Im making big decisions regarding where i want my life and career to head so im thinking about organizing down to a laptop since i might be moving or being on the road alot in the near future.
Its definately a plus to have both but i plan on selling my lcd screen to help pay for the laptop.
I only use a laptop for m website development I even have Apache, PHP, Perl and MySQL installed on my laptop for development purposes. Of course my websites are hosted at a real web hosting firm.
I've found having a laptop with all necessary tools installed really useful for demonstrating something to a client when ever and where ever it is necessary.
Ken Barbalace - EnvironmentalChemistry.com (Environmental Careers, Blog)
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Do you also have a desktop computer for leisure ? or this is pretty much your power machine ?
Would you recommend one with a small monitor or bigger ? since im going to be doing alot of web work such as graphics, marketing, and all those other website publishing needs.
Weight seems to be a big factor as well.
It will most likely be stationed at a table or desk or when im on the road i dont travel much so thats not a problem but im just unsure of where i will be actually living.
The thing is, what can a desktop computer do that a laptop can't? Laptops are just as powerful and would be fine for website development. I've got a laptop for when I'm traveling, which is a lot these days, then a main desktop one at home. I do prefer working on the desktop one, just because my laptop is very small and it becomes uncomfortable to work when your hunched over it.
Don't you just love free internet games ?
I only use my laptop. When I bought it, I bought the best/biggest screen/fastest processor I could afford. I didn't buy a monitor as my laptop has a 15" screen.
Since I don't travel a lot and my laptop stays in the same place most of the time I was not concerned about weight.
The way I see it is that laptops have become quite powerful and convenient. They also tend to use less electricity than a desktop so as far as my thinking goes, for the most part desktops are obsolete. From a business/work standpoint a lapto can do most of what people need. The exception might come if one is really into hardcore gaming and needs more processing power than laptops can provide.
Ken Barbalace - EnvironmentalChemistry.com (Environmental Careers, Blog)
InternetSAR.org: Volunteers Assisting Search and Rescue via the Internet
My Firefox Theme Classic Compact: Based onFirefox's classic theme but uses much less window space
A couple years ago I used my laptop for 3 months before I built a new system, I had an external LCD, keyboard and mouse.
Laptop keyboards suck to write on because they normaly are to far back and make you force to "Float" your hands above or put your wrist in some ackward position. Touchpads suck for photoshop or any gfx work and copying and pasting, any prolonged use of a touchpad was painful.
So, yeah you can use it but I would suggest external accessories to go along with it when you are at home and when you are not I wouldn't use it for gfx stuff.
I have a 17" on mine now and my next will have a 14", I want it to be more portable.
A laptop would be fine for me - as long as I had a 'proper' monitor, keyboard and mouse to use at my desk.
As people say, in terms of computing power, they're more than enough for office use - its the (builtin) interface that is not quite as good as a desktop.
There are two types of laptops.
Portable laptops
Desktop-Replacement Laptops
I have a portable laptop, 3 pounds, 8+ hours of battery life. I like using it so I can be online and not at my desk, or when traveling, but I still have a desktop for day to day stuff, I couldn't imagine using a laptop with the tiny screen and keyboard.
If you were going to get a laptop but hook it up to an external kvm, you might as well just buy a PC. A basic desktop can be had for a couple hundred and while there are laptops that can rival desktops in power, they are usually still priced 2-3x more for that same power.
I plan on getting wireless broadband through verizon and doing most of my work on the road. Im unsure of where ill be living since ithat could be anywhere so thats the reason im thinking about the laptop. Im thinking twice about getting rid of the desktop since i found out you can get a pci to pmcia card converter so that should allow me to get broadband via the desktop without purchasing cable or dsl.
Read the fine print on those cards they are "Unlimted" but then you read the fine print and find out anything above 5gb transfer is considered "abuse"...Originally Posted by s2kinteg916
Laptop(s) only here. I am kind used to laptops, personally I don's see any advantage of using destktop computers. Well, price only, maybe...
I do have an old Dell Dimension Desktop, but I am never on it anymore. I do everything from a laptop. I have a Dell Latitude D620.
Like others have said, I don't see any negatives to having a laptop, and there are numerous positives.
You could just get a docking station so you can use your external monitor.
I just use a laptop too as my kids have taken over the old desktop!
Works fine for me.
I'm using a laptop for development as well, a MacBook. I'm using an external monitor, bluetooth keyboard and mouse. My only complaint is the way mac os x handles screen resolution.
When I got the laptop, I started writing a blog series about how I configured my machine for web development (1 2 3), but I've been too busy to finish the last posts in the series on working with parallels, installing php and mysql, dns and virtual hosting setup, and juggling multiple web dev project configurations.
I made the switch. I bought a Dell M1210, super portable high power system. I travel for 4-5 days a lot (20+ times a year).
When I am at my "workstation" I have a 17 inch LCD screen I plug into.
I would never go back to a desktop. I have 3 different spots I work in my house and since I spent a lot of time infront of this screen, it seems to be nice to change the environment every couple hours.
As a note, from my experiences a laptops life will be lower if you use it constantly. I use it 10-12 hours a day and I would probably give it a 1 yr lifespan.
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