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. :)

Work Blog

Today my work re-launched the company blog. We have tried this once before but it was basically a failed attempt as we had someone doing it just sort of off the cuff. Our head writer has now taken a blog-writing seminar and is taking another stab at it.

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/blog.html

The first post went up today and we will spend the next week or so making changes and taking suggestions. I have suggested they "pretty" it up a little so we'll see how that goes.

The idea behind the blog is to attract the public to discuss legal issues that our advertising attorneys may be interested in. Talk about defective products, personal experiences with pharmeceuticals, or payment situations with their employers. (You'd have to know our website to know what the hell I'm talking about!) We offer up the latest legal news for the North American public....and hopefully this blog will draw more people in and keep them coming back.