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arkallen

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05/2009
Country
AU
State
VIC
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Wodonga
Fifteen minutes ago my ten year old neatly tipped a cup of tea straight into the keyboard of my NetBook computer during a very lovely good morning hug.

Oops! It looked so funny when we tipped the computer on it's side and all this hot tea kept pouring out one corner; an expensive, high-tech tea pot!

It's going to be a trick to replace it without having it to speak through at the shop ..... but what should I buy? I am replacing a Toshiba NetBook which is very compact with great battery life; but it runs pretty slowly and has always had annoying faults in it (such as frequently rebooting of it's own accord).

Any advice? I am tempted to go to a MacBook Air for it's solid state, lightweight design; but speech software is all Windows based and I'm unsure about the viability of crossing platforms. I also wondered about a tablet, but I'm still pretty good with a keyboard and I expect that I will be for a while.

I have to sort this quickly! What do you say?
(sent from my phone!)
 
If you are comfortable with Windows machines, why change now, arkallen? There's a not-inconsiderable learning curve whenever you switch operating systems. The software "ecosystem", especially in the free software and AAC software is much smaller.

Basically, I'd say the same thing to you that I say to anybody contemplating the purchase of a Mac while dealing with ALS progression -- if you can afford to give it to another member of your family when it becomes unusable (or financially impractical to upgrade) for your condition in a couple of years, go for it.
 
Anything over $500 is interest free for 18 months at Best Buy on the Best Buy CC in our area. My sister Vickey and I opted for a Toshiba laptop around $500 already set up by the geek squad. My hub bought an Ienovo laptop for around $750 there. We all like our new laptops. The Toshiba is a bit more light weight which is why sis and I went that direction. She needed something that she could easily manuever since she has limb onset ALS that affects her arms and hands. I got one like hers to be able to help her with any problems that she might have since I am a computer nut, and she wanted the Dragon on hers. I put it on mine also, but she has worked more with the Dragon than I have so far. Hope any of this helps. Not sure on the models of the laptops, but happy hunting for you a new one. Sounds like the HOT TEA probably STEEPED yours into oblivion. :O) God Bless!
 
If you are comfortable with Windows machines, why change now, arkallen? There's a not-inconsiderable learning curve whenever you switch operating systems. The software "ecosystem", especially in the free software and AAC software is much smaller.

Basically, I'd say the same thing to you that I say to anybody contemplating the purchase of a Mac while dealing with ALS progression -- if you can afford to give it to another member of your family when it becomes unusable (or financially impractical to upgrade) for your condition in a couple of years, go for it.

Ha! You must have been sending this right about when I was asking a similar question of you in a visitor message. I used to have a Mac, some years ago now. Several of my family are Mac users, and they just seem to have such an easy ride with them. My Toshiba experience was disappointing; and I'm keen on a light weight, long battery life solution.
 
Roderick, anytime I have a question like this, I go to the search engine that starts with g...

I buy direct from TigerDirect or Newegg, but don't think they ship directly to Australia... however there are companies that will for you. But if you're in a rush you may not want to wait. Even if you don't end up buying from them, both are good sites to see what's out there and decided what system to buy.

I hear a lot of good stuff about Chrome, not sure what apps it runs... I do have an Acer Netbook I bought from woot dot com on one of their one day sales, and I love it EXCEPT the small keyboard (I'm still used to a standard keyboard) and it only has a 2 hour battery life. It runs XP which I preferred. I use it mostly upstairs if I feel like going online when I'm in my bedroom. Other than that, I'm in my home office.

Good luck, and keep us posted!
 
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I have a Lenovo laptop which works great and have it for close to three years now. When I bought a netbook for my late husband to use - my nephew suggested Asus. For him, it is the best, Samsung his second choice. I went for an Asus and love it.
 
I like my Hewlett packard. No problems so far.
 
Hey Roderick

Sorry to hear about your netbook.

I've actually never owned a mac although a number of friends have. In theory the mac is a better device but it is different from a PC. A good friend of mine recently converted from a pc to a mac. She was very proficient with the pc, knew all the pc shortcuts and tricks which of course did not translate to the Mac. She found the mac counter intuitive or rather she had adapted to the counter intuitiveness of windows. Her 13 year old loved the mac. My friend had problems reconciling the high cost of the mac. She partitioned the hard drive in order to run windows programs but she always had problems.

And as you stated, most AAC programs run on windows.

So you may want to stick with a PC.

As far as which pc to get I would not stress too much. Quality between brands and within brands is always variable. Acer, Asus, Toshiba, HP, Lenovo, Compaq, Dell, Gateway all have some great models as well as some real dogs. The models available down under will be different from what we have in North America.

