Re: system questions

[Ken Cotton <kc@example.com>]

Kise,

Hi there. My name is Ken Cotton. I live in Tokyo and have been a lurking
member of this listserver here since about last January when I heard Jim
Tittsler mention this group and went to Craig's home page and decided to
subscribe.

I usually skim the messages, just to get an idea of what Linux is all about,
to see what kind of advice everybody is giving and to get an idea of what's
going on here in Japan.

Recently I have seen the two non-Linux-related threads that I've been
following, 'Win95' and your 'system questions'. For some reason, today, I
decided that I just had to jump in.

It seems that money is a big issue in your upcoming purchase. That makes
sense. It is for all of us.

You mentioned previously that you don't mind something that is a bit slower
as you have the time. Have you ever put a dollar-sign value on your time now
or what you would like your time to be worth? By doing so, you might realize
that by paying a bit more, you'll be saving quite a bit of time and the
nicer system might just pay for itself?

>I have $1,600 total. I'm not interested in upgrading my old 486. I'm 
>planning to use my 486 for DOS, Win95, and nextworking using Linux since 
>I'm interested in networking. 

The ability to network machines is a valuable skill, that once you are
proficient in, might be an additional source of income. In which, case, the
sooner you get get going with it, the sooner you can start to raise your
income. That's assuming you might want to earn some money with what you've
learned.

I'm kind of having a hard time explaining exactly what I mean to a stranger,
but I'd really like to impress on you that your time is the valuable thing.

You might want to check out some books (or tapes) on Time Management, for
example Time Power by Charles Hobbes or 'self-improvement' type of books
that focus on improving one's finances, like Charles Givens' 'SuperSelf' or
'Financial Self-Defense'. 

Just a suggestion. I've found that each one of these books have taught me a
few things that have been more than worth the initial $10-20 investment and
time spent reading them.

Also, other things that you might want to consider are:

(1) How long you expect to be using the machine? Most people say to expect a
year and a half or so. The better you do now, the longer you can put off
your next purchase.

(2) Resale value. I never expect to be selling something that I buy and
instead plan on it being junk, back up, a gift or something to play around
with after two years, but do think about WHAT IF I were to try and sell it
later on.

(3) Compatibility, support, etc. It saves 'time' that might be spent later
screwing around looking for the flash bios upgrades and trouble-shooting.

I'll stop now and maybe wait and see what you or others have to say on this,
but it might be a good idea to go back and take a look at the messages from
Ted, Jim and whoever. I think that they were giving some pretty good advice.

Ken

Ken Cotton <kc@example.com> or <kc@example.com>
Tokyo, Japan