Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with laptops

Help me to build the ultimate IT Help Desk for a 1:1 Laptop program at a K-12 private school.

mrbarrett.com — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:42:58 -0800

Help me to build the ultimate IT Help Desk for a 1:1 Laptop program at a K-12 private school. We're doing a 1:1 laptop program for Fall 2010. We'll be using the new MacBooks just released by Apple. Every student from 4th-12th grade will receive one.

And so we're now planning the building of a "Tech Center" at our Middle School and Upper School campuses. Inside each of these "Tech Centers" will be a manned IT Help Desk where students can come for hardware & software problems. It will be manned from 8am - 5pm every day.

I have quite a bit of space to work with--a room about 50 feet long by 14feet wide. We'll be purchasing all new furniture, partitions, storage cabinets, shelving, etc.

What features define the best IT Help Desks you've seen? What works? What doesn't work? How have you handled intake, repair, storage, pickup logistics? If you could build the ultimate IT Help Desk, what would it look like?

Help me find a cheap computer please.

kensington314 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:07:37 -0800

What is the best online deal for a laptop in the range of $300 to $500? This seems to change month-to-month, so I have not relied on earlier posts. I need a new computer for the most basic functions. I send email, I use my computer as part of my stereo system, and I occasionally watch DVDs or The Daily Show online. I like the oortability of a laptop.

I plan to replace the Mac that is on its last legs right now, but it might take me a year to save up for it. I want something I can get a couple years out of. I know Compaq, Acer, Toshiba, and others regularly post in my target range.

Can anyone vouch for these or any cheap laptop? Is there a good bargain basement website you can suggest?

Thanks

Why does my laptop think I'm pushing ctrl?

Pope Guilty — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:50:34 -0800

My Inspiron 1545 thinks I'm pressing ctrl and I don't know why. I picked up a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop awhile back, and the only problem I've had with it is that it frequently activates the ctrl key regardless of whether or not I'm actually pressing it- or even have my hands on the keyboard! Sometimes this is just annoying, like randomly crouching in an FPS or tab-targeting grabbing friends instead of enemies in WoW, but if I type a "w" while it thinks I'm pressing ctrl, I lose the Firefox tab I was working in! If I hit tab in Firefox, I frequently go to the next tab instead of the next field. Perhaps most bafflingly, it is only ctrl that this happens with; it never randomly types another character, nor does it ever wrongly activate shift or alt or any other key.

So far, I've talked to Dell about it; they sent me a replacement keyboard, but this did not resolve the problem. Googling indicates that many people are having this problem, but nobody seems to have any solutions (besides one suggestion, bizarrely, to reduce trackpad sensitivity, which did nothing).

Anyone out there know what's going on or have any ideas?

Camera, look the other way!

It's Austin, TX! — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:59:29 -0800

Is there some sort of adapter, like a small prism that I could clip on my laptop's built-in webcam so that I can record video behind the laptop (in front of me) of what I am looking at? I have a 1.3M pixel cam built into the LCD panel of my Lenovo Y430 laptop.
What I want to do is be in class taking notes but have my webcam recording the teacher's lecture.
I've searched for prism adapters but I dont see anything. It would be something along the lines of this, but kinda doing the opposite I guess.
Or, any easy home made solutions?

What's wrong with this laptop?

kbanas — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:01:59 -0800

Is my girlfriend's new Dell laptop possessed by some sort of demonic entity? Ok, so let me preface this by saying I'm an IT guy. I do not profess to be a know-it-all, but I do computer support for a living, and I'd like to think that as far as this problem is concerned, I've done my due diligence.

So, last month my girlfriend ordered a new Dell XPS M1530 laptop. As soon as it came in, I do what I usually do with Dell laptops - I blew out the existing partition and installed a copy of Vista Enterprise x64 and reinstalled all the device drivers, etc, etc.

Periodically since that time my girlfriend has complained about weird power management issues - the machine not waking up, not going into standby, things like that. For the most part, and this is totally my bad, I blamed this on "user error" - mainly, that she was undoubtedly doing something wrong. This is a bad habit you fall into sometimes when you deal with computer support calls all day.

