New Computer

My poor laptop has been dying a slow death for quite some time now...since around September I think. It has been a great machine for the price I paid, but honestly considering I use it for work 5+ days per week, plus blogging, surfing, etc. I probably should have spent a little more at the time. However, I did tell myself it would be good for three years and I think next month I would hit that mark...so not too shabby after all.

I started looking around and asking a few friends what I should be looking for in a new computer a couple of months ago. Things change so much in the world of computers, all of the knowledge I used to have has become pretty obsolescent. To my surprise I had several people recommend ordering a Dell computer. Even my computer savvy programmer friends. So I looked at the website a few times...but I was still a little confused between quad-core, dual-core, blah blah blah....plus I was still trying to prolong the usage of my trusty laptop so I never got around to seriously planning anything.

But a few more months went by and my laptop just continued to get slower and can't seem to do more than one thing at a time...which generally isn't an issue for me, except it always seems to freeze and freak out when I'm doing something for my boss or using it during a conference call. It is apparently quite into bad timing. So a couple of weeks ago I decided that waiting another month was just silly and sucked it up and went on the hunt.

I actually found a machine at Costco that I liked. An HP...quad-core, bigass hard drive, lotsa RAM, big shiny monitor. I even got so far as to put in on a cart and head to the checkout. Then I remembered that Costco doesn't take credit cards, and I hadn't yet transferred money from my business expense account to my day-to-day checking account so I wasn't going to be able to debit it (seeeee Costco, you lost a sale because I couldn't just whip out my MasterCard and get it done). So I put the computer back and came home to do some banking transfers online, with the intention of going back. But you know what? It was snowing that day, and when I got home I just didn't feel like going out again, so I decided to check out Dell online again just in case....

And sure enough, I found a similar computer for about $300 less. Same size hard drive, I think a little less RAM but it's sooo much who cares, a bigger monitor (hellooooo 22"). This one is dual-core instead of quad-core, but I actually had a very knowledgeable friend tell me this would be better for me in a lower end machine...less processing time. Sure, sounds good to me. haha. So I ordered it. Who am I to look a $300 savings gift horse in the mouth?

This bad boy arrived last Wednesday, two days earlier than anticipated. I was pretty stoked, but do you know that I didn't even take it out of the boxes until Saturday and it wasn't until last night that I got around to setting it up. And I still haven't finished setting up the email or software (although it has Works and everything all set up...I'm still debating on whether I will put Office on it) or transferring all of my files, etc. There was a time that I found all of that stuff fun, but now I just want it done and ready to go!!

So far it's pretty cool though. Man, what a difference between that little laptop monitor and this 22" beauty. Maybe now my neck will be in the proper position more often and my arm/shoulder will quit bugging me so much. One can only hope!! And it's much faster and smoother moving, which is a dream! I'm even considering going for the super high-speed Internet access now that I have a machine that can perform.

Fun. :)