Which machine do i really need?

ok i just found out i will be getting about 3300 bucks for my tax return next year. i am contemplating one of 2 options. first an almost fully loaded 13 inch macbook air( 2ghz processor, 8 gigs of ram and 256gb ssd) and a cinema display or... a macbook pro retina with 8 gigs of ram. Now here is where im unsure what to get. I just started going back to school full time and I am a network security and admin major. So i wont be doing any graphic design, photo, audio or video editing. Size and weight are concerns. For the computer itself 1.5 pounds may not seem like a lot on paper but humping it around campus all day does make a difference. So that is one concern, another is i need a machine that will be pretty ballsy for at least the next 3 years untill my senior year when i plan on buying another machine if i have to. I'd like it to get me through all 4 years. Im just unsure a dual core will be adequate for my needs for that amount of time but i can also see needing a beast of a machine like the MBPr being kinda overkill for my needs aswell. also like i said the size and weight are a concern. so im looking for opinions. With either machine i would have to have an external monitor when when im not portable, the cinema display just allows me to not have to manager a large usb hub, an ethernet to usb adapter(my dorms doesnt have wifi) and it would give me a very large and beautiful screen do do things on. i like simplicity and all in one things. It might also be noted that i have a 2012 13 inch macbook air (base model) now and it is adequate for now but with the 4 gigs of ram i can see it not being so in a year 2 at the most. it was a gift from my dad and he isnt computer savy at all so it probably never crossed his mind to get more ram. anyhow back on point, what are your opinions on my predicament?

switching platforms as in going to windows? dont really see that happening. linux maybe.. but i can run it in a virtual machine on my mac unless im mistaken. i also get what your saying about waiting, but i am someone who likes to have a plan well in advance for things. if things drastically chance before then i will revise my plan but as of right now i still want to have one.

Similar Messages

Development Tools: Which of them i really need?

Hi, guys! I've just started to learn Java language & gonna develop midlets for most modern wireless devices. Please tell me what tools i really need to download. I've already downloaded Wireless Toolkit (with latest patch) & JRE. I guess i need some IDE, but its very difficult to get it through dyal-up connection... How can download the compiler and some tools for debuging without downloading IDE?

Thanks prometheuzz! ...I just don't know why i
didn't come across that tute.You're welcome.

I really need to go back to the save I made a day ago, my time machine is not set up and files haven't been automatically uploading to cc is there anyway I can go back a day in saves?

Hi, I just had an issue with a photoshop document, my mac book temporarily crashed the screen glitches and deleted some vital layers I had constructed (took half a day) I thought I could correct it and saved it a few times in a panic and now i really need to go back to the save I made a day ago, my time machine is not set up and I just realised my files haven't been automatically uploading to cc is there anyway I can go back a day in saves?

Trevor.Dennis wrote:
So you don't have anything like Shadow Protect running in the background?
Video editing software only needs to save the steps taken to achieve the edit, and references the actual video files from the hard drive. So the saved files are only tiny, and it takes very little drive space to auto save to incrementing file names. Obviously, Photoshop files can be huge by comparison, so the only way to save with a different file name is to do it manually.
I think most regular posters to this forum make a point of updating the file name of a large project every hour or so, and as a direct response to reading so many horror stories like your own. The worst story I remember was from a poster whose computer had crashed half way through saving a large PSD file. After several response, questions and answers, it turned out he was using a laptop with a failing battery. He told us that he could see the battery was getting low, but left it and left it before finally hitting Ctrl s and running off to find the laptop's power lead. When he got back the laptop had run out of power and shut down, and his PSD file was lost forever. He may have been a prime candidate to a computing Darwin Award, but his stupidity still did the rest of us a service so we could learn from his mistake.
Ouch.
My digital audio workstation works on the same principle; it creates a backup save just in case things go wrong (which--knock on wood--hasn't happened to me) and only references audio/MIDI files that are related to the project.
My advice is to always, always back up sensitive documents. There are lots of ways of doing this, from manually to automatically. (e.g., A lot of higher-end routers let you connect external storage via USB so you can run backup software that detects any changes to a monitored folder over a network and then backs up any changed/updated documents to the connected storage. I prefer to do it myself manually, though.)

