go to www.bing.com/cashback and read the FAQs, it explains everything. In short, its like a rebate program, depending on the item/store you get from 2%-20% back on anything you buy but you must buy by searching through bing.com/cashback. You usually need to wait 60 days before you get your cashback (so as to make sure you don't return the item.)
Many large retailers are in the program so it pays to check before you buy anything online. Its even good for buying on ebay, but again, you must get there through bing.com/cashback to get your rebate.
since i am not a techie is a netbook the same as the mac air?
The Macbook Air is more expensive than most netbooks, and also more fully featured. It is generally considered an ultraportable laptop. Most netbooks are smaller in overall size, I think, and less powerful than regular laptops. The Macbook Air is very light -- only about 3 pounds, and very thin. It does have most of the features of a regular laptop, except it lacks a built in CD/DVD drive and has fewer external connector ports. It is much more expensive than what most people would consider paying for netbooks, which got started as cheaper versions of laptops. You can read more about netbooks in this Wikipedia article.
Thank you Janet and Roz...I just have one more question...is Bing a search engine like google or yahoo is? or is it like what firefox or internet explorer is?
Posts: 736 | Location: USA | Registered: 08 June 2008
By the way, Jil, just to clarify: Apple does not currently make any computer that could be called a netbook. There are rumors about an Apple tablet coming early next year, which might serve many of the same functions as a netbook, and also possibly work as a phone, but so far this is all speculation.
For anyone lucky enough to have bought Apple stock a while back, though, these rumors sure have been driving up the price of the stock (contrary to most of the rest of the market)!
In order: An Acer Aspire one 9 inch netbook. I loved this although the keyboard was a little tight for my fat fingers. I took it to South Africa where my dear Dad decided he loved it as well so I left it with him. This has just died - I suspect, although I cannot prove it, that it may have something to do with the "Adjustments" my dad did to the power supply.
An MSI Wind 10inch netbook with built in 3G connectivity. Very nice build quality, but heavy at 1.4KG. This was bought for my elderly Aunt and did not survive her frustration. I quote "It wasn't doing what I wanted, so I threw it against the wall - and when it still worked, I threw it again". I still have it - the screen is a write off, but it still works attached to an external monitor
A Lenovo S10e - Unsexy, solid, good keyboard, slightly smaller screen (1200 x 576 as oipposed t the norm 1200 x 600), only two USB connections. This is MINE! - solid, reliable so far - was excellent vvalue for the price I paid.
And finally an 10 inch ACER as a present for my father (Just leave the power alone dad !) . It was a reasonable price, had a decent keyboard and display, If I were replacing mine today, it would probably be with this one.
TImW
Posts: 913 | Location: Hampshire, UK | Registered: 28 March 2005
This was bought for my elderly Aunt and did not survive her frustration. I quote "It wasn't doing what I wanted, so I threw it against the wall - and when it still worked, I threw it again".
For those of you who were worried, I figured out how to reset my wireless router to default and then pick a password. So I am now online wirelessly with my netbook.
Congratulations again. I'm still lovin' mine. I do get a bit of a crick/pain in the neck watching it for a while but I'll adjust. I can't wait to travel with it to see how it works on the road.
I’ve been considering getting a netbook if the deal is right on Black Friday. I’m looking over the ads currently posted at www.theblackfriday.com and www.blackfriday.info . I’d heard as Windows 7 was being prepared that it would make a tremendous improvement for netbooks, but I don’t know the details or what the reviews are with W7 out. In the first relevant ad I see in detail, I see Office Depot offering a $200 netbook with XP. Then there’s the HP 15.6" notebook with W7 for $300. Not having traveled with a laptop, I started to wonder about the problems of going with the extra size and weight of a regular notebook, even if it’s in the netbook price range.
Now I’ve got some discount codes from Amazon for some Acer models with W7 for $280 with no shipping or taxes. That may be the way to go rather than deal with Black Friday pre-dawn chaos, and the Office Depot deal also calls for a mail-in rebate. Amazon lists several Acer AOD250-other digits, where I don’t know the difference, other than some having different battery life.
I’ll appreciate any guidance. Do I understand that all of these would work with either American or European current, and all I’d need for Europe would be an adapter plug like I have for my dual-voltage shaver?
Do I understand that all of these would work with either American or European current, and all I’d need for Europe would be an adapter plug like I have for my dual-voltage shaver?
Andrew, I have no specific experience with netbooks, but that has been true of every laptop we've had for the past 8 years or so, as well as other electronic equipment (e.g., iPod charger). We always take a laptop to Europe with us. I can't imagine there'd be anything different about a netbook in that respect.
Andrew - I would also check this thread where we discuss the differences between net books and full size laptops.
If possible, I strongly recommend going to your local computer store (Bestbuy, Office Depot, Costco and maybe even WalMart) to actually try out a netbook versus full sized laptop. Also think about how you are going to use it. I mainly wanted the netbook to use when I travel although I have found it useful to use at other times around the house since I do not have another computer other than my desktop. The small screen and mousepad can be a bit of a pain to use for a long time. Also many of the keyboards are much smaller than a normal sized laptop and with a very different layout since there is no 10-key pad. They will also often locate shifts or cursor pad keys (page up, etc) in different locations.
