Liese, I have a Verizon card, which I use for work. It's fine, most places...but I'm almost always in cities, not in the sparse West. I have no idea how the coverage is, there. Sprint has them too. I only pay something like $45 a month, but it's with a corporate contract. You might be able to get some sort of deal if you get your cellphones through them too, or something.

From the New York Times:

3 Flat-Screen Makers Plead Guilty to Trying to Keep Prices High

Prices for the flat screens in televisions, personal computers and cellphones have plummeted in recent years — but the decline would have been even faster if it hadn’t been for an international price-fixing cartel, the Justice Department said on Wednesday.

Three leading flat-screen producers — LG Display of South Korea, Sharp of Japan and Chunghwa Picture Tubes of Taiwan — pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a total of $585 million in criminal fines for their role in fixing the price of liquid-crystal display panels.

full story: [link]

Drew, do you still have Kristin's dead Macbook to send? I'll pay postage.

Yes, I do still have it and my schedule is finally easing up so I should be able to send it along in the next week or two.

Cool. Thanks.

Good to hear the stress factors might loosen a bit for you.

Quick Question:

Are either of these computers a good deal? I pretty muich use the computer to go online, and maybe work on Word or Excel for work occasionally. I want something cheap and light.

EEE pc [link]

Thinkpad [link]

Acer Aspire (it is pink and my favorite, but I can't tell if it has windows) [link]

I don't know if they are the same model, but the Acer Aspire on Newegg says it has Windows XP.

[link]

I'm not recommending it though, I've never used any of these so I can't give any informed opinions. I can recommend a cheap Toshiba, my wife and BIL both have $500 Toshibas and they work quite well, but they aren't little things.

Are either of these computers a good deal? I pretty muich use the computer to go online, and maybe work on Word or Excel for work occasionally. I want something cheap and light.

I would strongly suggest that you try out an EEE PC or Aspire One before purchasing -- the online pictures don't emphasize how small the screen and keyboards are.

Thank you Gud!

Good thought Tom-- although as I am currently using my cell phone-- it is sure to be bigger than that!

You can see the EEE PC at Best Buy if you want to get an idea of the size of the machine. I have one that's great for when I don't want to carry a full PC into a meeting and also for some of the diagnostic work I do on job sites, but I don't rely on it to be my primary PC.

The Acer Aspire One comes with either XP or Linux (with a simplified GUI). I like mine a lot, especially given the price.

The Linux one comes with Open Office, which can save stuff in Word and Excel format.