Whoa, blogger from the VA??
Yeah, so I was able to log into Google today at the VA, oddness. So I'm making a post.

The last week has been so much fun for me, let me tell you! My computer broke a week ago on Thursday and I then had to deal with the long broken usb ports on my tower (the MB in that is from 5 or 6 years ago now, maybe 7...). I hadn't had any trouble with them until now because I just didn't use them.

On Monday I was an hour and half late to my first day of class--there was some sort of vehicle burned out on I-20 and traffic was backed up about 6 miles--getting to class moments before it let out. At least I was there in time to get the syllabus and my assignment.

Tuesday we didn't have class and thankfully I knew this fact so I enjoyed another day of nothing much. Tuesday night I headed to Columbia for summer chorus. Tim offered to let me stay at his place on Tuesday nights if I'd sing with them, which saves me a tank of gas each week this month so I happily agreed to it.

Wednesday after we got lunch we found out that there was no class that day (a fact I would have known in advance if my laptop was functional.

When I got home my package of computer parts have arrived (adapter to let me plug the laptop's drive into the tower so I could at least get at my data, usb card to remedy the issue that has been long-known and ignored by me until now, and a stick of ram to test in the laptop). The RAM did not fix the laptop so I was looking at possibly replacing the CPU to test it, a part that runs $100. Other than that it is possibly the whole motherboard or at the very least the video adapter which is onboard, either option requiring the repair (replacement was not to be found) of the MB. A task that one place was going to charge $500 for the diagnosis and repair job.

So rather than spend $100 that might end up being for naught or spending $500+ on a repair of an old laptop when I know they can be found in the $500 range NEW I looked for a new laptop. I found a new laptop. At Circuit City. On sale with a mail-in rebate for under $500. It was in stock here in town and the specs are twice what the specs on the old one are. It is another Acer, which I was happy with my Acer until it gave up the ghost.

AMD 64bit 2GHz chip with a gig of RAM and 120 gig HD, DVD-RW, wifi and all that jazz. And they have fixed a couple of design flaws from three years ago. And this has a wide-screen display that is bright(!!!) and crystal clear.

The downside? Well, the same downside ANY new system has these days -- it comes preloaded with a nice big wad of SATAN. (That is, Windows Vista.)

I knew I wouldn't like Vista. I didn't realize I would hate it with every ounce of my being. But I do. I hate it with every ounce of my being.

Now to figure out some way to use the restore partition on my old laptop's harddrive to be able to install XP on this system, and also to install some flavour of Linux to dual-boot into. (Something 64 bit? I don't really have much use for it but I've got a 64 bit processor so why not?) (I'd swap over to Linux all the way if I wasn't scared that Sibelius won't work well with it. Most everything else that I use is either ALREADY opensource with a Linux counterpart or there are Linux apps that do the same thing.)

Windows Vista... Ughh.... Things are hidden, things are dumbed down... They spent so much time and money making it PRETTY (options which I turned off soon as I got into it) and not enough time making it WORK well. It is silly have have an OS that only runs well with a gig of RAM minimum.

Also it is silly that though this laptop is capable of 4 gigs of ram it has two 512 meg chips to get it to 1 gig so to upgrade I'd have to replace BOTH. But that is par-for-the-course as far as prefab systems go. So is not having freaking RESTORE disks instead of the wonderful restore PARTITION everyone is using these days.

Ugh... If only it worked well to build your own laptop. My 9 year old desktop system has been upgraded multiple times now and works GREAT (except for the dead USB on the MB but that is FIXED with a card (of course the PCI slots are now FULL).

I wouldn't have spent the money to get a new one if I wasn't commuting 4 days a week to school but it's just so good to have a laptop while I am doing that and to be able to go into the library (or a coffeeshop or atlanta bread company, etc) and do all my research that way.

Oh, and Wednesday when I was putting the new USB card in my desktop I removed the secondary, unused (since I only have one monitor right now) video card but for SOME REASON this caused the primary video card not to work... I don't understand THAT at all. So I removed another unused card and put the silly secondary card back in... Whatever. Oddness.

Today I work 10 hours and then I grill. Yay for the weekend.
- posted by Nick @ 6/08/2007 11:58:00 AM | 0 comments