The second recommendation is to get one with a 6 hour battery. I usually only have to charge it once a week. It does take a little bit of time to charge so I like that I don't have to do it very often.
The prices on-line have been very very good. There are many other good on-line sites like newegg, buy.com in addition to Amazon with some great deals. Do check out the return policies. For example I purchased mine from Newegg and I could not return it except if there was a defect.
I had an Asus eee 1000 and had to get rid of it because the keyboard was just not working for me. My right pinkie kept hitting the wrong key, and I have small hands.
So I sold it to a friend and bought the Samsung NC10 back in August for $375. The 110 had already come out but I wanted a pink netbook so that's what I got. I took it on the plane to San Francisco last month, watched a DVD (external drive) and did some typing. Not a good computer if you're into heavy gaming, which I'm not, so it's perfect for what I needed. On the road, I tethered my Blackberry to my netbook to get internet access and I was in total bliss using Google Maps for directions. If and when I do get to Italy (please oh please let it be October 2010) I hope Skype works.
Posts: 7 | Location: Honolulu | Registered: 30 June 2007
I am planning to purchase the Samsung N110 Mini Notebook for work - would much rather be spending the money allotted for my class on the new iPad but need a PC for a certain web program. At least it won't weigh as much as my current PC laptop when I needed to bring it home over the weekend. Does this netbook come with the basics needed? Are there any accessories that I should be purchasing? thanks!!
It came with just the OS. Not a lot of add-on software. No Works. No Office. So if you have the need to edit anything on the laptop - you can use notepad or wordpad. If you are viewing attachments in the Office format, you can always use Google Documents to read. There is also Google Docs and OpenOffice as options. Or you may need a copy of Office. (Maybe the school has a site license)
It does come with a 3 month trial of McAfee for the anti-virus software. You can purchase it after the trial period or use one of the shareware anti-virus programs from the web - Avast or AVG. Everything I installed on it so far has been from the web; Firefox, Google Chrome, Avast, Photoscape (photo editing software)
For hardware - it does not come with a DVD reader. I'm fine without it. I do have two external USB drives so I could use them. It might be handy to have a USB thumb drive so you can move files from it to another machine. You will need to keep this in mind if you do install other software that is only available via disk. You'll have to copy the software to a USB drive (external or thumb) to install. Or if you plan on playing movies. There is a way to do it without - see the thread for Janet's tips.
I did go out and purchase a mouse. I couldn't stand the track pad. Costco had a great deal on logitech wireless mouse or mouse and keyboard. That is the only thing that you might consider. Or the DVD if you plan on playing movies.
I was thinking about a mouse as a possible option. Is is the netbook type track pad that you don't like or just track pads in general. I finally got used to my Mac laptop track pad and have not needed a mouse for it since. I wonder if an Apple Magic Mouse would work?
Didn't think about Google Docs. That will work perfectly if I need to move a file or cut and paste something into this program. I will only be using this computer at work (or home) when working on a specific program for reports I need to do. The program unfortunately only works on Internet Explorer. It really is such a waste of money to have to purchase a computer just for this one program when I have an iMac sitting on my desk at work (which I use for everything else). Can you tell I am not a PC person.
I haven't used a track pad (or laptop) much so I'm not certain if it is a case of me just not liking the trackpad or if it is the style of track pad. It does have this scrolling mode that I would sometimes get it into that would drive me crazy. It might have been something I could have turned off.
I also to a lot of highlighting, dragging and cutting. I'm really quick using a mouse. I struggle trying to drag something around on the trackpad. I suspect it may be just what I'm used to. I didn't see a lot of criticism about it on the web.
Thanks for clarifying your experience. It took me a long time to get used to a track pad. I started out looking like my kids at work with my mouth half open like when they try to cut with scissors. Finally got the hang of it and now am pretty much as happy as when using a mouse. In some situations I actually prefer the track pad. I will probably wait and see how it works out before adding the mouse.
use one of the shareware anti-virus programs from the web - Avast or AVG.
We have a Samsung N140; one of the first things I did was uninstall McAfee and replace it with AVG. Subsequently, we found that the machine quite often failed to go into Standby (Sleep) mode properly and we had to reset it to get it going again. We weren't sure what the problem was, but googling suggested that some other people had similar problems with the current version of AVG, so I replaced AVG with Microsoft Security Essentials and since then we have had no problems at all. (I wouldn't want to blame AVG unfairly because I've used it happily for years and think it's a great service, so I must emphasise that we don't know for sure what the problem was.)
We are delighted with the Samsung ... no problems with trackpad (or the keyboard on which my wife does a great deal of typing.)
