P SPEED-EQUIVALENT LOW-END VISTA LAPTOP OPTIONS

Q::I’m stymied now that Windows Vista is on the market in that it doesn’t seem easy to get a low-end Dell laptop with Vista in say the Dell Inspiron 1500 series that would be anything near as zippy as my 1994 Dell Inspiron 1150 running XP Home on 512 megs RAM for a good price. I spent $1,500 Cdn on the 1150 (with taxes) but noticed that just before Vista came along I could have bought a similar-speed laptop for less than $1,000 Cdn or even less than that. Now all I see in my range are Vista machines with m aybe 1 gig RAM and coming with just Vista Home Basic. I presume such a machine has no hope of running Vista Premium with Aero enabled, and if it could would be slow. And I assume it is slower than an 1150 in actual use as is? Is this so? I refer to speed in terms of how speedy the OS and programs are perceived to run by the user, not the bare CPU speed. So my question is: What Dell laptop running Vista and what Vista version would I need for it, such that a new Dell laptop would run as fast program-wise, video-wise and user-perception wise as my Dell Inspiron 1150 (it has XP Home, 512 megs RAM, 40 gig HD, DVD-ROM drive, 15? screen and a 2.6 GHz Intel Celeron, Dell Service tag 3ZK4951), and also not debit any OS feature that is in XP Home that may not be in a low-end version of Vista. My Inspiron 1150 runs a huge range of software with no problem, but does not do things like processing video to DVD via Nero, as it chokes on that kind of thing. I could email you a Belarc Adviser listing for the 1150 if it would help to flesh out the kind of things it can run with good speed.

Keith
London, ON

You’re absolutely right - as usual with a major OS upgrade - Vista requires considerably more hardware to run as fast. I am not currently recommending that people who are happily using XP upgrade.

CONVERTING CASSETTE TAPE SONGS TO CD/ITUNES

Q::How do I convert old cassette recording of songs from my old band onto the MAC so that I can burn to CD or keep in my itunes? What do I need in the way of hardware/software to do this?

John
Toronto, ON

You need a cassette player and some software. You’ll also need a cable to connect the output of the cassette player into the Mac. The Mac end needs a mini-phono jack. The other end of the cable depends on your cassette player.

If you don’t have a cassette player, you might want to look at the Crosley Radio Songwriter, http://www.crosleyradio.com/prods/cr248.html. It can turn vinyl records and cassettes into CDs automatically.

For software, you can use Audacity from Sourceforge (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/), but I have been using Amadeus Pro (http://www.hairersoft.com/AmadeusPro/AmadeusPro.html), which for $40 does much of the same job as software many times the price.

VISTA - INSTALLATION ON MAC VS. PC

Q::I’m trying to decide weather to switch to a MAC for my next computer. I have a lot of PC based software that I don’t want to have to repurchase for a new OS. If I install Windows Vista on a Intel Mac, what Vista features will I be loosing out on; as opposed to installing Vista on a PC? What performance issues will I be facing with Vista on a Mac when running PC software & PC Games (specially designed for Vista)?

Mike
Etobicoke, ON

Sean’s note: This will largely depend on which version of the Mac you’re planning to get — if you get one of the Intel Macs with an integrated graphics component (MacBook, or the Mac Mini for example), you won’t be able to run Vista’s fancy new Aero graphics, and you won’t be able to play most of the new PC games that rely on a high-end graphics card. If you get one of the new iMacs or a Mac Pro, you should have access to pretty much all of the functions of Windows Vista — provided you’re running Windows Vista in Boot Camp mode. At this point, you still don’t have access to the full extent of Vista’s graphics capabilities when you’re running in Parallels emulation mode, which means you can’t use Aero even if your graphics component is theoretically capable, and PC gaming will likely be a big bust.