ahaha, never admit to IT knowledge, and certainly don't help anyone buy a laptop unless you are prepare to be doing a fair amount of support :P I'm slightly reticent about handing out the new business cards, as they reveal I work in IT. (Now is the time you say "Oh, you can tell that by looking at you!")

Do you want a full sized laptop, or are you looking at things like eeepcs?

Soft spot for Toshibas, loath HPs, ASUS seem to be pretty solid and Sony seem nice if expensive. All this is pretty much based on random gut feeling/non-representative samples however :)