Subscribe
Best Of
Links
Categories
Archives
Search
So, if someone poured water on your computer, how long would you wait before turning it back on?
And, would you simply wait? Or:
Put it in a low oven?
Blow it with a hairdryer?
Pour denatured alcohol into it?
About six weeks ago, I had to put my laptop down. I put it to sleep the way you would a beloved dog. No, its hard drive hadn’t stopped beating, but I needed to put it out of its misery (and mine). I bought another puppy right away–I couldn’t handle the loneliness. Ultimately, I decided on an HP Pavilion dv5t Laptop which I purchased from Costco.com. It has a Core 2 Duo Intel processor, 4 GB RAM, and a 64 bit processor with a 250 GB hard drive. It came with a printer and was only $599 before taxes and shipping.
I’ve been using it for almost two weeks now. I’m thinking about returning it to Costco. Why?
I like blogs. I like blogs a lot. But I have three children . . . and responsibilies. A husband . . . and responsibilities. A house . . . and responsibilities . . . or at least desires for how it should be kept up. But I still like blogs.
My problem: I have no time!
There is a solution. Well, if not a solution, then an amelioration. [Ameliorate: to make better or more tolerable.]
The feedreader.
Click to add C&G to a feedreader
The feedreader ameliorates my problem by allowing me to read more blogs in less time. It does this by pulling all my feeds into one place. A feed is the new content that a website (often a blog or a news site) makes available. On a blog, this is the new posts or the summary/teaser for those new posts (the owner of the blog chooses which). So, instead of using links, bookmarks, or favorites (or even worse, typing in the address) to go check Rarely Home Mom and then Everyday I Write the Book and then Robin’s Song and then Visual Anarchy, to see if any of them have new posts, I can check all of my favorite blogs at once.
My computer is dying a child-inflicted death. After having the power cord ripped from its port many times too many, the connection between the port and the motherboard is loose. Unable to charge the battery or consistently power the system, this is the end.
So, dear reader, if your computer (brain) needed to be replaced fairly suddenly, how would you mount the quest to find a new and better brain? Where should I look? Bricks and Mortar? Online? Dell? Amazon? Costco? Best Buy? Not Apple? What should I care about? Intel vs. AMD? 2 gb of RAM or 4? 32 bit Vista or 64? Core 2 Duo or Duo Core? 12 inch screen? 17 inch? Portability vs. power? Please advise. Remember to justify your response–anecdotes are welcome.
Last year I bought Pdad a video camera right after Christmas. We used it a little, but then we lost the power cord. I kept thinking it would show up. It never did. Then, for several months, I kept thinking I should order a new one, but I never got around to it. Well, we have had two birthdays in the past couple of weeks and Kate is taking her first steps, so now I’m wishing we had a working camcorder. So, today I finally got around to calling Canon and asking about ordering a new power cord. They said it would be $125 to replace it (and I don’t think that even includes shipping and handling)! I was in shock. I repeated it several times. “Yes, $125.”
Needless to say, I didn’t buy it. I noticed that on Amazon my model of camcorder is currently selling for about $150 (since it’s been a year, it’s slightly obsolete).
I am trying to figure out where else I could order it from or where I could get a used one. Anyway, isn’t that amazing? I mean I imagined I would have to pay outlandishly for it, but I wasn’t thinking more than half the price of the camera.