...


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

myaskovsky2002 said:


> Kopachris said:
> 
> 
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
> ...


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

1 clean upperworld PC + 1 underworld PC for roaming through the internet's dustbins, both being connected to one nice 24'' monitor (Thx to Dell for making it possible) . I detest smallish stuff.


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## AlainB (Nov 20, 2011)

I have three functional computers, whereas two are laptops and the other a desktop.

The high-end (gaming) laptop, my Asus G73SW, is primarily the one being used nearly full-time however. Well, considering I prefer to use it whilst at school, internship, as well as home, that is.

But I start regretting that I haven't considered buying a Macbook Pro yet. I promised myself that'd be my next laptop, but no, I didn't. Sigh.


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## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

Got two. 

I'm really looking for some kind of device that is both a storage device, can be linked into the windows network, has USB ports for additional HDD, allows me to stream from my computers and does it in full HD. Haven't found anything that does it all, but maybe I need to look into those windows media sytem computer things.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Rasa said:


> Got two.
> 
> I'm really looking for some kind of device that is both a storage device, can be linked into the windows network, has USB ports for additional HDD, allows me to stream from my computers and does it in full HD. Haven't found anything that does it all, but maybe I need to look into those windows media sytem computer things.


Those may be the things you need, but what you really *want*, is an iPad.


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Couchie said:


> Those may be the things you need, but what you really *want*, is an iPad.


A Ipad? My son has one...I don't really like it nor find it useful. About storage, I highly recommend an external hard drive ...quite inexpensive. About 125$Can for 1 tetra of storage. Additional USB ports can be bought for 30$. As always...it depends on how much you are willing to spend. I am a cheap guy, but I have 3 external drives and I'm glad...even when you have to format a damn computer...your external drive remains whole...I had to format two computers lately and it is not so easy...

Martin....bored of computer problems


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

Two PC's ... Dell XPS Studio (8100 & 8300), with the Intel Core i5 Processor.

Like many others, I also have an external drive (1.0 TB) for back-up and storage.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Rasa said:


> Got two.
> 
> I'm really looking for some kind of device that is both a storage device, can be linked into the windows network, has USB ports for additional HDD, allows me to stream from my computers and does it in full HD. Haven't found anything that does it all, but maybe I need to look into those windows media sytem computer things.


You can get any old computer, pop a few big hard drives in it, and install FreeNAS as Phillip did. A few other little pieces of software (free) for the streaming and some research on the "how to" will be needed, too, but that's it.


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Kopachris said:


> You can get any old computer, pop a few big hard drives in it, and install FreeNAS as Phillip did. A few other little pieces of software (free) for the streaming and some research on the "how to" will be needed, too, but that's it.


What is FreeNAS? what does it do exactly?

Martin


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

myaskovsky2002 said:


> What is FreeNAS? what does it do exactly?
> 
> Martin


FreeNAS is software to turn a computer into a network-attached storage server. It supports various protocols to be compatible with any computer system (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.). When you set it up on one computer that's on your home network, that computer will show up as a hard drive on any other computer on the network. For example, I've got four computers in use right now and one old one just gathering dust. If I installed FreeNAS on that old one and put a few new hard drives in it, I could store my music, movies, and documents on that computer and be able to access them from any of the other four.


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Kopachris said:


> FreeNAS is software to turn a computer into a network-attached storage server. It supports various protocols to be compatible with any computer system (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.). When you set it up on one computer that's on your home network, that computer will show up as a hard drive on any other computer on the network. For example, I've got four computers in use right now and one old one just gathering dust. If I installed FreeNAS on that old one and put a few new hard drives in it, I could store my music, movies, and documents on that computer and be able to access them from any of the other four.


I have just built a plain network and I can share every single component: printers, hard drives and also and more important external high capacity hard drivers...and I don't have your software...I've just declared sharing allowed on every computer...My network works wonderfully and important information (and no so important) is shared by all computers in the network...
Actually I have two XP, 2 Vista 32 and one Windows 7, 64.

Martin


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Martin...Never enough?