I really need help. I try to contact support to no avail. There simply is no option on the site, You are always referred to a further topic which has notihing to do with my problem. I bougnt a full master pack CS6 which I had installed on a mac for one ye

I really need help. I try to contact support to no avail. There simply is no option on the site, You are always referred to a further topic which has notihing to do with my problem. I bougnt a full master pack CS6 which I had installed on a mac for one year. Then, I decided to change it to another computer, so I sisintalled it according to instructions. In the meantime I got a free trial of creative cloud on that computer, but I gave up and decided to reinstall my cd-roms. However, everytime I try to use acrobat for instance it says that my trial period ran out! I disinstalled my cloud products, I am using my registered full master series items, they have nothing whatsoever to do with my creative cloud FREE subscription. If I try to cancel my free membership, it is to no avail, there simply is no such possiblity. I want to use the software I paid dearly for, not the cloud items I disinstalled and which do not interest me. How can I contact Adobe to fix it? It was no fault of mine, I did all I was supposed to, disintalling items before installing the right ones, but the system must have some error i am not responsible for.

open an app and click help>activate.
if you try to open an app and see a 'your trial has expired" window, click license this software and enter your serial number.
if you can't do either, run the cleaner and make sure cc is cleaned from your computer, Use the CC Cleaner Tool to solve installation problems | CC, CS3-CS6

HT201250 Hi, I hope this question won't seem too basic but if I want to use a new larger external drive for my time machine backups, will it do a new full backup the first time I plug it in and if so, do I really need all the old backups on my smaller ext

Hi, I hope this question won't seem too basic but if I want to use a new larger external drive for my time machine backups, will it do a new full backup the first time I plug it in and if so, do I really need all the old backups on my smaller external drive?

50maz wrote:
Hi, I hope this question won't seem too basic but if I want to use a new larger external drive for my time machine backups, will it do a new full backup the first time I plug it in
Yes, it will do a full backup.
and if so, do I really need all the old backups on my smaller external drive?
Only if you want to be able to go back in time to those previous Time Machine backups. When you plug in the new larger external drive, you will only be able to go back as far as the first day you plugged it in and ran the first Time Machine backup on it.

Hi i am paying for the photoshop and i can't use and download it and i really need this app for my art exam which is on wednesday please help me, hi i am paying for the photoshop and i can't use and download it and i really need this app for my art exam w

i need some one to help me for downloading photoshop on my mac and i am already paying monthly for it but i can not use it and i really need help because i need photoshop for my art exam which is on wednesday

What is the problem your having downloading the creative cloud desktop application then using it to download and install Photoshop. You can try the direct download if you want to bypass the creative clod desktop application install. Still it mad be installed if you use the direct installer. Pleas read the download instruction and follow them else you will be denied access. Adobe CC 2014 Direct Download Links: Creative Cloud 2014 Release | ProDesignTools

I created a photo album on my iPhone 4s - edited photos etc. but I cannot figure out how to transfer it to my pc (using Windows 8). The only folder in the iphone drive is the one which has the Camera roll photos :( Help please - I really need the photos!

I created a photo album on my iPhone 4s - edited photos etc. but I cannot figure out how to transfer it to my pc (using Windows 8). The only folder in the iphone drive is the one which has the Camera roll photos Help please - I really need the photos!

The camera roll is not part of the sync process at all.
You should be importing these photos to your computer regularly as you would with any digital camera. Youc an organize them on your computer and sync the to the iphone if you wish.
The photos sync from the computer to the iphone is one way.
The iphone mirrors the selected content of the computer to which it is synced.

Which alsa modules do I really need?

