Really, I don't need or want anything more than a cheap word processor. In my ideal world, I'd like to have a nice, heavy-duty desktop that can handle whatever graphics, photo editing, movie watching, whatever nonsense I want to do. I'd do most of my work on it, be it story writing, web developing, whatever. Then I'd just want a lappy for, of course, being mobile. If I want to head off to the park and sit in the grass to type some story. Or if I'm traveling, or whatever.
I keep looking at the new fad of "netbooks" out there, because they seem to cover all of those bases . . . (well, I guess I don't know where the fan and ports are located and that stuff . . . but they're ultra-portable, very cheap, and intended for just the basics.) Only I really don't know if I'd like typing on that scrawny of a keyboard . . . though if I did go in for one, the Samsung NC20 is looking promising . . . (costs twice as much as the uber-cheap $2-300 netbooks, though, for which I could also get another refurbished brick, or something . . .)
My old laptop, the one that's definitely been broken for a good while, I let Fred go ahead and crack open and see what he could see. He's successfully opened a few laptops in his day, and this one had been gathering dust on my desk for a couple years anyway, so I figured it was worth the risk. He got it open and tested the power jack, and as far as his equipment would show, there was *nothing wrong with it.* That made me irritated. Stupid computer appears to be perfectly fine, but it definitely wasn't taking a charge at all, even with a cord I knew was working . . . which is why I bought that other one.
So we put it back together, but of course we couldn't check to see if it would magically work now, because of course the power cord is messed up . . . plus, I really didn't care to try any more with old clunky. So we salvaged the hard drive and put it in an external case Fred had lying around, and I'm just going to donate the rest of the computer to those people who take old laptops. If they want it. For parts or something. It wouldn't even be worth trying to sell anymore. So now I have a 40G external HDD. Which is cool, I guess. That's 40G that was just gathering dust before, and now can be put to use, at least.
So slightly-less-old-Clunky is now just chillin' in my living room, waiting for a new cord to come along so it can power up. Hopefully. The most frustrating thing about the whole mess is the fact that I had JUST reinstalled Windows in an effort to make it faster, give it a new life and all that jazz. I was having fun figuring everything out, getting it all up-to-date, making sure I had all the right drivers (which was a pain, because apparently that's the one manufacturer's disc that I *didn't* still have in my cd case, which fact I hadn't realized until *after* doing the reinstall . . .) I'd just gotten it back up to speed, with the sound and graphics and everything that'd been giving me trouble back into working order, when this nonsense with the power cord struck. So it basically made me want to blow the whole project and start over. I mean, for crying out loud! :P
But anyway. I'll hold off on that now, I guess, at least until the new cord shows up and I can see if the comp still does, in fact, work just fine. I hope so . . . even if it's just so I can hand it down to my brother or somebody, and still move myself up one notch . . . ;)
I mean, seriously. Even a netbook could do pretty much EVERYTHING I typically do on my Inspiron Brick, except play movies and burn/rip cds (netbooks tend to lack an optical drive). But how often do I even try to do that much? (Answer: never.) Plus, I have my friends' laptops for that for now, and someday I'll have a nice desktop . . . *sigh*
Anyway, I'm still not going to spend any money *just* yet . . . we'll at least wait and see if 'Clunky (aka The Brick, I've decided . . .) steps back up to the plate. But those are my thoughts along those lines.
Also, as far as my family's current home desktop goes, I'm pretty sure I could get it up to scratch, even for my sister Meagan's movie making endeavors. It just needs more RAM and a better graphics card, I think. If it needs any more, I'm sure I can figure it out . . . after all, it's a PC, and by definition is super-customizeable, right? ;) And that'd be way cheaper than getting a whole new computer. I've already gotten it to stop locking up, and if I could just dedicate some serious time to the thing, with a lot of help from Google and various techie forums, I might could make it into a high-performance machine. That would be kinda fun, and all sorts of enlightening and adventursome . . . :D I mean, it's already loaded with some really decent hardware . . . we just need to take better care of the poor thing. I'll totally teach Meagan everything I can about it, too . . . at least, everything she needs to know to just keep it maintained.
Seriously, with all the techie forums out there to give advice, it's not that hard to become a pseudo-computer-guru, if you want to take the time on it. It's kind of awesome. :D
Anywho, now that I've rambled myself into a better mood, I'm gonna run off and do other things, now. Like browse for some more cheap laptops to drool over . . . ;) Or go outside and play (except it looks like rain). Or go to the gym . . .
Tootles. :D
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