However, over the last several days things have escalated, and I am seriously perplexed by this machine - and getting ready to throw it out the window.

Here's the deal....

IT TURNS ON BY ITSELF.

I have now witnessed this on more than one occasion. I initiate a shut down. Vista says, "Shutting Down!" The screen goes black. A moment later, the machine shuts off. It really does. There is that distinct computer "humm" that ceases existence.

I shut the lid, and set the computer on the table. Anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes later, I hear the distinctive Vista start-up sound.

I walk over to the laptop and open the lid and, yessir, it's up and running and at the login screen. It's also incredibly hot, because the screen has apparently been on while it has been shut.

I have also seen it do this with the lid not closed. I have shut down the machine and, while staring at the screen seen it spontaneously return to life.

As an aside, this also sometimes happens when the machine goes into standby. I have checked the power management settings. They explicitly state that when the lid is closed, the machine should enter standby mode.

Sometimes it does.

And sometimes, moments after shutting the lid, again the Vista "start-up" sound is heard, and if you open the lid the machine has rebooted.

WHAT THE HELL.

I have done several things to attempt to resolve this issue. I have updated the BIOS to the latest release. I have gone into the BIOS to ensure that there is no "wake on LAN" or other hardware dependent wake-up mechanism that could be causing the machine to want to start. I have also disabled the "WiFi Catcher" functionality.

I have updated all the device drivers to their latest versions as posted by Dell.

I have removed the battery and set it aside for awhile, thinking maybe that would do something.

I read somewhere that sometimes the fingerprint scanner that comes with the M1530 can go a little "wonky" - so I disabled the fingerprinter scanner co-processor via Device Manager and have uninstalled all related software.

And yet, still, it happens. And I am about to lose my mind.

Any ideas?

Ubu-wha?

CwgrlUp — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:05:47 -0800

What kind of netbook should I get? I am looking at getting a netbook. It will be used primarily to surf the web. I want it light and fast, meaning performance-wise. Not too particular about the battery life or how small the keyboard is.

Inexpensive is best of course, but I know the less expensive models have Ubuntu. I've never touched anything but DOS and Windows, so that worries me a bit. How hard is Ubuntu to work with? I would probably only be installing Firefox. I've never seen Ubuntu and wouldn't know where to start.

So, I'm looking for netbook recommendations and whether I should not worry and whether I'd better just pay a little more for a Windows machine since I have no Linux experience. If I do get Ubuntu, where should I go to start learning how to use it?

One more: at the moment I only have dsl pulling down 1.5 mbs. Should I worry about upgrading from 512 mbs of memory in a low-end netbook or will my relatively slow internet connection make that futile? Thanks.

How much energy does my old laptop use?

clearlynuts — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 11:24:55 -0800

How much energy does my old laptop use? I have an old Compaq Presario 17XL460 laptop. It's stock with no improvements.

I need a place to set up some software development services (source code control, issue management, etc.) to be available all the time. They would run on a Linux distro. I have this old laptop sitting around doing nothing, but I won't necessarily use it if it's going to suck down a lot of energy. In fact, if it's a large amount of energy, I'd look into a hosted source code solution.

How much energy would a laptop this old use by being on all the time? How does this compare to what today's desktops and notebooks use?

Need laptop recommendation

spicynuts — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:10:36 -0800

I get to spec out a new laptop for my new job. I've never had to do that before so I need advice on what manufacturer/model I should be looking at. Requirements inside. I will need something fast, reliable, with a ton of memory and able to handle a lot of heavy apps like Visio, MS Project, Adobe Creative Suite, Office, etc without draggin ass. This is a laptop for a Director level position managing web development. I will not be DOING web development. It would be nice if as a bonus I got some sweet media capability too. PC only - I have a Mac already.

Anyway - I'd like a 16-17' screen minimum, 320BG hard drive, 2 or 3 GB RAM, I don't want to wait an hour for the thing to start up, I want a keyboard built for normal man hands, excellent color repro and resolution, I don't want a ton of bloatware, I'll be running Windows, decent battery life would be nice. Graphics card does not need to be orgasmic but wouldn't hurt to have a nice one.