Hi everyone,
I set up sound on a very old PC. At first I set module autoloading in rc.conf, in order to check which sound modules my hardware need. I then realized it could take up to 20 seconds to load udev events at boot time, so I put my sound modules in rc.conf and disabled module autoloading. It brought udev time down to 5 seconds.
I wonder if I can bring it to an even lower value. I suspect some of my sound modules aren't really needed. I'd appreciate some advices to identify which modules are needed, and which are not.
$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 630 Host (rev 20)
00:00.1 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] (rev d0)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS85C503/5513 (LPC Bridge)
00:01.1 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet (rev 81)
00:01.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.1 Controller (rev 07)
00:01.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.1 Controller (rev 07)
00:01.4 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS PCI Audio Accelerator (rev 02)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Virtual PCI-to-PCI bridge (AGP)
00:09.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905B 100BaseTX [Cyclone] (rev 30)
00:0d.0 Ethernet controller: Winbond Electronics Corp W89C840
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 630/730 PCI/AGP VGA Display Adapter (rev 20)
lsmod output with module autoload
# lsmod
Module Size Used by
reiserfs 230112 1
ext2 64860 1
snd_seq_oss 29888 0
snd_seq_midi_event 5972 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 48176 4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_pcm_oss 38112 0
snd_mixer_oss 14388 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_cs4232 13204 0
snd_wavefront 53044 0
snd_wss_lib 23988 2 snd_cs4232,snd_wavefront
snd_trident 34756 0
snd_opl3_lib 9204 2 snd_cs4232,snd_wavefront
rfkill 9392 0
snd_hwdep 6904 2 snd_wavefront,snd_opl3_lib
snd_ac97_codec 100120 1 snd_trident
ac97_bus 1364 1 snd_ac97_codec
led_class 3384 0
wmi 6280 0
analog 10112 0
snd_pcm 67992 4 snd_pcm_oss,snd_wss_lib,snd_trident,snd_ac97_codec
serio_raw 5048 0
snd_timer 19260 4 snd_seq,snd_wss_lib,snd_opl3_lib,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 8092 3 snd_wss_lib,snd_trident,snd_pcm
snd_mpu401 6920 0
snd_util_mem 3220 1 snd_trident
snd_mpu401_uart 6548 4 snd_cs4232,snd_wavefront,snd_trident,snd_mpu401
pcspkr 2196 0
snd_rawmidi 19392 2 snd_wavefront,snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device 6080 4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_opl3_lib,snd_rawmidi
shpchp 31880 0
pci_hotplug 26900 1 shpchp
snd 51460 17 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_cs4232,snd_wavefront,snd_wss_lib,snd_trident,snd_opl3_lib,snd_hwdep,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401,snd_ mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
ns558 4148 0
soundcore 6080 1 snd
gameport 10112 5 snd_trident,analog,ns558
sg 24712 0
evdev 9248 2
thermal 15120 0
processor 39136 1 thermal
fan 4056 0
button 5700 0
battery 9880 0
ac 3832 0
usb_storage 96000 0
ohci_hcd 23172 0
ehci_hcd 35424 0
usbhid 35136 0
usbcore 137232 5 usb_storage,ohci_hcd,ehci_hcd,usbhid
hid 39744 1 usbhid
sr_mod 14596 0
cdrom 33600 1 sr_mod
i2c_sis630 5824 0
sis5513 7288 0
ide_core 96876 1 sis5513
sis_agp 6900 1
sis 5716 2
drm 138240 3 sis
agpgart 29492 2 sis_agp,drm
i2c_core 20648 2 i2c_sis630,drm
sisfb 240008 1 sis
parport_pc 35556 1
lp 8964 0
ppdev 7192 0
parport 30924 3 parport_pc,lp,ppdev
psmouse 54536 0
8390 8692 0
8139too 23576 0
sis900 20180 0
mii 4372 2 8139too,sis900
rtc_cmos 10188 0
rtc_core 16304 1 rtc_cmos
rtc_lib 2324 1 rtc_core
ext3 126556 2
jbd 45512 1 ext3
mbcache 6488 2 ext2,ext3
sd_mod 25072 7
ata_generic 4504 0
pata_sis 9944 5
pata_acpi 3828 0
libata 157036 3 ata_generic,pata_sis,pata_acpi
scsi_mod 100500 5 sg,usb_storage,sr_mod,sd_mod,libata
module array from rc.conf
MODULES=(sis900 8139too !3c59x !winbond-840 !ne2k-pci 8390 psmouse parport ppdev lp parport_pc mii sis agpgart drm sis-agp sis5513 i2c-sis630 sr_mod cdrom hid usbhid ohci_hcd usb_storage snd_seq_oss snd_cs4232 snd_wavefront snd_wss_lib snd_trident snd_opl3_lib snd_hwdep snd_ac97_codec ac97_bus snd_pcm snd_timer snd_page_alloc snd_mpu401 snd_util_mem snd_mpu401_uart !pcspkr snd_rawmidi snd_seq_device snd soundcore)
thx

