I'm hardly familiar with Macs. They're really not common in Israel, since Apple doesn't have a good local support for them here and the lack of Apple stores. We can't even have iTunes, for instance - Apple doesn't accept Israeli credit cards.

And why are all the religions fighting over this land? Unless Steve Jobs really is the Devil... and all this time we thought it was Microsoft that was the Evil Empire. Huh. Go figure. Learn something new every day.

Shir, what are you needing to use it for specifically?

Well, right now I have almost 15GB of music, and it's the work computer. So there will be a little more. There will be a lot of works and papers I'll save on it, but I'm not really sure what you mean by processing. All I know - and hey, that's the place to ask - in my work, I do immense, crazy copy-pasting. I think there might be a protocol that saves this somewhere, making my FF crash every few hours and me having a restart the computer. Anyone knows how to disable this protocol?

And why are all the religions fighting over this land?

Hee hee.

In other, crankier news, the Alltel/Verizon merger is biting me already. I just got a call from Alltel today telling me I could no longer use my unlimited data tethering plan for $25. They say they've negotiated roaming fees with other towers, but not for internet access. Which I can see. I spend hours online and minutes on the voice phone.

But still. I'm rural, and it appears I just lost my internet connection, effective Nov 25th. So I'm looking for other broadband mobile phone options, and I'm pretty much striking out. There are other plans available, but at a minimum of twice the amount I'm paying now, and that's just for limited data. Either limited by volume (50 gigs), or by minutes, both of which are untenable for the amount of use I'm anticipating.

I can find unlimited data plans, but those appear to be solely for use on the smartphone (which I'd also have to buy) and not for tethering, using the phone as a modem.

Blargh. I'm thinking I'd better call the radio guy back and look at satellite internet again. But the SO will not be happy either way; he's gotten used to the in-transit nature of mobile connectivity.

Shir ... for what it's worth; the Victorian Education Department has a deal with Lenovo to offer laptops for the teachers. A couple of months ago there was a rollover and moonlit was amongst those that got the new Lenovo R61. The department chose Lenovo because of their reliability and ease of use.

Yeah, ND, I'm a big fan of the 17" screen, too. It is fab, and I don't mind the extra weight. Well worth it for my functions.

Oh, I like it fine, it's just not portable.

Yeah, I have a 17 inch screen laptop which is my main computer. It works great as a portable desktop. If I'm going to be traveling to a local clients, no problem to take in the trunk, and set up there. But dragging it on a train or plane? Please. That's why I got my inexpensive little 2.3 pounder the size of a hardback book. Don't need functionality that heavy on the road. It is a breeze to carry, and it will fit comfortable on the fold down tray of a coach airline seat. (I won't fit that seat comfortably, but my computer will.)

How easy is it to get XP on a new laptop these days? I've heard that Microsoft is absolutely going to stop offering XP (or that may have just been supporting or something). Is it something you need to have installed after you buy the laptop?

In the U.S. MS makes it hard to get with computers above a certain size or power. But a lot of distributors still have license/disc sets from before June when it was till completeluy available. And outside the U.S. terms may be different.

Is buying a laptop online a good idea? Who do the Tech-istas recommend?

I thought Microsoft had made another 6-month extension of XP's life.

Part of the issue is these cheap netbooks generally don't have the power for Vista, right? So MS will lose even more sales to Linux if they don't let XP be an option for these laptops.