I was thinking one of the new Vaio AWs with the 18" screens. Never had a Vaio though.

Anyone have thoughts? I will be buying through NewEgg most likely.

I can't hear anything!

pinto — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:53:41 -0800

Quicktime/Web Audio Problems. Some quicktime video I produced is having volume issues--but only on certain computers with small speakers. What gives? When played back on the internal speakers of a g5 and a white macbook, sound is basically non-existent. It sounds fine on every other computer tested, including my macbook pro (internal speakers and powered speakers), a dell pc laptop (internal speakers), etc etc.

The file is embedded here (having these problems on several of the videos in the series):
http://www.skyscraper.org/PROGRAMS/VERTICAL_DENSITY/vertical_density_wright.php

I also uploaded it to veoh and did a flash conversion, which had no effect.

My only guess is that the EQ is such that frequencies that can travel through the internal speakers on those machines are not present, and the lower frequencies, which other speakers play fine, can't be heard.

I'm at wits end, after doing multiple gain operations and EQing.

Help me avoid weekly tech support calls.

killjoy — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:18:55 -0800

I have two G4 PowerBooks that I've wiped, packed with RAM and installed Leopard on. Now how do I make them as parent-friendly as possible? So far I have:
- installed basic apps like FF, VLC, Word, Toast, Quicksilver
- disabled Spaces
- put regularly visited sites in the FF bookmark bar
- placed important apps and folders in the dock and enabled parental controls to lock it
- setup ichat for future troubleshooting adventures

Are there any other apps/fixes that might be helpful to my smart but not very tech-savvy parents? Any Firefox add-ons that might come in handy?

Switching. Do I want a Macbook or Macbook Pro?

catatethebird — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:47:12 -0800

What will best suit my needs: a Macbook, or a Macbook pro? (I know there are many similar questions on here already, but I want info for the most current systems, and for how I will use it.)

I am switching from a PC, this will be my first Mac. I play games only occasionally, but I usually have a browser (Opera) open with about 15-20 tabs (yeah, ADD) and several other applications, such as YM or AIM, Word, iTunes, Last.FM, perhaps Photoshop, etc. So, no really heavy-duty music or photo editing, but I like to have a lot going on at once. I will be taking it to school with me most days, so I want it to be sturdy (more worried about internal durability than cosmetics.) Size is not so important to me compared with speed/power.
Is there a significant difference between a 2.4 GHz and 2.5 or -6 GHz processor?
I’m considering a refurb. Anything to watch out for?
Know of any secret deals I could get? (I am a student.)
What else do I need to know?

Is there any health risk from sleeping with a laptop?

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:00:39 -0800

Is there any health risk from sleeping with a laptop? In addition to my 9-5 job, I freelance from home very frequently. I end up working into the wee hours almost every night.

Usually, I'll be working on my laptop in bed. More often than not, I end up zonking out at some point and wake up with the laptop next to my head.

Are there any health risks from doing this? This has been going on for years now. I don't want to give myself brain cancer!

What's a "decent" lock for a 13" MacBook?

vertigo25 — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:19:56 -0800

What's a "decent" lock for a 13" MacBook under around $20.00? I just bought a nice little refurbed 13" MacBook, and am in love with it. The only problem is, that if I go to the local coffee house with it and my daughter, I'm bound to have to accompany her to the potty. Last night that meant taking the laptop with us. Which meant losing my internet connection (no wifi in the potty, apparently). Which meant the stuff I was downloading got al screwed up for awhile. Granted, it's a small price to pay for keeping both kid and computer in view.

I've spent a few days researching notebook locks, and have come to realize that they are only a deterrent to thieves of opportunity. Anyone who regularly boosts laptops is going to be able to get through just about any lock you put on the thing in one way or another.

I've also come to realize that a great many of the locks out there that don't *completely* suck, don't fit properly on MacBooks. Reviews often complain of warping of the case or just out and out incompatibility.

Taking all of this into account, I've decide that I don't want to spend more than, say $20; I don't particularly want to use a keyed (especially the round keys) lock as they seem to be a little too easily picked; and I want to avoid certain combo models because they break randomly and set their combination to something other than what the user originally set.

