So I’ve purchased a new computer. Here are the details:
Components Summary
Case:
Motherboard: Biostar nForce3
Memory: (2) 512MB DDR400 PC3200 DIMMs (1GB total)
Disk: Western Digital 120GB @7200RPM
Video Card: GeForce FX 5700 256MB
DVD Writer: NEC 2510A Dual Layer 8x DVD±R / ±RW Drive + NERO *
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Its a wet and rainy Saturday. Liz went with her friend to the outlet
malls at Wrentham, MA for back-to-school shopping. I want to get the
kids out of the house today but my plans are pretty limited.
I need to replace the Boojum Rock geocache. The current container is a
plastic barrel that’s been badly battered over the last couple of
years. I have an army surplus ammunition can that should do an
adequate job of keeping the contents dry and safe. Its already olive
drab so I don’t think I need to paint any more camo on it.
Beyond that… no plans. The rain is really coming down hard now. I
have the radio on, which is something I don’t do when Liz is around.
Her nerves get frazzled by the constant commotion generated by the kids
so instead of hearing music she hears noise.
Yesterday I took the three oldest kids to a four-hour birthday party at
Roller World — a skating rink. I only made it three hours. I got
cornered by an acquaintance who always has FAR too much drama in her
life and is ready to share every detail of it with anyone. I tried
skating. I think its been maybe 20 years since I’ve been on roller
skates. When I first put them on I couldn’t believe that I ever zoomed
around anywhere in skates. But after about five or ten minutes it
started coming back. After about fifteen minutes I was chasing Gabriel
around the rink.
He’s quick!
But because Ben has newer skates and some more skill Ben is even
faster. I couldn’t touch him. Liz agreed that we need to try roller
blades.
I have to get a leg up on these kids or they’ll leave me in the dust.
I know I may just be postponing the inevitable and that it may seem
pathetic to try to keep competing with my own kids, but I will NOT go
quietly in the night of middle age! ! I will fight it on the hills of
my love handles and in the valleys of my midlife crises! I will not go
quietly in to the night!
So I may need new skates. Fast ones.
Sphere: Related ContentAnd another thing!
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Its about “that” time again. I need to upgrade my own computer. It
takes forever to start up and shutdown. It takes a very long time to
start a program. Almost any program. Large photos are impossible to
work with. I can’t really scan photos on the highest setting because
the image that gets generated is too large. I’ve tweaked everything I
can. I’ve upgraded some of the components. But I’m at a point now
where the components that need to be upgraded affect everything else.
If I upgrade the video card, it doesn’t affect anything except the
video. But if I get a new CPU then I have to get a new motherboard.
If I get a new motherboard, I have to get new memory. If I purchase
these components separately from each other it will be more expensive
than if I buy a pre-assembled machine — even a barebones machine. So
I’m looking at what I need vs. what I can afford.
The funds that paid for Liz’s new computer came out of a general
“family” account. However, I’ve been saving my pennies now for a while
and I have enough to accomplish what I want.
The guts of this computer go back to … 1997 or 1998. Back then I
spent about $2000 on a Compaq Presario. It was a Pentium II 233Mhz
that was overloaded with memory, which is my habit. Nobody sells
computers with enough memory. Anyway I kept that machine going until
2001 when I had to replace most of the machine:
New case
New motherboard/CPU/Memory
I was able to keep the old monitor, CD drive, floppy drive, 2 hard
drives, SyQuest Drive, modem, video card, keyboard, mouse. I think
that upgrade cost about $350 or so. Maybe a smidge more. I saved
quite a bit of money by salvaging as much from my old system as I
could.
This time I think I have to make a more substantial upgrade. Its been
several years since the last one and I think I need to get a new:
case
motherboard/CPU/Memory
video card
CD/DVD-writer
hard drive
Because its been so long since my last upgrade I have to upgrade more
components. Some of them I’ll be able to keep. For instance 2 of my 3
hard drives are still in good condition and are reasonably fast. One
HAS to go. Its already failed on me once and now I’m just waiting for
it to die a proper death. I’ll keep my existing CD writer so I can
copy CD’s without writing the contents to the hard drive first.
