Techie Question

[Drolefille]

Some laptops do just get that hot. (Or close to it) If you're going to use it for a lot of processing power for extended periods: games, TV/movies, lots of facebook games at once - then get a cooling pad. I recommend getting one anyway. They're worth it.

As for hard drive size, it probably doesn't matter all that much if you're really going to be using it for geneology. PDFs, text and typical pictures are not that big and you'll be find with whatever 200 ish GB comes standard these days. However... if you think you'll use it for more, or develop a penchant for downloading incredibly high res photographs, then go for more. Memory is relatively cheap and it cannot hurt to have as much of it as you reasonably want to spend.

Similarly you probably don't need a ton of RAM, but I wouldn't want less than 3GB these days and the standard's only going to rise. (You'd probably be fine with 2GB, don't go under that though.)

I also recommend considering how you want to backup your data. Will you be saving copies to a desktop, an external hard drive or an online backup service? One physical and one server based backup can be a good idea depending on cost and the importance of your project.