I do, eventually plan on buying and setting up Undercover (http://www.orbicule.com/undercover/), but I don't see it a s an actual deterrent.

So... given all of this, what's my best option, here? I turn to you, Ask MeFi. You're my only help.

What's the best portable cable management solution?

skunkspinner — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:29:12 -0800

My laptop bag is a rat's nest of headphones, power cables, USB cables and ethernet cables. I don't have 10 minutes to spend every morning and night wrapping each cable into a nice little package and then securing velcro. Are there any laptop bags or cable management solutions that (1) organize A LOT of cables and (2) allow me to quickly pack and unpack my laptop and cables?

Best computer buying/selling strategy?

moedym — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:59:33 -0800

What's the best strategy for buying new laptops and selling old ones? I usually buy a new computer once every five years or so and then sell my old one. Say I spend $3000 for a new one and sell the old one for $300. Would I be better off buying a new one every year and selling the old one each year? In other words, would I get more for the old one that it would make up for the depreciation in waiting five years? For my purposes, I'm talking about MacBook Pros probably.

I'm guessing that I wouldn't come out ahead, but what would the premium be per year to always have a (relatively) new laptop vs an old one most of the time.

To fully explain: which is better and why:

1: Buy new laptop for $3000ish and sell five-year old laptop for $300ish
2: Buy new laptop for $3000ish and sell it a year later for $??? Repeat every year or so. Would I be selling it for $1500? $2000? Less?

ComputerFilter: Where did my option to hibernate go?

thelastpolarbear — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:17:55 -0800

My computer used to have the ability to hibernate and sleep... now it is as if those options never existed. What happened and how do I fix it? I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop, that is getting quite old - it's almost seven. My OS is Windows XP. I have 256 MB of RAM, 19 GB of space on my C: drive, and an Intel Pentium 4 1.6 GHz processor.

I used to have normal power settings - when I brought up the Shut Down menu, I had the option to Log off, Restart, Shut down, Sleep, or Hibernate. Suddenly, the Sleep and Hibernate options have disappeared from the dropdown menu.

I also have a program called Toshiba PowerSaver, where I could set my power settings. The last time I used my computer (about a month ago), I had it set to Sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity, and I think to hibernate after an hour of inactivity. I also had it set to Hibernate when I close the lid.

These days, the only option in the "When I close the lid..." dropdown menu is "No action." The only options under "When I press the power button" are "Turn off" or "No action."

I haven't thrown my computer around. I took it home on the plane with me on break from school, and turned it on only once when I was at home, for a few minutes - there weren't any big events that happened while it was on. I then brought it back to school, and suddenly encountered these problems.

Windows updated yesterday, and I'm not sure what the nature of the update was. I can't tell if these problems were happening before the update or not.

Has anyone ever heard of this happening? It's not a critical problem, but it is becoming extremely irritating to shut down and reboot my computer every time I want to leave for an hour, just because I don't have powersave options.

Low Cost Laptop War!

Happy Dave — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:22:01 -0800

Low-cost, bare-bones, all I wanna do is type - recommend me a low-cost, take-anywhere laptop alternative. Hey Mefites,

I've been thinking about getting a low-cost, portable laptop alternative. I'm a writer by trade, in corporate comms at the moment, and also doing my own stuff, and have both a reasonably recent work Windows laptop and a MacBook at home. I love my MacBook, which I use for the standard home blend of DVD watching, surfing and noodling around with my own projects. I also love Mac software, especially Scrivener, but this is a pretty pricy bit of kit. In fact, looking around the room right now, I believe it's the most expensive thing I own.

Therefore, I'm fairly reluctant to tote it around in my bag and take it out while sitting on the train for my 45 minute commute (each way), and in the many other spots of 'dead time' I have, travelling or waiting around for something.

So I started looking around, and have found a few options. I'd dearly like to get an XO (AKA the OLPC computer) with the Give 1 Get 1 program, but a) I'm not in the US, so can't and b) that teeny kiddy keyboard would make it unusable for sustained typing with my great galumphing adult hands. I've also toyed with getting a Neo or the slightly more featureful Dana (crazily long battery life, single task machines with no distractions), but those little non-backlit screens look like they might suck substantially in the eyestrain department, and here in the UK the basic Neo is nearly £200, which is a bit much for 2Mb of memory and no backlight.

