As I mentioned in my last article, there are three kinds of computer users.

One is the serious gamer. Ironically, the gamer needs a high-end computer. The faster the computer, the smoother the graphics on the screen appear. Since there can be so much detail in the graphics of games, a lot of math is needed to compute the positions of all the objects.

The next group are the technical people who use computers to actually compute. For example, in my world of hardware design, we use simulation to see of the hardware will work before we even build it. The faster the computer, the more we can simulate, so we get the fastest we can.

Then there’s the rest of us. What do we do with computers? Mainly, we email, surf the Internet, do some business-type things like use Word and PowerPoint. This is the other half of the gamer irony. We don’t need fast. We don’t need the best. We have to be strong and have the courage to resist the temptation to buy faster than our neighbors or our friends. We should take pride that we saved $1000 by buying only what we need.

Since most of us don’t know what we are doing, the safest thing to do is to walk into a big store, and buy the lowest-end computer you can. Check the closeouts. But, spring for the biggest monitor you can. 19″ or 17″ LCD. This is the part of the computer you will be using the most. Just like a good lens can make a cheap camera take great shots, a good monitor will make a cheap computer feel new.

If you know someone who can help you, or you have the stomach, buy one used or from eBay.

At home, I have 6 computers. 1.5 computers per person. Most of them are hand-me-downs, and no one (except me) is complaining about their computer. How we use them pretty much covers how most people, except hardcore gamers, use computers.

I have the big computer. When I say “big”, I mean “small”. I have a 2.6GHz HP notebook with 60GB drive and 512MB of memory. Bought it last year for $1300. The best part is that the display is 1400×1050 so I can see a lot of stuff. I write software and design hardware for a living, so I need fast. I love the screen. But I would not necessarily recommend this particular laptop.

My 15-year-old son has a new-ish Dell I bought new last year for $550. It came with a 40GB disk, a 17-inch monitor, 256MB of memory, and a printer/scanner. Oh, and not that it matters much, but it runs at 1.8GHz. You can buy that same system will slightly more Stuff and it would run at 2.6GHz. He plays online games, does his instant messaging with his little friends and types his homework on it. What is unfortunate is that the profit margin for low-end computers are so small, that instead of selling the same computer this year for $400, companies will keep the technology up-to-date and keep the bottom end at $500.

My 14-year-old daughter has a old hand-me-down 600MHz laptop. 20GB of disk space, 256MB of memory and a 1024×768 screen. She uses it for instant messaging, homework, and she love adding fonts to it add flourishes to her papers. although it’s a laptop, she never actually takes it anywhere; it’s always in her room. She doesn’t use any extra disk space since she doesn’t save big files like MP3 music. So, 20MB is more than enough disk space.

My wife has a Really Old 166MHz Dell Latitude with 72MB of memory, 2GB of disk space and a 800×600 screen. The battery is dead, so it always needs to be plugged in. It still runs Win95 and I don’t dare upgrade it to Win98. Yet, she can still surf the Internet, read her email, and write her book, and do all of it in the living room while watching TV. I don’t have the heart to toss it into the trash and spend $200 on a laptop 5 times faster on eBay.

I have a desktop computer that I built myself. It runs at 1.6GHz. I have about 200GB of disks connected to it. It has an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) so it will stay up. This runs my company and also streams music for the Internet radio station I’m involved with.

Finally, the computer I bought in 1994: a 166MHz computer with a whopping 48MB of memory, and a 1GHz disk. The printer is connected to this one, as is a nice Sony monitor. We use it for surfing the Internet when we are downstairs, or when family comes to visit. It runs Windows 98 and is Good Enough for email and Internet.

So, you see my point? Sure, bigger is better, but buying an expensive computer is like deciding whether to use a hammer or a sledgehammer to push in a thumbtack. You just need to buy the thumbtack. (I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I hope you see my point.)