Imagine you are working on a computer that you have owned for over 5 years. You are having trouble getting documents to open and you spend hours downloading and uploading pictures. Some of you may not have to work too hard to imagine this scenario. You realize you are in desperate need of a new computer. You decide to take a look on the Internet to see what options you have available. You soon find out that the wording you knew 5 years ago is not the same now.

Or, you may be buying your very first computer and are now overwhelmed all the information that you find.

Either way, you are now faced with the one major question: which computer do you choose? A desktop used to be the only choice when looking for a computer. You now have choices such as desktops, laptops, netbooks, and PDAs. Now there are acronyms like MB, GB, TB, MHZ, GHZ, CD+R, DVD, and on and on. Before you purchase a computer, you not only have to understand the language but more importantly you must know what you want to get out of your computer.

When looking for a computer you want to look at the hard drive, memory, processor, and CD Media. If you are into gaming you should also look into sound and video cards.

Ask yourself the following questions. Do I play games? Do I travel? Will I need to take my computer to school? Will I be sharing my computer? Do I download music? Do I download images? Do I want a PC or a Mac?

In your posting for this discussion forum, follow these steps:

Retrieve an advertisement for computers. The advertisement can be out of the newspaper or from the internet.
Compare at least two of the computers featured in the advertisement on these key features: CD media, Hard Drive, Memory, Processor, Type, and Price. You may include other features such as video if they are relevant to your personal needs.
Mention where you found the ad and discuss which computer you would purchase and why.