Ask A Geek

Q: I am doing a paper for one of my classes about the perfect computer for me! I did a quiz online to try to find the perfect computer and it didn’t help me much. I was hoping you could help me find a computer to meet my guidelines:

1. A laptop for traveling
2. Will be used for surfing the Internet, educational purposes, and music.
3. Burn CDs
4. Needs Microsoft Word and PowerPoint
5. Lots of memory to hold pictures and music
6. USB plug in for digital cameras
7. Under $1000 or up to $1200

I know its complicated! Thank you so much! Please give me the website you find it on to explain why this laptop will fit my needs!

Q: Can a netbook or notebook be connected to a desktop monitor and keyboard for use at home?

Q: I want to buy a new laptop. I’m keen to go with the latest tech ie i7 processor and Windows 7. My use is software development – mainly MS products for web development.

I don’t play any PC games but do like to edit videos/photo manipulation.

Any guidance or recommendations would be appreciated.

Q: I just bought an IBM ThinkPad on craigslist and it’s suppose to have WiFi but I think the guy deleted it. How do I recover it? I don’t have any restore discs or any discs for it.

Q: Would a 2GB HP laptop be good enough for running games like RuneScape?

Q: What is the best inexpensive laptop?

Q: I dropped my brothers laptop from the top bunk. It turns on and shows all the pictures but when it gets to the loading it doesn’t stop. What should I do?

Q: We inherited an Acer Travelmate 4151 LCI laptop running Windows XP and it has a non-functioning LCD screen. It will flash a full image in reddish color when toggling fn-F5, external monitor works fine. I would like to tinker with it, but would appreciate any ideas where to start.

Q: When I close my laptop cover it does not turn off. I am not able to change the options in the control panel. The drop down menu in the power option properties disappeared! Can I recover the feature?

Q: My daughter has a new ASUS compact desktop computer using Windows Vista. It has a built-in wireless modem that is used to access a free wireless system that her community offers.

Unfortunately the wireless signal at her home is very poor where she has to locate her computer.

What can be done to improve the signal to her computer?

The wireless card is inside the computer and there is no external antennae connector such that an external antennae could be connected and placed in a better location.

Can some kind of a wireless device that would receive the signal from the towns wireless transmitter and then retransmit it to her computers small internal antennae?