Then there's the new Linux-powered mini-notebooks coming out, things like the Eee, which are in the £130 region (assuming I can order one from abroad), and a bit more advanced.

So, hive mind, what are your thoughts - wait a few months to see what comes up in the mini-Linux-laptop arena? Wait for OLPC to come up with an adult-sized consumer product to bankroll the 3rd world project? Buy a Neo?

ArcGIS on a Mac?

betafilter — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 14:10:28 -0800

GISFilter: Will ArcGIS run smoothly on a bootcamped MacBook? I'm a geography student with a brand new student version of ArcView 9.2. I'm in the market for a laptop. I'm also a Mac nut.

As it turns out, ArcGIS is XP-only. Will I regret buying a MacBook, setting up BootCamp and running the software on the partition? Or am I genuinely better off with a PC for GIS work? What should I be looking for in a laptop?

Budget is around the $1500 mark. Portability takes precedence over screen size. Thanks!

Fujitsu T4220!

aeighty — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 09:50:43 -0800

Where can I take a look at a Fujitsu laptop around Vancouver, BC/Seattle, WA area? Well, it's time to upgrade my laptop and Fujitsu has quite a nice line up.. The only problem is that I've never fondled one. I feel uncomfortable spending so much money on a product I've never played with before. Is there a store or whatever around Vancouver/Seattle area that has these fujitsu laptops in stock that I can play with?

What's the prettiest mid-size laptop?

Jimmie — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:11:12 -0800

What's the prettiest mid-size laptop? I'm a programmer, graphic designer, web developer, and gamer. I've come to the conclusion that no laptop can perform all the tasks I want, and still remain portable. So I'm going for style. I'd like a 15.4' screen laptop, 17' is just too big. I'd also like something in black.

Here are some I've looked at, and my thoughts

Black Macbook -
Pros - Nice keyboard, design
Cons - Only comes in 13', 1 mouse button, Mac...

Sony Vaio -
Pros - Nice keyboard, design
Cons - All the solid black ones are 13' or 17'

Asus U1F -
Pros - Pretty, leather is stylish
Cons - 11'

Asus Lamborghini
VX1 - Awesome style, but has outdated hardware.
VX2 - Black one is textured and therefore ugly :(

I've also looked at the Thinkpads, Dells, and HPs, but I don't think they look as good as the ones mentioned above.

If there's anything I've missed, please let me know. I noticed that there are a lot of manufacturers like BenQ and Gigabyte who's offerings I was unaware of. I'm currently researching the lesser known ones...

How to bend 50 laptops to my will?

robocop is bleeding — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:21:42 -0800

Help me exert dread control of 50 laptops! Well, not really dread control, but control nonetheless.

In my new library, we have 50 laptops that we check out to students so they can wander through stacks and study areas and work via wireless where they like. As the school year progresses and finals/papers season hits, demand for the laptops increase to the point where there's a long queue for them at the circulation desk.

If the past, we tried to enforce a use time limit of two (now stretched to three for the fall) hours through fines. The problem is, students who could afford the fines would just ignore it and keep on typing away. We tried barring students who hoarded laptops from checking them out again for a week, but since many of them only used the laptop in an all day manner once every other week or so, this did little. Attempts to increase the ban period to more than a week were met by wailing and gnashing of teeth and were a non-starter. Plus the circulation system (Innovative) is pretty unforgiving when it comes to late items. It its eyes "five minutes late" and "five hours late" as yielding the same penalty.

Over the summer, use is pretty light, so we let the laptops out all day, no problem. But come the Fall, I'm going to want to limit use in such a way so as to make sure that everyone gets equal access.

What I would like to do is to equip the laptops with some sort of software that would allow me to send messages to the user ("Hey, please return the laptop!" or "Your three hours are almost up!") and should they ignore their time limit, lock their laptop down (with a message, "If you want to save your work, please return the laptop to the circ desk").

