Redron Loc: Fairfield. California

I'm not sure about this but if you sign up for photoshop in the cloud at $10 a month you get photoshop cc and lightroom and then wouldn't all your photos be in the cloud and be access able from the internet anywhere anytime
I have a PC and laptop but prefer using my ipad as a computer since you can do anything on it now with the available apps

Redron Loc: Fairfield. California

I'm not sure about this but if you sign up for photoshop in the cloud at $10 a month you get photoshop cc and lightroom and then wouldn't all your photos be in the cloud and be access able from the internet anywhere anytime
I have a PC and laptop but prefer using my ipad as a computer since you can do anything on it now with the available apps

Pierces Loc: Cape May Court House,NJ

Ever give any thought to running everything at home and controlling it with remote desktop from your laptop ? It may be the simplest low cost solution.

Haydon

I would suggest going with a desktop over a laptop. Laptops have advantages with portability and are perfect for checking mail and light duty.

Desktops tend to give more processing power for less money because you're not paying for miniaturization. Larger screens found with desktop make it easier to edit photographs as well.

RAM is about the same price but the motherboard on a desktop gives you more slots for ungrading. A dedicated video card on a desktop is less expensive than on a laptop.

For convenience a laptop is prime but for photo editing a PC makes more sense.

Keenone Loc: Gisborne, New Zealand

Thanks for advice - will consider this option.

Keenone Loc: Gisborne, New Zealand

Hi Pierces,
Yes, looking at the desktop idea too. Thanks.

Keenone Loc: Gisborne, New Zealand

Thanks, I am considering all the options that forum folk have so kindly offered - have an external hardrive and done that back up, and now thinking that desktop might be a great idea and can still use laptop for carting to and fro!

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

I use a program called AVG PC Tuneup 2014 by Grisoft, the makers of AVG Virus protection. It analyzed my laptop using it's 1-Click Maintenance, found a ton of registry problems, broken shortcuts by the hundreds, and lots of other stuff that needed fixing. It showed a lot of redundant files that were unnecessary and asked to remove them. I told it to fix all automatically and it did. Then it defragged the hard drive. When switching to the Tuneup module, it told me a number of things I could do to boost my speed to "turbo" mode and I could either have it do them or ignore the individual recommendation. After a reboot, the laptop was at least twice as fast. It also then fires up and runs in the background and "optimizes" from time to time.

I have now done it to my i7 Dell desktop PC and it's so much more efficient, I can run Lightroom 4, Paintshop Pro X6, and Photomatix at the same time with just 8GB of RAM while LogMeIn remote control and DropBox cloud service software sit in the bottom corner waiting. Those two can even be disabled and become inactive until they're called upon to start.

If Photomatix 64-bit is doing a very long (hour and a half) Fusion batch bracket processing job that requires a lot of CPU power, the system does get sluggish and warm air starts coming out of the side vent during that but otherwise it never acts tired in any other situation.

I'm quite happy with AVG PC Tuneup 2014 and highly recommend it for rejuvenating a PC that seems to be dragging its feet pretty badly. It costs like $35 a year or something like that. Combining it and AVG Virus (Free Version) is my favorite combination even when I'm setting up a new computer that hasn't been slowed down by anything yet.

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

Even AVG PC-Tuneup won't help if the Windows OS is only a 32 bit version. This OP has never stated if this is the case. It would seem that he has a 32 bit version since he stated he only has 3 Gig of RAM and he's max'ed out. If the CPU is X86 capable (meaning it's a 64 bit capable machine) then an upgrade to a 64 bit OS will solve numerous problems in slow operation. This will also allow him to install up to 16 Gig of RAM so programs can run concurrently.
Then, with the addition of a decent monitor on the DVI port, he's able to extend the life of this Sony laptop.
Added storage can be achieved by the use of external USB HDDs.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

This is completely true if it has always been slow since the beginning but if it was fast originally while using the same software, he's always used JPG and hasn't changed to huge RAW files, and everything has remained the same since purchasing the Sony, then it is only as I say, "clogged up," with clutter and could be cleaned up, reorganized, defragged, and have a bunch of tricks done to make it's current Windows more efficient so it will run like it did previously.

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

PC-TUNEUP is a good program but there are others that need to be run to eliminate junk too. I still say that if a 64 bit version of WIN7 was installed, it would make his machine run at least twice as fast as originally since it would allow him to go up to 16 Gig in RAM. VISTA always has problems with number crunching in PP programs and the limitation of only seeing 3 Gig of RAM in the BIOS really sucked.
And VISTA also had real problems running concurrent programs. It constantly slowed to snail pace whenever it started anti-virus software in background and stalled when the RAM got too full.

tracy7

I have an apple laptop with no more memory to spare. I cleared out all my unnecessary programs,trash, documents. I bought 2 external hard drives for back ups and I also send my photos to just cloud. I can retrieve them where ever I am around the world and back up too. I edit photos by downloading what I need from cloud at the moment and then backing up again to cloud and hard drives. Everything breaks eventually!! Always have more than one back up.

Keenone Loc: Gisborne, New Zealand

Re Vaio Laptop sluggish behaviour - many thanks to everyone who has given me suggestions which I will follow up. I have backed up all photos onto harddrive for a start and machine auto defrags every night. Keenone