Tax Rebate Choices

[jaz]

Last week I spent much time trying to figure how to spend my tax rebate. EEE or HP mini-note? I just couldn’t decide, both have pluses & minuses. The EEE is proven but has no hard drive. The HP has a hard drive but a troublesome Broadcom wireless card as well and is not proven. Both have VIA hardware which I don’t know anything about. Strangely enough I ended up buying neither the EEE or HP but a IBM/Lenovo X41 instead. Found it on Craigslists for $400.00 it was used but just barely and it showed (booted once newer used). I am now a happy owner of a X41 which is bigger than a EEE or HP mini-note, but with a 12 inch display it is still tiny, my eyes my eyes aren’t what they used to be anyway. It is not a perfect product though, the proprietary 1.8 inch HD will give me some grief in the future I am sure. An extra $70.00 on Ebay got me a docking station w/DVD and an Intel Wifi card. Nirvana almost attained now, but I am not completely happy, Windows XP is still loaded.
I just can’t decide, Linux or BSD both have their pluses & minuses…

Life is about choices.

[LinuxMint-4]

I bought a Vista laptop from Staples last week for $399, hacked it to the point of it almost running as fast as XP, and startup and shutdown in less than a minute. Shrunk the C drive and added Ubuntu 8.04 on the free space. Works OK.

[Gomer_X]

I'm going buy a new bike helmet, then put the rest in a money market account to build up my emergency fund.

Once I get 3 months of expenses in the bank, I'm seriously thinking of talking to the guys at System 76.

[snarkout]

Savings/retirement - fun stuff.

[Patrick]

Pay for new tires and brakes on my car. Put some in the bank.