Hi Shaun,
Actually, I hand build all of my desktops, because they tend to be more
reliable, run better, and use higher quality hardware than you get with
the name brand computers like Del, Compaq, Gateway, etc. There is a good
reason why someone can walk into Wal-Mart today, pickup a Compaq desktop
for $499, and go home with a brand new computer. The reason being is
often times the hardware components in those computers are whatever they
could get in large quanities, for as little money as possible, and are
whatever the manufacturer has left over from an earlier run. Not to
mention they get the cheapest, most affordable software bundles, which
cuts the cost of the computer, but isn't necessarily the most desirable
for anyone with a reasonable amount of computer skills.
For example, the Compaq notebook I purchased last year comes with
Windows Vista Home Basic on it. Well, for the average computer user that
is probably ok, but there are definitely some disadvantages to using
Vista Basic instead of Ultimate. One of them is Home Basic will not
allow you to change your security polacies because the security manager,
secpol.msc, is missing in Home Basic. In Vista Ultimate if I want to
fully customize User Account Control all I need to do is go to the admin
tools, launch the security polacy manager, and tell it what features i
want/don't want. In Home Basic User Account is on or off. No way to
change its settings. That really sucks, because you can't fully
customize the operating system like you can with Ultimate.
Anyway, the point of this e-mail is to say building your own custom
computer sounds geeky, but you get to choose exactly what you want, how
you want it, and it is fully customizable. It costs a lot more up front
but it usually pays for itself in the end. A good heavy duty name brand
power supply that costs $75 is probably going to last you longer than
some no name wong foo power supply that costs $35. I try to build my
computers with stability, reliability, and long term use in mind rather
than try and sell x number of computers with the least cost possible.
Of course the obvious disadvantage is that since I am fronting the cost
for everything, putting it together myself, etc I can't just send it
into Del, Compaq, or someone if something gets broken. I have to do that
myself which most of the time isn't a big deal since my desktop systems
are usually very low maintainance anyway. However, when something goes
wrong like a system gets hit by lightning, a motherboard dies, whatever
it seriously burns my rear that Microsoft will charge me for a new
product key for Windows just because I had to replace a hardware
component. However, I think product activation and machine specific keys
are here to stay.
Smile.
---
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