Many of the best deals I’m looking at already come with the DVD-writer
installed and the video card included. So I can get all these far
cheaper by purchasing them as part of the overall package instead of on
a one-by-one basis.
I wasn’t sure how Liz would react to the project, but I think it will
be fine. I wasn’t sure how to bring it up with her, so this morning I
said:
“So, Liz, I’ve been saving my pennies and I think its time for me to
upgrade my computer”
Her reply?
She’s so perceptive! Watch the way she gets to the essence of the
question:
“How much of an upgrade are we talking about? I mean is this just
memory or something more?”
She didn’t question the need for the upgrade. She knows how these
things go. But she knew that upgrades come in many different
varieties. She said several times that she knows I’ve tried to make my
current computer last but that she hates the planned obsolescence of
computers. She doesn’t know how much it will cost yet, but she
understands that it will come out of the money I’ve saved, so I think
she’ll be fine with it.
Bottomline? I think I can get everything I want for between $500 and
$700. That’s with shipping included.
I think I can do quite well with that. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Sphere: Related ContentSo I’ve had this NetGear single-port print server for a while. After I
got Liz the Dell laptop I knew that there were dozens of little
dongle-style print servers available that would allow her to print
remotely. That is, because she’s connected to the wireless network I
knew there HAD to be a way to allow us to share a printer.
I got the NetGear PS121 print server. An ethernet cable comes out of
the hub and plugs in to a small beige box with a green light and a red
light on it. The box is about the size of a deck of playing cards.
From there a USB cable connects the printer to the print server.
The print server gets an IP address that I manually assigned. I
thought a static IP would be better than one that changed dynamically
depending on whatever else was connected to the network. In many
circumstances the dynamic assignment of IP addresses is desirable. But
I suspected that I would need to be able to always know that
192.168.0.110 would reliably be assigned to the print server.
The Dell printed to it really well and it was a no-brainer getting it
to work. But the iBook was a different story entirely. It turns out
that they’re not entirely compatible.
But I knew that since the Macintosh was running OS X, which is really
UNIX under the hood, that there HAD to be a way to get them to talk.
Netgear and Apple weren’t helpful. But I found a message posted on a
newsgroup that explained the “trick”. You had to append an underscore
and the printer portname to the print server name when setting it up.
I just tested it and its working perfectly.
I’m very pleased. I’ll have to change how the plugs are arranged to
remove the printer from the master-switch, but that’s ok.
I just got back from our vacation to New Jersey. It was a long drive home and I’m kind of beat. I decided to read my email and have a glass of Macallan. We didn’t make bad time, but I’m pooped out nontheless.
Garden State no battleground
Lucky New Jersey TV viewers will be spared an onslaught of presidential campaign ads this fall. A Newark Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers poll released Sunday shows Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry has the state effectively wrapped up, beating Bush by 20 points, complete with a whopping 25 point gender gap lead among women. That means neither campaign is likely to spend a dime on ad time this fall trying to reach New Jersey’s increasingly affluent and Democratic-leaning voters. Some Republicans had been holding out slight hope for the Garden State, spurred on by an earlier Star-Ledger/Eagleton poll released from May that showed Kerry leading by just 6 points. That, along with New Jersey’s proximity to New York City, had some Republicans hoping perhaps Bush had earned a permanent 9/11 bounce. No such luck. Bush managed support from just 32 percent of New Jersey voters, compared to Kerry’s 52. At the same time, Bush’s “very unfavorable” rating went up statewide, from 31 percent in May, to 37 percent in August.
Sphere: Related ContentFastLane
After three years of seeing the FastLane transponders working for other people I finally picked one up. Every year we drive down to New Jersey and every year we have to stop at all of these toll booths — especially in New Jersey! I don’t care for the Parkway specifically because it seems like every five miles you’re dropping thirty-five more cents in a bucket.
