Family PC: What on earth to buy?

The Washington Post doesn't paint a very positive picture when it details why the eternally unprogrammed, blinking VCR clock was the good old days of family technology. But reality isn't always pretty. "More than ever, today's consumers need to plan and research their tech purchases to make sure the parts of their digital dream home will actually work together," the Post reports. It cites a number of families for which that wasn't the case. The good news is that, in the "Holiday Tech Buying Guide" attached to that "reality-based" lead article, is tech writer Rob Pegoraro's guide to buying a family PC. The three things to consider are hard drive, memory, and removable storage, Rob says. "Start with the hard drive: Forty gigabytes, the usual minimum, is plenty if you won't install dozens of games or copy hundreds of CDs to the computer. But for most uses, 60 GB seems a more realistic floor. If you want to edit video, double that figure." Then he goes into families' memory and removable storage needs. This is pure practicality. Not to be missed if you're considering a new computer.