I don't want to set a hard counter like in an internet cafe or public library that counts down from three hours then locks because if there's no one waiting to use the laptop, then the patron should be free to keep working without the interruption of bringing stuff down to the circ desk. I'm also not interested in logging keystrokes or chats or anything like that.

Does such software exist? If so, does such software exist that would play nicely with CleanSlate, Fortress, and anti-virus software that we have running on the laptops?

Basically, I'm looking for a good way of enforcing a "You get 3 hours guaranteed with a laptop" policy without driving me, my staff, or my students crazy.

Best way to back up remote users' files?

CrayDrygu — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:28:55 -0800

Corporate IT Folk: What does your company use to ensure its remote users' files are backed up regularly? Not whole remote sites, but individual users, working in the field or out of their homes? I work in the IT department of a company with several salespeople around the country (and even outside it). They work individually, not in remote offices, and rely on their laptops for day-to-day work. Unfortunately, many laptop hard drives have died in the last 12 months, and I can't keep calling DriveSavers.

We actually already have remote backup software -- CA BrightStor Arcserve Backup for Laptops and Desktops. It's done everything from causing laptops to stop booting, to bringing our Internet connection to its knees as updates are sent in. We've been trying to find a replacement, but all my research suggests it's the "best in breed" solution. Most of the competition has been eliminated by one of the following deal-breakers:

Must not require a VPN connection, or (therefore) mounting a drive in Windows.

Must not place arbitrary restrictions on files that can be backed up. (No 255-character limit on file and path names, or ridiculous things like "cannot back up files with an apostrophe in the name". And yes, I've seen that one, IIRC it was Tivoli over WebDAV.)

Should send only the parts of files that have changed (deltas), rather than the entire changed file.

Must not require user interaction to start or send a backup. (Given the choice, our users will delay indefinitely.)

So, what do you use for your company, and how do you like it? Do you use the ridiculously-abbreviated CABABLD without the problems I'm running into? Or something else entirely?

HP PAvillion ISSUES***LOCKED OUT

eve28 — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 13:28:27 -0800

My HP Pavillion dv4000 is not allowing me to log into the computer. It did this once before saying i lost my password and i had to have my ex do some trickery and it was fine. Now it is doing it all over again. This time I did not have a password..it has just locked me out completely. I have tried putting in the recovery disk and system restore and stuff, but it is still asking for a password. The thing is the first time it happened a couple of months back i never forgot my password, i changed it and it was fine for 2 days...and then boom, it just crashes or something...

Now it is doing the same thing, i even went into the "f10" menu thing and tried some stuff, but nothing worked.

Anywho, there have been serious issues with this computer from day one, and now COMP USA is or have all ready closed down there doors in SoCal...
Thanks anyone who helps with this issue.

A Good, sub $1500 MCE with Cablecard?

Apo11o — Tue, 22 May 2007 04:34:05 -0800

Are there any good sub $1500 notebooks with Vista MCE's new cablecard for recording high def video? Are there any good sub $1500 notebooks with Vista MCE's new cablecard for recording high def video? Preferably one with a good amount of RAM, 15.4" and good connections.

Tweak my speculative shitbox

poweredbybeard — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 02:03:01 -0800

SpeculativeUsedLaptopFilter: If I wanted a laptop that was relatively, in order of necessity, cheap, fast, running an OS with an efficient but possibly low-tech GUI, and light, what might my optimal setup be, in both hardware and software? Basically what I'm saying is: I'd like to get a cheap (under $500?), relatively portable, used laptop I could use without drastically sacrificing speed of use from working with XP on a modern(ish) Pentium/1.5Ghz setup, and I'd be willing to change my OS and have less "range" with the computer to accomplish the basic needed tasks efficiently within the price range.

What I'd like to run on it, in order of necessity: text editor, basic word processing, web browser, image viewer, photo editing, MP3 player, basic sound editing (ie. Audacity).

I'm sure there's some sort of statistical or economic term for the point of balance between cheapness and efficiency I'm imagining. Don't know what it is, though.

I'm assuming the OS would likely be some variant of Linux - if so, please suggest flavours, bearing in mind I've no experience. (But maybe not... maybe a Pentium 1 with Windows 3.1? A random guess. I don't know.) Opinions?