I've just bought for my birthday (I always "give me" a gift for my birthday) a "Le pan 970", 9.7 inches. I saw a video on youtube and I was definitely conquered! I hope I won't regret my purchase....What do you think about this? Comments are welcome (just good ones...LOL). I'm going to put it beside my bed...The battery lasts long enough

Martin


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

myaskovsky2002 said:


> I have just built a plain network and I can share every single component: printers, hard drives and also and more important external high capacity hard drivers...and I don't have your software...I've just declared sharing allowed on every computer...My network works wonderfully and important information (and no so important) is shared by all computers in the network...
> Actually I have two XP, 2 Vista 32 and one Windows 7, 64.
> 
> Martin


Even if the features of a regular OS do intersect with a server OS to some extent, that doesn't make this solution practical in all situations. this is the reason why microsoft also makes a 'windows server' and 'windows home server'. Freenas would be a competitor to windows home server, focusing on the media aspect, here's Freenas's take:

"_Network-Attached Storage (NAS) is a computer attached to a network that is dedicated solely to providing data storage for other devices on the network. This is often done either to *save space*, *increase storage space cheaply*, or *provide convenient file-sharing*. NAS systems were traditionally only high-powered servers, but as the power of commodity hardware has increased, it has become much easier to install a fast, efficient NAS server in home and small office environments, or just build one yourself!_"

http://www.freenas.org/item/what-is-freenas?category_id=109http://www.freenas.org/item/what-is-freenas?category_id=109

Practically, here are some issues you may encounter with a regular network: what if you want to access files on a computer that is turned off? what if you want to access your files remotely, securely? what if you have 5 drives or more? what if your computers are all laptops? what if your computers are a mix of windows, mac, linux? and so on...

The most elegant solution is a headless media server, which renders your data and network more: *manageable*, *accessible*, *scalable*, *reliable*, etc.


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## prettyhippo (Apr 19, 2011)

2 laptops. One is so old it coughs, so I only really keep it around because it has all my music and pictures on it. The other is mainly so I can go to websites like this one.


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

AlainB said:


> I have three functional computers, whereas two are laptops and the other a desktop.
> 
> The high-end (gaming) laptop, my Asus G73SW, is primarily the one being used nearly full-time however. Well, considering I prefer to use it whilst at school, internship, as well as home, that is.
> 
> But I start regretting that I haven't considered buying a Macbook Pro yet. I promised myself that'd be my next laptop, but no, I didn't. Sigh.


my son is a mac fan and tell me that I am dumb to have PC. I guess he's right.

Martin


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Philip said:


> Even if the features of a regular OS do intersect with a server OS to some extent, that doesn't make this solution practical in all situations. this is the reason why microsoft also makes a 'windows server' and 'windows home server'. Freenas would be a competitor to windows home server, focusing on the media aspect, here's Freenas's take:
> 
> "_Network-Attached Storage (NAS) is a computer attached to a network that is dedicated solely to providing data storage for other devices on the network. This is often done either to *save space*, *increase storage space cheaply*, or *provide convenient file-sharing*. NAS systems were traditionally only high-powered servers, but as the power of commodity hardware has increased, it has become much easier to install a fast, efficient NAS server in home and small office environments, or just build one yourself!_"
> 
> ...


you are right...verything must be *on* to have access and this sometimes is annoying...Is that software free?

Martin, curious...and ambitious....LOL


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

myaskovsky2002 said:


> you are right...verything must be *on* to have access and this sometimes is annoying...Is that software free?
> 
> Martin, curious...and ambitious....LOL


You mean FreeNAS? Yes, FreeNAS is free.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

myaskovsky2002 said:


> my son is a mac fan and tell me that I am dumb to have PC. I guess he's right.
> 
> Martin


Oh, nonsense. It all depends on what you use the computer for. Macs are typically best for artsy studio work (photo/audio/video editing and production), while Windows-based computers are necessary for gaming, and are usually the best media centers, as they're the only ones you can really play BluRay discs on. Linux is best for learning how computers really work.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Just the one.


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Kopachris said:


> Oh, nonsense. It all depends on what you use the computer for. Macs are typically best for artsy studio work (photo/audio/video editing and production), while Windows-based computers are necessary for gaming, and are usually the best media centers, as they're the only ones you can really play BluRay discs on. Linux is best for learning how computers really work.


LOL. I don't play games. I bought once an HP with Bluray...it worked for 1/2 hour...I gave it back and changed for a more simple computer. I do have a Bluray player that works quite well. Linux is best for learning how computers work? I'm really not interested...

1. I worked with DOS for many years
2. I have a Master degree in Information systems

And...as Oscar Wilde said about women...they weren't created to be undrestood but to be "loved". LOL
I've just been to a site to "download" Ferenc Erkel's Maria Batori (you cannot buy it)...and I downloaded a weird thing...I was afraid of that, I unistalled and had several problems...I did a restore to a previous version and hopefully I lost every sh...Now everything is right again...Internet is a mess and you really have to be careful...

Sincerely,

Martin


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

too many..............


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