Thanks! I removed pcspkr already. So I have to check which modules are really dedicated to my audio hardware. I suspect none of the 3 you mention are actually needed. I guess I'll have to use lshwd or such.
Is OSSv4 lighter than ALSA. I've never used it before, and I don't really care about audio quality (sound comes out from crappy monitor speakers...).

My IMessage says my sign in is incorrect, but then I go to the App Store sign out and sign back in and it works perfectly fine. I really need IMessage because I have a flip Phone which is so hard to text on so I like to use IMessage. Somebody please help

My IMessage says my sign in is incorrect, but then I go to the App Store sign out and sign back in and it works perfectly fine. I really need IMessage because I have a flip Phone which is so hard to text on so I like to use IMessage. Somebody please help me;(

Try:
iOS: Troubleshooting FaceTime and iMessage activation

Which fonts are really needed

cleaning up my font folder's I would like to find out which are the necessary fonts needed
to run the system properly?
that information would safe me a lot of time and unexpected crashes in advance!
minimal fonts installation for:
- /System/Library/Fonts
- /Library/Fonts
- /Users/XXXX/Library/Fonts
hope anybody as a link with a listing at hand and excepts this BIG thanks in advance!!!

Font Management in OS X
The link, or one of the links above directs you to my personal web site. While the information is free, it does ask for a contribution. As such, I am required by Apple's rules for these discussions to include the following disclaimer.
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Do I REALLY NEED such a powerful PSU???

Guys,
My problem is on the thread ("Daily Crashing - Total Hardware Shutdown"):
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threadid=48219&sid=
I appreciate all your advice about upgrading from my Nexus NX-3500 PSU .... I had previously written 350W with 18A on the 12V rail .... actually upon closer inspection the specs are 330W with 16A on the 12V rail. Ok, I know this is not powerful enough, but as I said, I'm going to be using this PC for music recording, using very sensitive condenser microphones, and the PSUs recomended (Enermax 465 etc) really seem too loud.... the Enermax, for example, has a *minimum* load noise level of around 39dB(A)! That might not interfere with the needs of a gamer or office worker, but it's really just too loud for use with recording.... once you get that unwanted noise recorded in audio, it's virtually impossible to remove it.
It's been possible to build totally silent pc systems, using this same PSU, with Athlon XP CPUs. I understand now that the A64 (and the MSI board it seems) needs a lot of power, but the figures that have been suggested to me (450W-550W) seem very heavy. Reasons for thinking so:
MESH (http://www.meshcomputers.com) is perhaps the largest UK PC retailer and regularly wins awards for reliability etc etc from all the top UK PC magazines. They allow you to configure an Athlon 64 system with the follwing spec:
* ATX tower
* A64 3000+, 32000+, 34000+ and the A64FX versions
* 2 SATA Hard Drives in Raid
* up to 1GB RAM
* TOP graphics cards (I mean the ones costing hundreds of pounds ... mine is bottom-end and should require a lot less power than these)
* DVDRW
* 2nd Optical Drive
* Floppy
***** PSU 360W *****
Now, they also offer extensive warranties with these systems. My question is, would they offer this much power in a PC, with a full warranty, and be rated at the top of PC retailers in the UK, if their 360W PSU was not sufficient? Now, my PC is LESS POWERFUL than the ones listed above, so why do I need to get a PSU thats so much more powerful? Incidentally, they use the ASUS K8V Deluxe motherboard with the A64 systems ... does this board handle power better than my MSI KT8 NEO?... allowing you to use smaller PSUs?
Furthermore, if you look at MESH's Shuttle-case (v.v.small) versions of the Athlon64 system ... they supply it with a 240W PSU!
Finally, if you look at Sound On Sound magazine (which any of you remotely involved in music production will know) ... this month they did a review of silent PSUs .. and said that owners of 3GHz or faster CPUs, with 2 Hard Drives and 1GB of RAM, would probably be best served with 400W PSUs. The 500W etc PSUs were recommended for dual-cpu systems or those with multiple DSP cards.
I won't be playing games on this machine, or watching movies (which is why I just went for the bottom model GeForce graphics card FX5200 ... it doesn't even have a fan, so it shouldn't take up that much power). A lot of you guys seem to have top-end graphics cards, and 3 or more hard disks, as well as faster CPUs than mine, so you should need more power than me. In light of this, and bearing in mind that I really do need a very quiet PSU ... can you recommend something? Will 400W really not be enough?
Silenx and Seasonic make 400W PSUs with 22A on the 12V rail. Is this not sufficient? The Silenx is supposed to work at 14dB(A) ... load is not specified.
Please advise ... any comments much appreciated as really need to get this sorted fast.
Fizz
*******************************