Posts: 980 | Location: West Sussex, England | Registered: 08 February 2007
It really is such a waste of money to have to purchase a computer just for this one program when I have an iMac sitting on my desk
Unless you really need a second computer that's mobile enough to carry around, a better solution might be to install VMWare on your iMac. It will allow you to install MSWindows with IE right there on your iMac. That way, you can have both your iMac desktop and your MSWin desktop running at the same time. You can even share data between the two systems. It costs less than $100. And you get to use the bigger screen and keyboard of your iMac vs the netbook. But you will need to have (or buy) legal copies of MSWindows and any software you intend to install.
As mentioned previously on various threads, netbooks are meant to be used for connecting to the net. They don't have all the extra tools that a normal computer would have, and they don't have the processing power to keep up with regular desktops and laptops when your work goes much beyond browsing or simple document editing.
Netbooks are great when you're on the go, and it makes sense to forgo peppy response in exchange for its small size and weight (and cost). But if mobility is not a factor, other solutions would probably be better.
Posts: 401 | Location: Northern VA | Registered: 13 October 2004
WSB, thanks for the input about the track pad. What is AVG? Is there a preferred and preferably free virus program?
Remensin, I never even thought about putting windows on my Mac. My big hesitation though is then opening my Mac up to more viruses. I will have to look into this with the tech coordinator at my school. Thanks for the suggestion.
What is AVG? Is there a preferred and preferably free virus program?
AVG and Avast are the two market leaders in free anti-virus software. I've used Avast for a few years now, with no problems (and it doesn't slow things down in the way that Norton & McAfee used to) - I'm glad to see that Marta (who knows waaay more about these things than I do) uses it too.
Jonathan
Posts: 3405 | Location: Stroud, UK | Registered: 18 November 2001
We've used the free version of AVG very happily for years. The only reason for replacing it on our Samsung N140 netbook was the suggestion that it might be preventing Windows XP Standby from working properly. If you decide to download it, please note that at several stages in the process there will be prominent links to download the paid-for version ... you need to find the less prominent free version (unless of course you want to pay for the extra features of the full version)!
Because of our Standby problems we've replaced it with Microsoft Security Essentials which is a recent entrant into the free anti-virus market. This seems to work fine.
quote:
... slow things down in the way that Norton & McAfee used to ...
Current versions of Norton are very much slicker. I have it on my main laptop (Dell gave me three years 'free' subscription) and scarcely notice it. Very different from how things were 10 years ago.
Posts: 980 | Location: West Sussex, England | Registered: 08 February 2007
My big hesitation though is then opening my Mac up to more viruses.
Installing a Windows virtual machine on your iMac won't decrease the security of your iMac. You will need to protect your Windows environment, but the iMac environment is entirely separate.
Posts: 401 | Location: Northern VA | Registered: 13 October 2004
AVG and Avast are the two market leaders in free anti-virus software
Last week I attended a conference describing ways to secure government and military computers from malicious software. They tested the top 16 anti-virus programs against the latest infectious agents (hundreds from the last two months) and found that sometimes only one of the programs recognized the infection, sometimes as many as 4 did, often none of them found anything. No one of the 16 really stood out. They all worked fairly well on infections that were not recent.
My recommendation is to
minimize your exposure profile
get the best protection that money can buy
Posts: 401 | Location: Northern VA | Registered: 13 October 2004
In this difficult time at my family home, I hope I can be forgiven a naive question. My Acer Aspire One appears to have a built-in microphone, so should I be able to use Skype without a headset?
Andrew, it should work. I was able to use my netbook with built in microphone, however the sound quality was very poor compared to what I get with a headset (i.e. the people on the other end had a bit of trouble hearing me). Mind you, it may also have been due to a poor connection. It's certainly worth a try.
Posts: 778 | Location: Toronto | Registered: 18 February 2006
Lots of great discussion in this thread. WSB - thanks for the mention about AVG and standby mode. I don't have any problems going into hibernation on my laptop but I do on my main desktop. I didn't think to check the anti-virus. It is a different one Avast but it might be related.
Avast has done a good job for me. It has stopped several malicious website Trojans. I've heard good things also about the Microsoft package. I have been leery of MS package just because hackers, etc tend to target MS. I might give it a try. I probably should also go to XP sp 3.
I had my netbook on sleep; when I call it back, I just get a blank screen. The power light was on; I held that button down until it darkened, and turned it on, still no screen. It was plugged in, with an optical mouse; I detached both of those and no change. I tried the brightness and contrast keys, including with the Fn key, and nothing changes. I'm not aware of a monitor switch; any indication what to do?
Laptops usually have a key-combination for switching between the built-in display and an external monitor (if you have one plugged in.) On our Samsung it's Fn-F4, I think. It might be worth pressing that.
Does the hard disc activity indicator light show any sign of life when you switch your machine on?
Posts: 980 | Location: West Sussex, England | Registered: 08 February 2007
When I press the power button it whirrs briefly then goes silent. The light on the power button and on the optical mouse are on after it goes quiet. Not sure what the hard disc activity light is. There's a big monitor next to it but it wasn't attached; I tried attaching it and doing some Fn key combinations but it didn't help.
I love mine and glad I waited.
