I need a new computer and was planning on buying one in the next week or so. However, while researching for it, I found out that Windows 7 is coming out in the next 6-12 months. Should I hold off until I can buy a new computer that comes prepackaged with it? Or will it be easy to upgrade from Vista without messing up my files and their organization? Or would it be ok to use Vista for a few years, while 7 is out there?

Thanks for any help you guys can provide.

I usually go for Dell Desktops.

I'm liking the Dell Inspiron 530 because it's highly customizable. If I get this now, I'll give it the max processor, the 12MB Quadcore 2.83 GHz, the max RAM at 4GB, and the max video card at 512MB, with a reasonable hard drive of 500GB.

Their Studio XPS's are just too expensive.

Not sure if I should commit to it and purchase it if Windows 7 is just going to do away with Vista. Maybe I should just wait 9 months or so to get a new one.

Cool, thanks E

Heh, well that's a personal decision. As you already stated that you are sick of college and didn't want to finish your B.A., I'm not sure if you'll enjoy doing your M.A. I only started with a dislike of academia, and I've emerged with a hatred of it, but that might be more of a reflection of my personal style than anything (realism vs. idealism, popular history/biographies vs. esoteric specialization, political & military history vs. social history, individuals vs. groups) I just felt eventually that historians too often are writing for fellow historians instead of for the benefit of the general public, and that history programs do a disservice to students by stressing what I view as less important fields such as social history, instead of more practical and relevant fields such as political & military history. This teaching method leads to more of an emphasis on how groups have shaped history, which is directly opposed to my viewpoint, that key individuals in positions of power make decisions that shape history as distinct focal points/nexuses.

If you feel you've gotten over your distaste for the grind of college, if you think you'd enjoy it, and if you think it will help you advance your career goals in life, go for it. Hell, just going for a semester wouldn't hurt. Most universities' history programs aren't too expensive. Loyola was fairly cheap for me, compared to how much Northwestern cost me in undergrad.

Also, if you do go, don't expect to do much primary research early on. You mainly do historiographies and reviews to show you how the industry works, and demonstrate the secondary research you'll have to do for each future project and how you have to know how the opinions and interpretations of previous historians on certain events have changed over time.

Edit:

Bottom line: History degrees, no matter the level of specialty, are mainly good for two things: teaching and the law. If you want to eventually teach college and do primary research as a historian that's a great use of it. Or even if you want to get your teaching degree and want to teach high school history. Otherwise, learning the research & writing process further by doing a history degree teaches the skills necessary to write effective briefs as a lawyer. Now, there are other avenues, such as working for the government in some capacity (State Department as a foreign service officer, CIA as a political analyst, Military Intelligence Officer), news media job as a political analyst of some sort, or even a political staffer. I originally was going to pursue a government job with this degree, but I do not want to leave the Chicago area now. I might try to get a political staffing job, or go on to law school. I'm burnt out on school, though. Part of me wants to write a novel....I'm just going to enjoy my summer for right now, and play as much poker as possible.

Ermac wrote:

I have had alot of different teachings styles of history presented to me in my undergrad so far, I do find that you often find yourself writing to the subject that the professor likes.

It might depend on the university too. That mentality that I described is pretty prevalent, I think though.

I can't tell you how many times I'd propose a paper and a professor would make me gear it towards what he or she was interested in instead of what I was interested in. Even in minor papers, if I didn't mention what a professor wanted me to talk about, even if it was irrelevant to my thesis, it would hurt me. I remember once the professor I would later be forced into having direct my master's essay research, wouldn't let me do a historiography on Mussolini because he had just written and published one and didn't want to read all that stuff again. Instead, I was stuck doing a historiography of Italian fascism, and my grade suffered through my lack of interest. I also wasn't able to do my original Master's Essay topic because "Italy, Berlusconi, & the War on Terror" was closer to current events and poli sci than history. My backup, a bio of Berlusconi, was twisted by him more into a study of the 93 Clean Hands Scandal, but the passage of time was able to allow me to angle it more to what interested me about Berlusconi.


I believe I answered the career things for you in my edit above.

Ermac wrote:

His possible intention was to steer you in the direction of a thesis topic that can stand the test of time for a future audience. The whole war on terror is a heavily conservative driven platform(I need to cite this right? lol). If he is left leaning like many history professors, he will become bored with the Bush Doctrine and Cheaney Initiative -going through the historial rounds- really fast. Not enough time has really passed for a historian to give a really keen judgement call on if the Bush presidency was a "miserable failure" and if the war on terror was the countereaction to something totally different.

Yeah, at the time, I actually understood his viewpoint, unlike other professorial decisions. It still irks me though years later, and I like to complain.

Ermac wrote:

I have found professors like to be given a topic that really isn't popular in the mainstream historical talk of current. I would say someone giving a dedicated thesis on the forgotten efforts of Lyndon Johnson during the 1960's civil rights would be interesting. Especially if you had the talent to prove your thesis through the sources and leave the person looking at Johnson in a whole new light. That is what a really good historian can do if he can weave the web the correct way. Just as old Iron Butt Richard Nixon needed to be given some late justice, so does ole LBJ.

True enough. A good model is how David McCullough resurrected John Adams' image, putting in doubt the unquestioned positives of the "Jeffersonian Revolution." That even shocked me, as I had a strong dislike of Adams because of the Alien & Sedition Act. That shows how historians can change things, and the positives that can be reaped from writing for the general public, which too many historians look down upon because of a dislike/jealousy of being motivated by monetary gain.

Ermac wrote:

if Franklin was so big on beer, why would he say the following in his autobiography?

It's interesting how so many myths of historical figures have persisted. The ironic thing is that most of the mischaracterizations were created by early historians who were looking to pad their stories....Or in the case of Edgar Allen Poe, looking to discredit them.

I'm surprised Franklin was more of a water drinker than perhaps hard cider. Beer drinking was prevalent because water quality was inconsistent, but there was a lot of cider drinking back then too, compared to now. Hell, I'm even more surprised Franklin was able to find quality water.

Ha!

Interesting stuff. I don't have the expertise to build anything myself. I just want something I can take out of the box, hook up, and start using. If you know of a vendor that sells pre-packaged CPUs with lots of options for its specs, I'm willing to use them instead of Dell. So, I'll check out those sites you listed Knyte.