Quote
Originally posted by Exion
Thanks for the quick reply Jocko. I guess I got to take out the goodies for now, but I only have a Radeon X800 Pro video card so I have to put that in... If I do run all those stuff on my current power supply will it damage and short-circuit/fry my system components? One more thing, there are several Enermax power supply with the model number EG465P that provide +12V@33A and they are confusing to know the difference. Let me list them and give the link.
460W
Model#: EG465P-VE(FM)
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-103-443&depa=0
470W
Model#: EG475P-VE-SFMA (This one has +12V@16A weird)
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-103-446&depa=0
460W
Model#: EG465P-VE(FC) (has EMI reduction but the recent review was bad)
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-103-440&depa=0
460W
Model#: EG465P-VE 24P
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-103-488&depa=0
431W
Model#: EG465P-VE(FCA) Out of stock
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-103-419&depa=0
Some reviews say there was not enough +12V power leads. Even when they purchased a Y-Splitter, the Enermax power supply did not have enough power, which does not sound so good for me. Besides the color, what is the difference between the VE(FM), VE-SFMA, VE(FC), VE 24P, VE(FCA)??? I went to Enermax's website and looked under power supplies and I could not find anything on those EG465P models (must be old models). Which EG465P power supply do you have Jocko? And which one do you recommend from the list above? Thanks.
Hi Exion,
Yes the first one looks OK, as long as it has a 4 pin square connector for Mobo, and an independant 4 pin Molex for Vid card. Don't see connectors listed.
The second one is the one that SAB had I think, the 12v rail is split into 2 rails, not so good. The others, if its a bad review,leave it.
As long as its at least a 465 enermax with 33amps on the 12v, a square 4 pin connector, and an independant line for vid card ( I think latest ones may have 2 independant 12v lines) then you can't go wrong.
cheers
jocko

Want to use Time Machine, what do I need to do?

Looking to free up space on my computer, heard about Time Machine, but, have no clue what it is or how to use it. Do I really need to use it?

