I've been planning for quite awhile to start investing in the stock market with hopes of making some good decisions while I'm young to help secure a stable financial future when I'm old. I'd like to start it off with a bang and want to invest in a good notebook that I can take with me to my work and on the run so I can keep a constant and steady eye on what the markets while being able to go on with my normal buisness. Im looking at a Lonovo ThinkPad X220 Multitouch Tablet; it seems to be a solid, powerful computer that can do just about everything I want but being new to this, I'd like to see if anyone else has any better suggestions.

At that, does anyone have a good suggestion for a good, reliable stock portfolio and tracking software?

I think there are better sources to learn something about that.

I suggest you use the investopedia stock trading simulator, to learn a bit more about stocks.

http://simulator.investopedia.com/Portfolio/#axzz1kVbdHE1D

I'm not sure if that will link to my portfolio. I haven't touched it in months and I was at -$20,000 at one point.

You get $100,000 and you get to invest them in any company listed on the NYSE.

Anyway, do you know much about stock markets and the bond markets in general? Theories, abbreviations, what the key words mean, how to interpret data etc.

Check out Understanding Wall Street by Jeffrey B. Little and Lucien Rhodes. I have the third edition, I suppose the newer ones are better.

You probably learn better from practice, however, right? Check out the http://www.marketwatch.com/Game/ developed by MarketWatch, it uses real and up-to-date stock info, so your virtual investments are realistically positive or negative. It's free and there's no actual money involved at all.

Good luck.

There are alot of knowledgable people here when it comes to technology, which is why I posted it here about the laptop part.

To the rest: Thanks for the help!