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What Kind Of Computer To Bring To College?
Elfan writes "We've discussed laptops in education before and the importance of condoms and lockpicks. However, since its not to early to think about the Fall semester for incoming freshman, I was wondering what electronic devices people found most useful for college now. How do you keep yourself organized, a PDA of some sort or an old-fashioned calendar? What to take notes with, pencil and paper? Laptop? Palm pilot? Tape recorder? Or just too cool to take notes like in high school? One laptop for everything, with a docking station back in the dorm perhaps, or just a desktop? Both? All of this is made more complicated, of course, by the lack of funds most college students enjoy."
I was SO tempted to spam the link to a laptop I'm selling on Ebay... but sometimes it's just not worth having the Internet hate you.
So convenient to carry around to class!
sulli
RTFJ.
tiBook.
/w it. Actually, the second is a lie. But I can dream.
You have unix and windows apps in one little box. AND you can pick up chicks
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
a phat 1337 gaming rig. Use that bandwidth, baby.
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
Why, back in my day, we didn't HAVE laptops. We had clunky old XT machines that weighed about a ton and you were lucky if your desktop held them! You took notes then booted up your computer to put them in via edlin, and by the time you were ready, you were too drunk to care! Damn kids, get off my lawn! (Sorry, just realized new collegians this year were born in 1985. Caused a bit of a panic attack.)
Why, back in my day, we hauled a 35-pound PC on our backs from class to class, hoping there'd be a wall outlet and a spare seat available to plug in and set up the monitor. We could only type up about 4K worth of notes, and stored the results off to cassette tape at the end of the day and weeeeee liked it...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Better yet, take really bad notes with a paper and pen. Then find a really cute girl who pays attention and compair notes with hers. Of course if you're taking CS courses this might be easier said than done.
Girls: Taser.
Guys: Personal faraday cage.
Both: Cell phone with non-metallic case.
What I love about notebooks is observing the inevitablity of entropy. My history notes start out uber oraganized and informative and then slowly degrade to the point where there is one illegible sentence per day. Finally, the notes stop all together and I just sleep in class. Damn you third law of thermodynamics! you win again.
YOU SUCK BALLS!
The bigger the better. If your funding runs out due to excessive power and A/C bills, you can always live in it.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
As an Adjunct Professor I can tell you computers don't last long at colleges. In fact, it is downright amazing how many computer hard drives crash just before the end of the semester... and shucky darns the student didn't have a backup... so's they need more time to get the project in... yada, yada...
deserve's got nothing to do with it...
Not to nitpick (well, yes actually), but unless the third law of thermo is the Law of Diminishing Notes (real, no doubt I can attest to that), but I think you mean the second law of thermodynamics.
My dingo ate your honor student.
Make sure you live with incredibly anal roommates who are in the same major. When it comes time to study exams, photocopy their notes - they'll be more complete and legible than your own would have been anyway. Not being able to leave dirty dishes in common living areas is a potential downside, but you can be assured that any shared bathrooms will remain clean, and you'll save hours and hours of sitting in lecture halls having information lectured at you (as verbal communication is horrendously inefficient).
If your roommates are not accomodating people, make sure that you're also smarter than they are so they have to give you their notes so you can explain them to them. (Fortunately, propensity for anal note taking seems to be inversely related to propensity for understanding material.)
paintball
Considering the most recent crop of Freshman/Transfer Students I have dealt with the two most important items to bring to campus are a functioning brain and a pair of scissors to cut the ever present umbilical cord...
EMA
Eric Aitala
www.f1m.com
A Penny Saved
Save your money, work on the cheap, you can get the same or more accomplished and have a lot more cash to blow on the weekends.
i don't know, i slept through that part of class :P
YOU SUCK BALLS!
It was a few years ago (3 or so), but I took a Newton 2000 and an external keyboard. Had to buy an extra memory card, too. It really helped my studying by making me edit the notes which mostly looked like this as I was typing: Adn In teh mespostotamian societyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy (when I fell asleep with my finger on a key...)
You'll need an Atari 2600 so you can learn BASIC. Otherwise, hell, you might as well be programming for a Commodore 64 or something insane like that.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
From watching all of the college students that I know, it seems like most of them would benefit from an alarm clock more than anything else.
Life in Orange County
And, at the same time, drive your classmates slowly mad with the sound of your typing. That always helps the curve! ;-)
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
"What distro should I take to college?"
This is for going to college -- don't you mean ". . . when you dump Milwaukee's Best on the keyboard."
no comment
You don't see campuses requiring all freshmen to buy lightbulbs, but you don't see too many sitting around in the dark like dopes.
"Our campus is fully outfitted with MODERN indoor plumbing!"
"We're electrically literate!"
Yeeesh..... Something about learning to choose the right tool for the job and the ubiquity of computers in the US.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Flip-flops? Does it matter if you have J-K, D, or S-R flip-flops? Can you get away with a flip-flop built from discrete components, or does it have to be a chip? If so, do you need dip, or smt?
Oh, and what does this have to do with feet?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
if being a real man means i have to walk barefoot anywhere near the showers then slap my ass and call me lucy
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
You can find pen and paper anyplace. Bring a VAX. They are getting harder to find.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
> Real men don't wear fag-flops.
Real men don't post anonymously.
Then find a really cute girl who pays attention and compair notes with hers. Of course if you're taking CS courses this might be easier said than done.
I know this is stereotypically funny but when I was in college, most of the girls in my CS and math courses were not only cute, they were down right hot! I always considered myself lucky there. (not that I could have gotten lucky though... *sigh*)
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
not just any alarm clock -- a LOUD one. I can't tell you how many times I've slept through my alarm. You've got to get one that is so loud it wakes everyone in your dorm up, then you can be sure you will make it to class.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
> Here's the reasoning: you want to make sure that
> you cannot play games on your computer.
But the oldest of computers that would do a student's word processing has solitaire on it.
When I got into college was when the 486 DX2-66 was the hottest thing out there (okay, so that wasnt *that* long ago, but that still makes me older than some of you, right?). I went in with my old 286, some single-digit-clockspeed clunker without a case cover (it managed to get torn off at some point). I figured I'd use it just for typing things up and email. None of the current games would run on it.
Strangely enough, I did have a copy of Wolfenstein 3d installed it, which I almost never played since it made me rather nauseous. However, a kid on the same floor happened to stop by one of the few times I had it loaded up.
From that moment on, he would come a-knocking at all times of day, all times of night, sometimes even at four in the morning, asking if he could play Wolfenstein.
"Can I play wolfingthing?!?"
"Hey, you using your computer? I wanna do that pow pow yeah hahahaha thing you know, the guys some German thing! hahaha!"
"Ah, you're not sleeping, are you? Hey, I'm gonna hop on your computer and play that Worfespang thing, don't worry, I'll turn the sound low and won't wake you up."
...and he would sit and laugh maniacally and smash on my keyboard for hours at a time. Sure, we tried to tell him we were busy, but he always found a way. Always.
...and that's how I got into computers. I spent so much time writing little executables to replace Wolf3d.exe that would make it seem as if my computer was having the most incredible, fantastic, epileptic conniptions that... hey, actually, it didn't teach me anything useful other than how to make a 286 bleep and freak out.
I think you misspelled "emacs" there.
Seriously, pretty good advice, but the tinker factor even with an old laptop is pretty high. If I want to waste time with a computer, I'm going to waste time, no matter how old the thing is.
-schussat
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
I once had a 5:30 PM class that I usually managed to sleep through... during that semester there were weeks where I didn't see the sun...
And if that wasn't bad enough, you can run it via telnet. There's no escape.