Time Machine makes incremental (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly) backups of your internal drive to an external drive. It should not be viewed as a way of saving space on your internal drive, but should be considered part of any backup scheme.
If you're running out of space on your internal drive I would recommend either getting an external drive on which to store data or upgrading your internal drive to a higher-capacity drive. I do recommend getting an external drive of at least 2-3x the size of your internal drive for a Time Machine backup, as well as an external drive using a 'clone' of your internal drive as additional backup.
While all of this (putting in a larger-capacity internal drive, investing in two external drive - one for a Time Machine backup and one for a clone) might sound expensive, drive prices have come down tremendously in the past couple of years and it's a measure of how important your data is to you: hard drives fail and it's best to have at least two backup schemes in place - I prefer Time Machine backups as well as clones. All my drives will never fail at once.
Good luck,
Clinton

Creating Recover Disc - HP Pavilion 17 - I'm a novice at this and really need support

I downloaded information and directions for doing this procedure from the HP website. I have a couple of questions to clarify some of my concerns.
1. Using dvd - is the writable dvd the same one you would use for burning videos or different?
2. I just now learned that this procedure should have been done right after I purchased the computer. The only information I have on my PC are my emails. I have not bought any software yet. Just have the factory installed stuff. My question regarding this is in the article that states it will not save all software but you can save software to a system image using windows 8 to crate a system image. I have instructions to do that but ned opions on whether I shuld just do it for only my files emails) or do it for drivers, windows, system settings programs files: . It also states the following which is very confusing to me that HP recovery restores the software image to its original condition. Any software that was installed later is removed when you perform an HP recovery. Does this mean if I do the HP recoveering first that I will lose my emails as well as the favorites bar that I have created for ease of connecting to important websites without typing in the address. It was created for me and is installed with my verizon internet provider screen.
3. I have an ALERT stating that windows 8 update hangs at 12% 13% 14% or 15%. This alert appeared on the HP Product detection/HP warranty results website and also another website that I don't remeber. What does this mean? I have no idea if I'm suppose to do something.
I really need your help and opinions on how I should proceed on the above problems.
Lynn
I have instructions to do that but need opinions on whether I should just do it for only my files (emails) or do it to cover the drives, windows, system settings, programs and files? It
This question was solved.
View Solution.

joseysgirl wrote:
Thank you so much for your quick reply. I do have some questions/comments to verify that I understand your responses.
1. DVD's - I understand that I should use the best discs that will work in my DVD, such as Verbatim, Sony, etc.
In addition to that is there any other preferences for the actual DVD, such as for using on a 64-bit process that I have on my notebook, speed, other important features? No, just get good quality DVD +R or -R discs. Sony usually works well for me.
2. I unerstand that the actual creation of the recovery disc will in no way affect my added software and created documents such as my e-mails, and favorites bar, etc, that it only covers the factory installed items..Correct. Using the discs to restore/reinstall on the laptop puts it back to out of box state.With this procedure many people use a regular backup of files to put back on the machine after a factory Recovery.An external USB Hard drive is very nice for this,but backups can also be done on DVDs.
3. Creating a system image - am I correct in assuming this process does not duplicate any of the items in the created recover discs? Also, as you add more info such as software, douments, etc. to your computer requires another system image creation. It duplicates items in Recovery such as Windows,drivers & software- but is also an exact copy of the hard drive with your added files, newly installed programs, photos,etc. All of your personal files + the files in Recovery Discs are in an Image. Opposite effect of restoring with Recovery Discs-this process restores laptop with original Windows,software & drivers plus your added files. And yes- additional Images would be needed to keep an up to date image.
4. USB Flash drive - I have no idea what this is but I have instructions for using this procedure for creating recovery image to a use flash drive and that it is a faster process than using DVD's. Is the USB flash ddrive something that I have to purchase, is it expensive and does my PC have the capability of using this process? Your laptop has capabilty to make Recovery on USB- but actually this process is giving owners more trouble than DVDs. Many times resulting in buying several flash drives before finding one that works. My advice-stck with DVDs.
Thanks for your help.
Here is the complete info on my notebook.
HP Pavilion 17-e040us
******Clicking the Thumbs-Up button is a way to say -Thanks!.******
**Click Accept as Solution on a Reply that solves your issue to help others**

Do I really need Blu-Ray?

