Just a little catching up

Alright, Lets see……

I have really neglected this blog for a while but then I have been busy with work and school. Ya’know, at 45, you think I would be done with school by now; but NO! I had to take a 20 yr hiatus.
Also my original Toshiba lap-top gave up the ghost, that also kind a puts a damper on being able to blog. I had been noticing how slow it has been acting over the last few months, and I did just about everything I could think of to get it to speed up, but it never really got back up to speed. Then I started to get an error message that the system has detected a failure in the cooling system. Well, the fan was working fine and the heat sink was intact, plus putting fans directly upon the system didn‘t help. I realize that the CPU was going out. Since that model was on the verge of being discontinue when I bought it, finding another processor for it wasn’t practical. Also, remember that the screen had gone out on it three years ago, right after the warranty had ran out so I wasn’t to savvy to pouring too much money back into it. Then the tax free weekend came up in Georgia.

Yes, the tax free weekend is when the Governor has allow, much to the dismay of his government, a break from the all state and local sales taxes; as long as the purchases are those for school supplies.

Guess What?

Computers, their software and appendages are now considered a school supply.

Well, I went and did some shopping around right before this weekend started. I knew what I was wanting in a new computer, and more importantly what I was willing to settle for. What I found was:
1.) Wal-Mart has some of the cheapest service plans but you pay more for the computer.
2.) Best-Buy has the most expensive service plans, about half of what the computer cost, but their plans cover consumer stupidity. (i.e.: if you run over your computer with a car, they will replace it.)
3.) Circuit City dropped prices on all their models by $250 for this weekend and their service plans are pretty reasonable.

A course I went with Circuit City, too much of the Scottish side of the family is predominate in me.

I chose another Toshiba but was informed that it wasn’t available in the store, so I put it on back order. Later on that day, it was Thursday, July 2; I receive a call from Circuit City. I knew that I had chosen another discontinued model and this time I wasn’t fast enough and they were out and no more would be coming in. So Circuit City offered me the next higher price compatible model for the same price as the Toshiba, an ACER Aspire 3680.

Well, I wasn’t too familiar with the ACER system but since I have gotten it I have become ed-du-mun-cated.

Acer is a lot like Dell and Gateway. It’s for people that aren’t too savvy with computers. Unlike some of the other name brands that have you loaded with the full Microsoft spectrum, Acer gives you bare bones. It does have a lot of its own software but I have turned those off. Unlike Microsoft which will allow you free upgrades, Acer wants you to pay for theirs’.

Now one of the idea’s I had was to what ever system I got, I would take my old hard drive from the Toshiba and plug it into the new system. With a few tweak I should’ve been able to have my old system on the new computer.

Guess what?

You guessed it, (and for those of you that didn’t). The industry changed standards on the plugs for those hard drives. But I was able to get an enclosure that allows me to plug my old drive up via a USB2 port and used it as an external drive. I did go into CMOS and had it sit up to where the system would boot from that drive. It works like that except……. It is extremely s l o w . So I am down to just moving over what I need from my old system onto my new computer and having to go through the tedious process of transferring ownership of my files in the old hard drive to me on the Acer. Oh, and the new system has Vista.

One thing I have notice was that Microsoft Works was not on the Acer. I was able to transfer it over and get it to run by exploiting a glitch in the system. Don’t ask me what glitch, because my Angel took pity on me and helped me out on that one. But I do have Microsoft Works running, although I believe that I don’t have all the features up.


But on the Plus side of this system, I now do have one that I can take with me when I need to go somewhere with it. I do have WiFi capability; I have a 5-in-1 card reader. So I can plug in my camera card into it and download, and a DVD RW drive. (Ya’ll think I was bad about pictures before, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Virgil would be proud.) But I am saving up to get a MAC one of these days. Why, they’re more stable and Apple doesn’t change its hardware standard as often as everyone else does. It may cost a little more, but it’ll be damn well worth it, (sounds like a Curtis Mathis commercial there). Now if only the Scot in me would let go of the money.

And on another note, I now have a new kitten. He’s a gray-tiger stripe with four white socks. And his name is, (very imaginative here); Socks. Pictures will soon follow.


And I have a shout out to James Raborn. He had a birthday on July 31, but there seems to be a little bit of confusion on exactly which number that birthday was. But here’s to you having many more, James.