Any full laptop will outperform your netbook. You should just check which laptops are on sale in your area. You can't go very wrong. Just web search for reviews on that particular model. It is my opinion that you should never spend more than $500-$600 on a laptop.

When I was having trouble reading from my 10.1 netbook screen I bought a 17.3" laptop - not at all portable but great viewing. You can usually get the best deals on 15.6" laptops although they are still heavy. 12.1" laptops offer greater portability but at a higher cost.

I have an older convertible laptop/tablet by my bed for reading. It looks like a normal laptop but it can convert to a tablet by swivelling the screen. HP makes the Touchsmart convertible tablets but they are a bit expensive.

Asus makes a windows tablet, the Eee Slate EP121. It comes with a keyboard dock. It has gotten great reviews. It will outperform your netbook but not by as much as a laptop. It is expensive at $1200 but ultra portable. There have been complaints about battery life but it may be a good choice if your hands are still good.

Good luck.
 
Honestly, for ease of use and simple integration with your software--I'd stick with the netbook types. Or, if you want a little more--get a real laptop for home and an iPad for travel. They do have some 'free' talking software, too--but not nearly as good as the Windows platform stuff.

Personally, I love my iPad. I take it everywhere with me--and it has a 10hour battery life. The speaker is loud enough to be heard as your 'voice' and it does have a bluetooth keyboard if you dislike on-screen.

I bought mine as a toy--but I find that it's just very, very useful for me. I'd suggest a portable internet unless you want to pay their outrageous 3g fees--and stick with the wi-fi only model. (here we have a company that makes 3g portable that will control 5 devices--we use it for our home internet and take it when we're on the go) So, I git ipad service when I'm out on the thing (3 hours without power) and unlimited -- so you don't have to worry about going over x megs of usage per month.

I've had my iPad for a year--and since you still have full use of your hands and don't foresee that changing--that's the way I'd go.

Good luck whatever you decide. Personally, with my hand issues, I find laptops a pain--as I keep hitting the touchpad and screwing things up.

There are less expensive Android tablets, but I don't know much about them. I keep getting spam trying to sell me one for $75 bucks
 
Improvements in computer technology happen much too quickly. A computer is not like a pair of shoes that you expect to keep for years to come, it is more like a schoolbook that you will need daily for six months or so until it's more of a burden than a tool. My personal choice would be something to use for six months to a year before replacing. This does not rule out the Mac Air, but speaking from experience - it's a lot easier to abandon the $200 netbook than the $1k Mac.
 
I have an eye-gaze controlled, hardened-case PC that was barely used. Has the wheelchair-mounting hardware and rolling stand for use over a bed or chair. This is not lightweight at all.

I don't need it.
 
Next time that happens , pull the battery right away and rinse out computer (water only) let it dry out for a week and it will probably come back to life.. Had an interesting thing happen here a couple of weeks ago when my sister-in-law jumped into the pool with her cell phone in pocket.. I pulled the battery (as I always do) Then someone that was here told me to put the phone in a baggy full of dry rice and leave it for a couple of days... I works fine now...
 
Hi Roderick.

i am a lot like Notme, having a Laptop for home and an ipad for travel.
to make matters worse for me i still have a desk top computer as well that i use.

All are wireless though.
i am in the process of setting up some sort of server so i can access, say emails from any unit. now if i open an email on my laptop it doesn't show up on the desktop unit and vice versa. through the ipad in and you have a 3 way tussle for the email. Marking them unread only works sometime.

so i wouldn't recommend having too many computers that you use, but on the other side of the coin, you can always get on something to check out this forum.

i hope i haven't confused you.


oh almost forgot, its a HP laptop and a leader desktop. no probems with either
cheers
Peter
 
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This is all great advice friends, thank you so much!

We are just about to start our bathroom modification and there are emails from the architect and builders and so many decisions to make right now. The computer problem just gobbled up all my remaining "RAM"! Lovely to be able to think out loud with you all, and get such helpful contributions.
 
I love my HP entertainment notebook. I paid about $700 and it has lasted 3 years with only one glitch whcih the warranty covered.
I now have an iPad and I also got a docking station with a keyboard because I prefer a regular keyboard to a touch one. I have down loaded MyVoice, which I like and it also has text to speech, or I can use the key board with large print to just show folks I need to communicate with. (I can still speak understandable but who knows for how long.) I think Proloque 2 can also be downloaded on iPad. Good luck making your decision Roderick!
 
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