We recently came into this century by replacing our old 27" CRT with a nice new Samsung 42" plasma (PN42C450). We upgraded our cable to HD and have the set mounted on the wall and are very happy with our update, We also have an old VCR (have several older family tapes) and an older Toshiba DVD player.
I have played several DVD's with our player connected thru component connection. Admittedly they do look nicer on the new set than the old one. I understand that the upconversion offered in the newer DVD players will make them look even better. I know our set is 720P, but am also aware that it will display 1080i (I know because I have seen it do it in the store).
I notice that many of the newer Blu-Ray players also offer wifi connection built-in. We do have a wireless N network in the house. The connection sounds intriguing to me, but if it is only for netflix and streaming movies it would be of limited use to us. Blockbuster is just around he corner, and of course the cable company offers PPV movies on demand. On the other hand, if it would allow it to connect to our computers for reviewing photos, etc, then it might have a good use.
Back to my original question, do I really need a Blu-Ray? We do not own any blu-ray disks, and certainly don't need 3D. Will the current lot of DVD upconverting machines allow me to display in 1080i? I have been looking also at the Samsung model 6500 as a possible purchase (because of attractive pricing) and notice that it will also upconvert my DVD's and has built in wifi.
Looking for opinions from those of you with more knowledge than I. Thanks.

Blu-ray is definitely worth the upgrade. A few points to consider:
Blu-ray will upscale your DVD's to 720p or 1080i. If you ever get a 1080p TV, it will upscale to that also.
Supports HDMI which provide you better sound and picture quality.
Plays your current DVD's
Most Blu-ray discs are region free so can easily import from UK, Japan, etc.
Many new release Blu-rays also include a DVD copy of the movie for only a couple of bucks more.
Many Blu-ray players are network connected, and like you mentioned offer streaming from Netflix, as well as Hulu, Vudu, and some even have Apps for Facebook, Twitter, and can connect to your home media network for music, video and picture streaming.
Companies push firmware updates to Blu-ray players to keep up with technology...i.e I've had support for 3D pushed to 2 of mine.
One other note; you mentioned 1080i a couple of times. 720p is generally going to provide you with a better picture quality than 1080i will. My advice would be to not switch to 1080i regardless of whether you move to Bluray or not.
I personally have 4 Blu-ray players in my household and wouldn't have it any other way.

I really need iCloud to work with 10.6

I guess i am yet another Apple user for over 20 years being loyal to the products and purchased quite a lot of them including several rounds of Laptops and every iPhone out there. Now i was also using my .mac account with later turned into mobileme...
...and now turned into iCould.
I don't mind change though, but i really need my data to be snyced on all my machines including my MacBookPro which runs on 10.6.8. This is my main machine, and a lot of software runs on it every day which cannot run on Lion, plus that this machine would face sercious performance issues with Lion, my printer would not work anymore because there are no drivers for a KonikaMinolta 2340 DL, so there are a lot of issues that require this MacBookPro to stay with Snow Leopard, aonther OS that i purchased. I also purchased a MacBook Air 11' with Lion, another investment, and all works together smoothly, why now taking away the syncing with Snow Leopard?
So please Apple, don't make me throw away half of my office and face serious new investments that i cannot effort as of yet to get this to work.
When will iCloud be available for 10.6?
You have told us how easy it is to switch rom PC to Mac since it all runs without any problems and driver hazzle.
Is this still the case?
I'd say then you ought to stick with that promise to ensure that not only new users will be to get onboard, but the loyal once to stay with it too.
Please let me knonw when you have a solution!
Thanks

This is a user-to-user forum: you're not addressing Apple here.
You can set up Mail manually in Snow Leopard to access iCloud email; it's a slight fudge because the 'wizard' will attempt to connect you to MobileMe as soon as you enter an @me.com address. The process, which includes a workaround for this, is described here:
http://www.wilmut.webspace.virginmedia.com/notes/icloudmail.html
You may be able to sync your calendars to iCloud by means of an unsupported hack, but you cannot sync Contacts or Bookmarks and iCloud's other facilities will not work. This page outlines the situation when you migrate to iCloud, including a link to the calendar hack:
http://www.wilmut.webspace.virginmedia.com/notes/icloudSL.html
There is no suggestion whatever that Apple will update Snow Leopard to allow any more access to iCloud than that.

Which machine do i really need?

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