Despite my laptop giving a fight worthy of the finest romance novel hero, it could not defeat the Trojan Bamital virus and an ultimate blue screen of death. Silver lining: I've been away from home so much, there was no threat of infection to my desktop computer. Golden lining: I get a brand-spanking new sumpthin-sumpthin with a functional battery. But this is where you come in.
I'm trying to decide between a laptop and a netbook. Basically, I want simple. Just MS Office (which I know I'll have to have an external hard drive to load onto a netbook), internet capability and a long battery life. I like the portability and size of a netbook, but will I tire of the smaller keyboard and screen? Over the past few years, I've found I write more with my portable than my desktop, so this is a serious investment in my future productivity. Load me up with your experiences. I'd love to hear them.
And while you're at it, let us know who the I Write Like site compares your writing to. Mine? Dan *cough* Brown. Really?
I mean, really?
Hey kiddo. Ah the fight against the Trojans. I've been on that battlefield. Now if I could just get the Amazons to let me swing by their camp for an evening. sigh. Anyway, I did the I WRITE LIKE THING. I did it twice. The first time through I believe it was Rowling and the second time through Dan Brown. So you're in good company. I was terrified it was going to be someone like Updyke.
Blue Screen O' Death...ouch! Happened to me a while back, so I feel for ya ( hugs ). Tryin' to keep this ol' used HP going whilst I look for something a bit more...ah...upgraded...
I use a laptop and have for years. Much easier than moving desktops.
My yahoo account was phished recently sending out messages for viagra stuff, so I changed the email account.
The I WRITE LIKE said David Foster Wallace. Didn't know who he was so looked him up.
Back again with a second try at the I WRITE LIKE. I used a paragraph from a history article and it spit out: Neil Gaiman. Hmm, maybe I should write that way for my novels.
I write about equally on a desktop and a laptop. I've never used a netbook. I like the laptop quite a lot for it's portability, although I don't take advantage of that all that much.
Ew--sorry about the laptop kerfuffles. You have my sympathy. However, I'm a Mac junkie and would suggest saving up and getting a MacBook. In the 3.5 years I've had mine, I've never had a virus or trojan anything or all of that icky stuff I used to get on my Dell all the time. But that's me. For the question between netbook and notebook, I would think it would come down to size/portability--how much will you be lugging it around?
Chuck Palahniuk. Huh. Maybe I should contact his agent.
I use a laptop almost exclusively. Tried a dual setup with desktop but I'm a one-computer kind of person I guess. Never tried a netbook for writing; pretty sure the smaller keyboard and screen would aggravate me.
I have an Acer Netbook and love it to death. I got it for my birthday a year ago this past June and can honestly say I have used it every single day.
I don't think you'll need an external HD for MS Office (only needs 3GB, mine has 160GB) as they can come with quite large hard drives. I've been wanting an external myself, but that's because I keep all my music, movies, and TV shows on it.
I adapted easily to the smaller keyboard. Sometimes the smaller screen gets to me--but not for writing--only when I'm on sites that don't scale their layouts properly. 😉
If all you're going to do is write, and surfing will be kept at a minimum, then I think the pros outweigh the cons.
Also, use avast! as your Internet security software--it's free for home/personal use and in the three years we've been using it, we've have never had a lick of trouble.