Now, I want everyone to observe a moment of silence. Hear that? That's the sound of a pin dropping, a sign that terror tots, rugrats and other offspring are off to school, thrust into the hands of those in the teaching profession and all is quiet on the home front.

But this is also the time of year when parents wonder if their children are adequately prepared for what lies ahead, especially for those of you mulling the purchase of a new computer to help your children get through the school daze.

For many, just a simple, low-end PC that's capable of word processing and surfing the Internet will suffice, but then there are those that are dormitory bound, whether for a prep school or college. For them, the computing decision becomes a bit more complicated.

These parents may want to consider purchasing notebook computers or desktop replacements instead of PCs. The new generation of these portable computers have proven to be just as powerful as PCs and can sometimes outperform them.

Although they're more expensive ($600 for a low-end model and as much as $3,000 for one equipped with tons of bells and whistles), you can probably equip your dorm-bound offspring with a decent notebook for about $1,300.

As with everything there are advantages and disadvantages to doing this.

Advantages:

• They're easier to pack and transport to and from school, weighing from four to 12 pounds, depending on screen size.
• They take up much less desk space than PCs.
• They can handle everything from simple word processing to hard-core gaming.
• New convertible notebooks give students the flexibility of working with a conventional notebook or a tablet PC.

Disadvantages:

• They're much easier to steal than larger PCs.
• The smaller keyboard and glidepad may take some getting used to, but you can always add a conventional keyboard and mouse.
• They only last a couple of hours running on battery power before having to be recharged.

When purchasing a notebook, be sure to check out the quality of its screen resolution, which can range from extremely dull and hard to read to ultra bright. Also make sure the one you choose has adequate memory (at least one gigabyte), adequate hard drive space (160 gigabytes is pretty much standard today) and a decent processor (ranging from decent speed Intel M at 1.2 gigahertz to the higher end AMD or Intel Dual Core).

Also you may want to check for accessories such as notebook locks, alarms, tracking software and other security devices.

Of course, it also goes without saying that you need to make sure that the notebook you buy has the latest and greatest antivirus and anti-spyware software available installed on it.

Check out the latest in notebooks at www.toshiba.com, www.alienware.com, www.lenovo.com, www.hp.com, and www.acer.com.

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