Selecting a Computer to Use at Notre Dame

04/29/2005

About this time every year, first year students who plan to attend Notre Dame in the fall start calling the Office of Information Technologies (OIT) Help Desk or the Notre Dame Computer Store (Solutions Center). They want to know what type of computer to bring to Notre Dame, and in some instances, where to buy it.

Corrie Klimek, manager of auxiliary services for the OIT, says, “Information technology is always a moving target. Just when you think you’ve found the ideal computer for your first year at Notre Dame, something new comes along, and you wonder if you made the right decision.”

The right decision, explains Klimek, is more about getting a computer that works well on the Notre Dame network than having the latest whiz-bang technology. Order a computer that meets the specifications determined by Notre Dame’s IT engineers, Klimek advises.

Go for a laptop computer. Either a Microsoft Windows-based PC running Windows XP Professional or a Macintosh running the OS 10.3 version of Apple’s operating system work equally well.

Why a laptop?

“For one thing, it takes up less space in Notre Dame residence hall rooms than a desktop,” Klimek says. And for another, she explains, students who have laptops with built-in wireless networking capability, which most new laptops have, can connect without plugs or wires from almost anywhere on the Notre Dame campus via the University’s ubiquitous wireless network, Nomad.

Speed and hard drive storage capacity are becoming much more important these days, particularly if you’re dealing with graphics, Klimek notes. “We now recommend laptops with at least a 40-gigabyte hard drive, a central processor unit (CPU) of 1.5 GHz (gigahertz) or better and at least 512 megabytes of RAM,” she says.

Klimek says students often purchase computers from the Notre Dame store because it is right next the OIT’s computer service center.

Most computer problems that students encounter are resolved over the phone through the OIT’s Help Desk or after hours, through the student staff serving the Residential Network (ResNet).