really basic beginner question

[jojo]

Hi,

I purchased a Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop yesterday online.
When it came to operating systems, my choices were
XP home (standard) or XP professional (for an additional $71.00)

I will be using this laptop at home and at the office (really old computers
at the office)
I want to be able to use the internet at home, at a hotel, in a starbucks,
ect.
I want to plug into my network at the office (I am the IT person at the
office, so no problem with permissions and such)

In short, I spent the extra $71.00 for XP pro. Was this money well spent?

I also want to ask some advice. Is there a place on the web for real
beginners like me to learn about wireless
and such? I have never used it before. (When I say I am my companies IT, we
have an old dell poweredge 1300 server running NT4 and SBS backoffice. It is
a small company with less than 10 computers and I run v\everything on a wing
and a prayer)



Thanks for your input.

jojo

 

[Chuck]

Hi,

I purchased a Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop yesterday online.
When it came to operating systems, my choices were
XP home (standard) or XP professional (for an additional $71.00)

I will be using this laptop at home and at the office (really old computers
at the office)
I want to be able to use the internet at home, at a hotel, in a starbucks,
ect.
I want to plug into my network at the office (I am the IT person at the
office, so no problem with permissions and such)

In short, I spent the extra $71.00 for XP pro. Was this money well spent?

I also want to ask some advice. Is there a place on the web for real
beginners like me to learn about wireless
and such? I have never used it before. (When I say I am my companies IT, we
have an old dell poweredge 1300 server running NT4 and SBS backoffice. It is
a small company with less than 10 computers and I run v\everything on a wing
and a prayer)



Thanks for your input.

jojo

Jojo,

IMHO, if you're going to use your computer at the office, and while traveling,
$71 additional for XP Pro is money well spent.
<http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/evaluation/compare.mspx>

For advice on wireless issues, try newsgroups alt.internet.wireless and
microsoft.public.windows.networking.wireless. Read the discussions there -
after a while, you can identify the reliable posters, and see what they advise.

Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[jojo]

thanks chuck!
I'm learning!
jojo