I’m glad to finally be able to ‘legitimately’ post on this section of the board, since I have now officially received an offer of admission. Read my related post here .
My question relates to the use of a PC and/or laptop for school work.
The school I will be attending is a little over one hour’s drive from home. I will be getting a small appartment and living/eating/sleeping/st udying there during the week. I plan to commute home most weekends. So, I will have duplicate ‘office spaces’, one at home, one near the university.
At home I have an elaborate PC with a dual-monitor setup without which I simply could not live (remnants of a computer programmer are detectable in my setup!). I can’t immagine my studying quarters not having a similar ‘elaborate PC’.
My question becomes: What do you as a medical student find best suits your computing needs? Do you use a laptop? If you use a laptop, do you also use a conventional keyboard/monitor? How many rather use a tablet PC to scribble notes with? Do you carry & use a laptop during classes? Do you find that viewing lecturers’ powerpoint presentations during lectures on your laptop helps your learning?
I’ll be investing maybe up to 1500-2000$ for my computing needs, and your experience will deffinitely guide me!
Ron
Hi Ron,
First of all congratulations! You’re in, dude! The fruits of much hard work are about to be harvested.
I’m a programmer, too, with a 1.5 terabyte linux system at home (I’d set up a dual head if I had enough room on my desk).
I just bought a Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop for $680, including a 120 gig hard disk, wifi, a six hour battery, an AMD dual core, a dvd burner, and a gig of ram, and I’m running Ubuntu Linux on it. I can’t imagine needing much more power than this. An extra thousand might have gotten me a lighter unit. I recommend saving your bucks and getting something inexpensive, unless the weight is a big factor, or you like Macs. I’ve heard some people rave about tablet laptops but I fail to see what the fuss is about; paper is for scribbling and laptops are for typing.
Anyway, best of luck!
I love my new Tablet PC and find Onenote really cool for me, I’ve been a big computer Guy since 1980 ( yeah I programed Basic LOL)
BTW congrats!!
My whole class and all those after us…were given laptops (well, not given…) and I have used it a lot! could not have imagined my first two years w/o the laptop. It is so nice to have the ppts there and you can add or take away notes as needed…
I too, have to echo the laptop sentiment. I’ve two…with my latest acquisition being the tablet PC by gateway. I also have the onenote software package and it makes being organized even easier.
Thanks for your comments.
DRFP- you programmed in Basic? Oh well, I programmed in Cobol and Fortran! How’s THAT for old technology!!
I’ll be shoping around for a tablet PC. As for OneNote, I’m not sure. My university uses Lotus Domino for coordinating activities. From what I gather so far, Lotus Domino resembles Outlook in functionality, and offers a web based interface.
I’m wondering if OneNote would complement LotusDomino, or be an alternative to it.
Geeze, I’m anxious to get this logistics stuff out of my way - but I do want to choose my tool box carefully, because I know my productivity will depend on it!
Ron
When I was in med school - and still do this currently - I employ a laptop for mobility at work, and back then, in school. And, had my desktop for the home office. Sometimes trasnferring stuff b/t them was inconvenient, but that was prior to investing in broadband.
Had I had it all to do over & knew then what I know now, I would have purchased a top-notch laptop + docking station/lg monitor & full-size keybaord. This method precludes tranferring or duplication of resources while maintaining mobility, flexibility & all the nicities of having a lg monitor/FS keyboard at home.
Food for thought…
I used my laptop for the first 2 years of classes. I bought a docking station to dock with when I was at home. I used my laptop for each class since all of our lectures are power points. I always followed along in class with my laptop.
I had a Dell L400, which was very small and lightweight (my classmates like to tease me about the size), but it was easy to carry around. I also like the Dell 600Latitude. I am partial to Dell. I use my laptop still, but have been also using my desktop since I started rotations. I like the bigger screen I have with my desktop.
Amy B
- Presse Said:
DRFP- you programmed in Basic? Oh well, I programmed in Cobol and Fortran! How's THAT for old technology!!
I'll be shoping around for a tablet PC. As for OneNote, I'm not sure. My university uses Lotus Domino for coordinating activities. From what I gather so far, Lotus Domino resembles Outlook in functionality, and offers a web based interface.
I'm wondering if OneNote would complement LotusDomino, or be an alternative to it.
Geeze, I'm anxious to get this logistics stuff out of my way - but I do want to choose my tool box carefully, because I know my productivity will depend on it!
Ron
I'm not sure about Lotus and one note ( do a google on it) but one note on Tablet allows you to write notes by hand and have them sent to word, really cool, you can draw diagrams anywhere and write anywhere, cut and paste anywhere I find it really refreshing to use.
Also there is free stuff for it from Microsoft like virtual Index cards ( I have made sets for review for step one )
Agreed DRFP
I’ve researched more and here’s a snapshot of what I expect to be getting:
- Lenovo X61t Tablet-PC
- (a 2nd alternative would have been the Fujitsu T4220)
- Docking station, which includes optical disc
- Windows Vista for Tablet PC, OneNote
- 2nd Monitor, Kb, mouse
- price estimate: 1800$
- delivery appears to be extreemely long at 4-6 weeks! Bummer, I was hoping to get used to the interface throughout the course of the summer.
I found great information at www.tabletpcreview.com
The site also has a forum section which is a good place to post questions on configuration choices with regards to the Tablet-PC.
Ron
You guys sure about those tablets? There isn’t anyone I know here at work who still has theirs. When they first came out every scientists, tech, aa…heck even one of the janitors carried one. Now they’re basically paperweights.
Has technology worked out any of the bugs? Everyone I’ve talked to said that it promised a lot but failed to deliver.
I only became exposed to tablet-pcs in the academic world last year. All reactions (in this last year) that I’ve witnessed are quite positive, actually.
Crooz, is the feedback of tablet users you are talking about more than a year or two old?
If recent buyers of tablet-pcs have negative comments on them, I would sure like to know now, before I go out and buy one!!
Ron
Uh I think you are talking about different environments, in the Hospitals, At least some, EMR’s are now standard and a lot are done on tablets some on desk top computer ( same programs), I used one in Homecare and Hospice, really I know of many physicians who use them. They also use Palm and Pocket PC for EMR’s so really they are used quite a lot, Mine is a Tablet PC not a Tablet so it is a regular Notebook you can also write on. It works quite well and with a Centrino 1.5 with 768 ram works quite well, I love it.
I think it depends on the processor power and after you get a Centrino and now the current ones the technology has caught up to what we need for fast good working systems
I work in research so I’m in a different environment. I’m also talking about when the tablet’s first came out. They were the rave for the first 3 months but now they are paper weights. Now everyone has 12" Macbooks. Obviously the kinks have been worked out. Scientists are fickle and if something doesn’t work right away then it’s out with the new and in with the tried and true. 
At my PC clinic they do use them so in a medical setting I’m sure they are the norm. So take my comments with a huge grain of salt. I’ll say this…if going into research do not buy one. 