Friday, May 9, 2008

Laptop Computer's Financing

You should take a look at these promotions and analyze whether you can take advantage of them or not. Here are some tips on how to decide whether a particular promotion suits your needs or not.

Banks and financial institutions want to invest their money and thus they offer loans and lines of credit. Computer manufacturers want to sell their products and thus, associating with lenders widens their sales by making laptop computers more affordable. You, as a consumer can take advantage of this situation and shop around both for lenders and laptops and get the best offer possible. There are many bargains out there.

Credit Card Promotions On Laptop Computers

By associating with certain credit card issuers, manufacturers or retail companies offer their laptop computers payable in several installments with 0% APR. These offers are excellent as you can purchase your laptop on several payments without having to put all the money down. Some of them even offer a 10% discount on the retail price in order to attract more customers. It can actually end up being even cheaper than purchasing in cash.

What do they get in return? Well, the manufacturer or Retail Company gets to sell the products and the credit card issuer gets to retain you as a client for at least a year if you select 12 payments or two years if you select 24 and so on. These practices create fidelity at a very low cost for the credit card companies and though you may not pay interests for this particular purchase you will pay interests for all the others you make.

Small Loans For Laptop Purchases

These loans are offered by retail companies sometimes in association with financial institutions sometimes by creating a financial institution ad hoc. These loans feature advantageous terms and small installments to attract consumers. The idea is to make goods affordable when they would otherwise be rather expensive. With these small loans laptops are presented as affordable items because the purchase price is concealed behind the small installments.

These loans have simple qualification processes. Usually the only requirements for approval are some sort of identification along with a copy of a paycheck receipt or some other proof of income. Some retail companies will require only a copy of a credit card resume sent to your home to show proof both of income and residence. Thus, getting approved for these loans is fairly simple and has little to no hassles at all.

As you can see, laptops can really be affordable if purchased through these means. Thus, if you were planning or considering the purchase of laptop computer you may want to shop around for these offers and choose whether to buy your laptop with your credit card or by requesting a small loan specifically created for this purpose. In any case, you can get a great deal and repay the money in affordable installments.

Use Windows Update

Should one use Windows Update?

This topic has good and valid arguments on both sides. Some would say keeping your windows up to date is essential in keeping it free of the newest, worst viruses and the like. Others would say that updating your windows is overemphasized, unneeded and a waste of time.

In the future, Microsoft will have ways of detecting whether your version of windows is actually store-bought, or pirated. With so many copies of pirated windows on the market, such a move by Microsoft is almost required in order to continue cornering the OS market. For instance, when SP 1 (and 2) came out, you had to have an authentic windows serial code in order to download the update. There are of course ways of getting around this, but it deterred much illegal upgrading to the new service packs. Had you have had a pirated copy of windows (and the majority does), then you could have downloaded a copy of windows SP 1/2, but you would have had to completely re-install and possibly format in order to install it.

If you had an original windows serial code that came with the product, you could have just downloaded the packs from the windows update servers.

So yes, having a non-pirated copy of windows is a convenience. However, some would remember a stunning virus that was released not too long ago; MyDoom. It managed to find its ways onto the Microsoft windows update servers. When you got the virus, you would have 30 seconds before the computer shut down. Should you have formatted, just to re-install windows with automatic updates turned on (and they are by default) you would get the virus again.

And not to mention Windows Updates are a large time factor. Some updates (especially the first time you use Windows Update) are colossal, and the download speeds are not always at their greatest. Someone on 56k would have a very hard time using windows update at all (and if you do, I recommend not bothering).

Now, you ask, what exactly is Windows Update? It's simply Microsoft engineers working hard to fix bugs, problems and backdoors in Windows. What are these problems, you ask? Well, when Microsoft released windows it wasn't exactly a perfect OS. With every version of Windows, it becomes more and more hi-tech. But there has always been problems with Windows being insecure.

The only way to find that Windows has a certain vulnerability is first for that vulnerability to be exploited. Eg, Microsoft using white hat hackers (the good guys) to breach windows, or for a hacker to break into a version of Windows and it is reported.

So, to answer the question, is it important to update your windows? It's hard to say, without the answer being a biased opinion. I will give both sides of the argument merit, but it honestly depends on what you want to do with your PC. For large businesses with intranets, windows updates are likely a good idea. It only takes one serious OS fault for a hacker or a bad virus to leak in and infect the whole network. Windows faults and security issues, IE backdoors, etc. Windows update constantly has fixes for these problems.

For a home desktop, even for a home network, windows updates really aren't that important. No one wants to hack the small guy; there is nothing to gain from it. Should you use a simple firewall, even the windows in-house firewall, you are protected from most threats. But big business is always at risk; major websites are constantly under the gun from DoS attacks and IE "tricks." Windows Updates cannot really help DoS attacks, but they can prevent hackers, crackers, viruses and the like from entering their network computers from faults in the windows code.

So to answer the question - should I use windows update? If you've got a lot of infrastructure you want to protect, yes. If you're a small guy, one PC at home, one laptop; even a few computers thrown together in your home network. The answer is no. I don't recommend it, anyway. Just throw on your windows firewall, Black Ice Defender, Norton, Avast....what have you. And enjoy browsing. That's about it.