• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Recommend a laptop

Dan Cook

EF5
Joined
Dec 12, 2003
Messages
1,946
Location
Lombard, IL
I'm planning on ditching my current laptop, a Dell Inspiron 9300 as the AC jack seems to be going out again (for the 3rd time) and am looking around at various laptops. What I'm looking for is something that would have a dedicated gfx card and decent hard drive space. Currently looking at HPs as my hatred for Dell laptops is increasing.
 
If you spend a bit more money, you can get the far superior Apple MacBook Pro, which will allow you to run all your Windows apps natively alongside your Mac apps. Even a regular MacBook is a nicer piece of hardware than just about anything you'll find on the PC side, IMO.
 
And the "AC" jack on the Macbook has no plug, it's magnetic. If you yank on it, or trip over it, it simply falls off. No damage done.

I chase with a bottom rung Macbook with a 13" screen running XP SP2. Works great with no compatability issues that I've seen so far. Just my 2 cents.
 
If you're budget minded, take a look at Wal-Mart's ACER ASPIRE (Model 5050) offerings. The one I have run's Vista Premiuim, has 1 GB RAM, 100 GB HDD, ATI graphics card, decent screen size, 2.0 GHz AMD CPU and DVD/CD Burner.

For a price of about $600.

It's actually, a surprisingly nice laptop. I record live music on it (Using a nice USB Mic), edit and do some photo work on it. PLenty of HD space and even play a few movies on the road with it. Runs GRLevel3 smoothed with out a hiccup. All in all, a pretty nice package for the price.

John
 
MacBook Pro too...

Gotta recommend a MacBook Pro as well. Fine machines and you can boot into Mac OS X, Windows and do a combination of both.

Jp
 
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Can anybody recommend a laptop under $1,000 that has a graphics card that enables smoothing? I am cashing out some vacation time in July and will have some money to spend to replace my current laptop (power cord falls out).
 
Ben,

See my post above. Both laptops I bought from Wally World support smoothing, no problem (Using GRLevel3) Mine was $600 and my daughters was $500.

The differences between the two"

Mine:
1GB RAM, 100 GB HDD AMD Turion CPU, 1 PCMCIA slot

My Daughter's:
512 MB RAM, 80 GB HDD, VIA CP7-M CPU 1 Rxpress Card slot.

Both are nice and will get the job done very well. Locally (Even E-bay) I couldn't beat the price for the features. I bought both pre-Vista but both will support Vista,
 
I am running a Compaq Presario currently, but just bought a Gateway for $625 with shipping from Tiger Direct that has an ATI Graphics card, 160gb hard drive, 2 gb ram, dual core AMD, and a few other bells and whistles. Still working the new one out, but the Compaq has been good.
 
Laptop Recommendations

No matter what brand you get, make sure it's got at least 2GB of RAM, and an ATI -or-similar video card with at least 128MB of BUILT-IN (not "shared") video memory.

Stay away from the Intel 950 "integrated" video if you want GR smoothing.

(cool factor: get a video card with S-video out, then hook it up to your lcd/plasma hd tv and watch streaming coverage from tv stations across the country on your big tv!)
 
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