Now we’ll be able to zoom through all the tolls from Massachusetts to Florida, I think. At least through New Jersey. I’ve attached the transponder to the windshield of the Previa and tested it out yesterday. We went through the Tobin bridge tolls and rolled right through — just like magic!
Even the kids were thrilled! For whatever reason, they too hate stopping for tolls.
So, that’s a good thing.
Sphere: Related ContentThe weekend went well. Things are better. I guess life has its ups and downs and sometimes I feel like I’m pretty weighed down by all the obligations in my life. The tricky part is taking care of those obligations while satisfying my needs as well.
This weekend managed to be a pretty good compromise. On Sunday we went to the Bunker Hill monument in Charlestown. Its a big-ass obelisk that closely resembles the Washington Monument in Washington — but much smaller. We climbed 294 steps to get to the top. I was very impressed with the kids, they all managed to climb the whole way up there. Even little Gracie! Ok, I carried her but only for the last twenty steps or so.
After that Chloe and I took the van to JiffyLube to get its oil & transmission fluid changed. While we were waiting we went to my favorite bike shop (http://www.procycles.com/). I found a bike seat for Grace there and a beautiful new bike for Chloe. Her old one was getting pretty small. I spent more than I wanted to on it, but its a beautiful bike with excellent parts. It fits her, but I think its even larger than what Ben is riding. Ben likes it a lot too and thinks he wonders if there’s one for him as well.
I had to mow the grass, then we grilled some hot dogs and burgers. Finally we took the kids over to the local elementary school and I started teaching Chloe how to ride her new bike without training wheels. She’s clearly not used to having to balance by herself and she didn’t come anywhere close to being able to ride by herself on Sunday, but she got a good start. She’s going to need a lot more practice, but she’s willing! And that’s half the battle. I have to make sure Gabriel gets going too. He doesn’t have training wheels any more, but is very nervous about getting on the bike without the safety net of the training wheels. He’s happy to roller blade instead, but I’m eager to get him on a bicycle. I know he’ll like it, but its difficult keeping the momentum of practicing going.
On Saturday we went to the beach in Revere. Its not a great beach but its close! And we had a good time there. We had a picnic on the beach and the kids got to dig in the sand and play in the surf. Afterwards we drove around a spit of land called “Nahant” and found lots of Beautiful homes. We saw a couple for sale, but decided to wait to buy one until we have more of the 2 million dollars for the down payment.
The sun kind of sapped our energy for any other activities that day, so we relaxed instead of getting anything done. It was nice. I think generally I’m happier after a busy day of getting things done than after an exhausting day of sitting on my butt.
Sphere: Related ContentSo I’m sitting here watching a show on CNBC where Tim Russert is
moderating a discussion / argument between Paul Krugman and Bill
O’Reilly. I’ve always wanted to see Paul Krugman put a pig like
O’Reilly in his place and its great seeing them go at it, but I have to
admit that its clear why Krugman is a writer and not a TV personality.
O’Reilly really seems like a terrible human being. He’s such a bully
and he’s so snide and its so clear that he’s unable to back up his
points with facts and resorts to pushy bullying tactics frequently.
Poor Krugman really is an academic and he weighs the arguments based on
their facts. And you can see his hands shaking and his voice wavering
as they verbally joust back and forth.
O’Reilly just brought up how Krugman is going to book signings with
“Stuart Smalley — the biggest character assassin around!” He really
seemed to be losing it for a few minutes there. O’Reilly went OFF on
Al Franken and got all red in the face. He was right in Krugman’s face
poking his finger at Krugman’s nose. What a bully. They should really
sit these guys a little farther apart.
I wonder if O’Reilly is embarrassed by performances like this. He
should be ashamed of himself.
Ugh. I don’t know why I can’t tear myself away from the TV and stop
watching this pig. I guess I like Krugman too much.