Computer Lab

IIRC, the Polaroid tablets cannot use the Google Play Store, so be aware of that if you want to get one.

For the Toshiba laptop, what does factory reconditioned mean?

This means the unit was returned, inspected, and restored to fully working condition by the original manufacturer or a certified partner. It’s about as close to new as can be without actually being ‘new’. This laptop also has a 90 Day Toshiba warranty included. Hope that helps!

I ordered the Toshiba laptop a couple of days ago. Any idea when this will ship? Also, when I click the “stuff you bought” link, it says i haven’t bought anything yet, even though I got an order confirmation after purchasing.

Well, it is much more difficult to write a paper nowadays with the ability of professor’s to detect unoriginal content. In my day,(the 1980’s) you cold get away with paraphrasing passages. Most Universities consider paraphrasing to be plagiarism. That is the “official” line coming out of Ivy League schools such as Harvard.
While it is better to read your source, close the book and write from memory, using your own ability to use the knowledge you have gained to write original sentences, it can be very difficult for many students to do. This is due largely to poor reading comprehension levels which has a component of a lack short term memory.
Other students are ESL (English as a Second Language) and I do feel for them. It is difficult for many to even write a rough draft that makes sense. This is where editing services come in handy. If a student can express enough of an idea, concept, or theory, a good editor can wordsmith the draft and come out with a good paper.
This begs the question, “But how will a poor writer learn to write?”
That is a good question. Though through practice one can improve his writing ability, by the time one reaches college age, it is do or die time. Colleges and Universities expect their students, whether ESL or not, to write coherently.
This puts the student in a quandary. He must now decide if he really wants to learn to write or does he just want to get a degree. There are plenty of people out there who will write papers for a price. There are also legitimate editors who can do deep editing. Providing original content can be tricky so the demand for paper writers seems to be quite strong. It is a thin line between heavy editing and writing the paper for the student. Many students prefer to have the paper written for them, from scratch. Other students would never dream of letting someone else write their paper. I belonged in the latter category. It never even occurred to me in college to have someone else write my paper. This was due to my confidence in my own writing ability. I am fortunate that writing comes easy for me. But, for those form whom it does not, I do feel for them. Coherent writing is a necessary skill in most any white collar job.

I received my 27 inch monitor today and I love it. Replaced a 22 in LCD I bought in 2008. The color and brightness are nice.

Is this a decent laptop and since it’s refurbished, does it go through a similar thing like Apple?

Are you asking about the Toshiba?

It looks like Encore did the refurb. They have 20 years+

I received my Toshiba 15.6" Core i7 Laptop w/ 12GB RAM, and it has been shutting itself off and freezing. I sent an RMA request to Woot and they answered by back very quickly with same. However my Toshiba booted up this AM with a message that there were some updates that needed to be installed so I’m hoping that the freeze/shutdown problem will be corrected by these updates. We’ll see… otherwise very happy with this laptop. Anyone else having the same issue with this particular model?


I found the solution to my own problem… at least I enacted a possible fix. I will post if it solves it for a period of 1 week:

PROBLEM: Windows 8 shutting itself off and/or rebooting.
SOLUTION: Windows 8 has random shutdowns, hibernations and restarts. Help!

Basically I disabled the fast start.
___________UPDATE August 20, 2013 _____________
Laptop is freezing. Will decide today to execute or not the RMA. I’m really bummed! I love this laptop otherwise!