Dave Needs Your Opinion
Hey guys, I have a situation brought about by the need to distribute genealogy articles to our SIG group members on the Internet rather than produce paper copies for them - a more expensive option. You probably remember our discussion on the topic at a recent CUE Board meeting, right?
Mark, this dialogue may provide a nifty article for the Newsletter, too.
Current situation:
I have a 5-year-old Intel Pent 4, 2 GHz Dell Inspiron laptop with 640 MG RAM and a 20 GB hard drive about 85% full. It has Win XP with Service Pack 3. I use a WD external 160GB hard drive to automatically back up the laptop's HD. This is the unit that is used for my Genealogy SIG meetings and contains all the humongous peripheral software programs and data files for this application.
I also have an 8-year-old Pent 3, 1 GHz desktop with 640 MB RAM and two 20GB hard drives about 20% full. The OS is Win 98 (FE). I have an older but fully functional HP scanner connected to a SCSI card in this desktop. This is not a USB scanner and cannot be used with my laptop. Besides, the laptop hasn't enough hard drive capacity for the scanner and the PaperPort OCR software.
The HP scanner and the current version (6) of the PaperPort OCR software proved to be an inadequate solution to scanning articles for distribution on the Internet. So, I purchased the latest version of PaperPort (11) and an Epson V500 PHOTO USB scanner both on sale, of course, at deep discounts. I knew ahead of time that neither item would work with Windows 98FE. Both will work on my laptop but the laptop doesn't have enough hard drive space.
Both the desktop and the laptop are connected to cable broadband.
Bill Ellis gave me a copy of Win 98 SE but it turned out to be another copy of 98 FE and would not install in my desktop. The response was that I needed an upgrade version of WIN 98.
So, I've got several options here:
1. Although the desktop works far faster than my laptop and has greater capacity, I could purchase a new desktop, or
2. I could purchase a new laptop with greater RAM and storage capacity, or
3. Save the PaperPort database on CDs and on the 2nd desktop hard drive (both of which I already did), wipe out hard drive C, and install a new unused Win XP I purchased not too long ago. (I was hoping to use the new WIN XP for a new computer if I couldn't find what I wanted without VISTA.)
I would like to avoid numbers 1 and 2 above due to the effects on my wallet. But, if I had to go that route, purchasing a new laptop may be the better "permanent" solution and forget about doing anything more with the desktop. However, this option may put all my eggs in one basket with no back-up system if something should go wrong the new laptop.
The first question I have is - which of the above 3 options makes the best sense?
The second question is - what are the best sites to find a copy of Win 98SE, a copy of MS Works, and a SATA to EIDE hard drive adapter? I don't relish having to go to two or more sites to order this stuff and pay the extra shipping charges.
What do you guys think about the first question - am I missing something here?
Dave
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