Laptop? Flat top? Hard top or soft top? On top?

[Sean Zimmerman]

The most important question I've got is what kind of computer (if any) I should bring? And what programs I should purloinchase. I'm planning on engineering.
The others aren't really questions, just things that ended in top, but I might as well. . .
Should I get a flat top haircut?
If I had enough money to buy a convertible (which I don't) should I get a soft top or a hard top?
And umm, ERAU is on top of. . .umm, the ranking. (Ya, that'll work, wait, it's not a question.) Is ERAU on top of the rankings? (Not much better.)

[Felipe Garcia]

The computer, I'd say get a notebook, and I know that you can at least get Office installed from the residences network, someone told me that when you need to use CAD software, you use the computers in the library or a computer lab.
I have never trusted soft tops, I just think that they're to easy to cut with a knife.

[Chase Lipovac]

I remember being told at one of the info meetings in my home town that the college's IT people have every piece of software imaginable available to students, and what's better than that? Getting it for free. Yeah. Free. And they install it too. Among those mentioned were copies of Office (including outlook, excell, and all those other ones that no one ever uses but are fun to play around with and try to figure out what they're for in the first place), Windows XP Prof., Vista Prof, Flash, Adobe Suite, and other awesome stuff that normally costs around $300. I think the catch is that the college pays for the license and so you can get it for free, but you don't get the disks, and you have to have them install it for you (I think...). But still, a pretty awesome deal in my mind.

As for desktop vs. laptop, I know several engineers and they all swear by their laptops. A few though are getting a little frustrated with their's though (most engineers like to be able to play with the insides of their computers and upgrade them and such. Breathing the wrong way on some laptops can kill them), so a desktop is not a bad idea either. A key thing to keep in mind though is where you'll enjoy working the most. With your desktop, you'll be limited to your room. However if you want to work in groups with classmates, you could all meet somewhere with laptops and work together. Also, laptops are a lot easier to take with you on those trips back home when you still need to get some work done.

In either case, for PCs I 100% recommend HP, and highly recommend getting their accidental-damage warranty with your computer, whether it be laptop or desktop. It's like an extra $300 I think, but paying $300 up front is so much better than having to shell out $2000 because your computer died right before finals week. Plus their service is pretty good. I hear Dell is making a come back too on their service. (P.S., while Alienware makes awesome desktops, especially for gaming, their laptops don't have a good service history).

As for that convertable you'll be able to afford in a few years, soft tops are easy to get in to for other people and I hear they make a lot of noise when you're driving really fast with it up. On the other hand, hard tops take a while to put on/take off and you can't really store them with you in case of sudden showers. My recommendation: get one of those really awesome new cervertables where the hard top actually folds and stores like a soft top (Mercedes makes one, and so do a few other companies, BMW maybe, but I can't remember specifically).

This is probably a little more than you need, but hopefully it helped.

Oh, and ERAU is of course "The Harvard of the Skies." Plus the flight team I think won again this year. So yeah, they're on top.

[Joshua]

There's also the kompact (spelling is right) not sure who makes it some german company. It's a hard top retract too so thats always fun, it's like an aligator closing its mouth when you close it :P

[Rajmohan D. Waghela]

Does anyone think that using a mac (with windows if necessary) for college work is a good idea??

[Felipe Garcia]

Well, I'm doing that. You can do most things on the mac, and if you need to run a windows-only program, then you either use bootcamp (if the program requires a lot of resources) or vmware fusion (for programs that do not require a lot of resources), additionally, there's a cool program called crossover that allows you to directly run certain windows programs on your mac (I have only tried TI Derive).

[Chase Lipovac]

I was actually considering using a Mac too. I have an old HP laptop (going on 4 years now I think) that's been serving me just fine, but it's just not fast enough to pull out and take notes on unless I get to class like 5 min early, lol. On the other hand, I play a lot of video games on my computer (Civ IV, C&C, among others), so I kind of need to keep a PC around. I'm thinking I might either get a MacBook Pro for classes and schoolwork and leave my HP in my room for the most part, or I'll end up with one of those 24" iMacs and just clean up my laptop.

Overall though, if you're not doing engineering, you're fine with a Mac. I've heard so many bad stories of engineers trying to use Macs in their engineering classes, it just doesn't work because you can't get to any sort of command prompt on macs, so any programming assignments have to be done either on another computer or in the library. Best to stick with a PC in that case.

[Felipe Garcia]

You can run Windows virtually, I do that and it works for command prompt.

[Rajmohan D. Waghela]

But dont you think that with a separate start up disk for windows, the hardware becomes like a windows based machine. the only difference would be that it would be slightly faster. i have no issues with that.

I am really considering a Mac because i have been using them in school and there is nothing like it.

Plus you mentioned that colleges give out software, which makes the Mac vey affordable . Otherwise the already expensive Mac, plus the Window and office become way out of reach.

[Juliana Lisser]

It's probably not the best of ideas, but if you really like the OS, you might just want to partion a PC, to run OSX or Leopard, and then XP or Vista, best of both worlds!

while you're at it, upload Linux too! ^_<</body>

[Freddie Bulger]

I am having the same problem too.

I dont know if i should be getting a mac or a laptop.

[Rajmohan D. Waghela]

May be we should just ask the technical staff at the college. However, I think that if a Mac has windows in it, then there shouldnt be any problem. More so because one can only have Windows XP, which is quite usable. Vista has no vistas and i have completely given up hope about it.

[Felipe Garcia]

Everyone has given up with Vista, my brother's computer has it and it's a pain to do simple things such as trying to connect to a network with WPA authentication. But I can't install XP on it because it's one of those new HP convertible notebook/tablet, so I don't want to mess with the screen drivers and that stuff, and he wants to keep the touch screen functions, so better leave it that way.