supercheesegirl | Entries tagged with technology

Dear friends, my computer is dying. I bought this computer back in 2004 or 2005, so it's had a good long life as computer lives go. I ran a backup just a few weeks ago so I'm not stressing too much about file recovery, thankfully. I was hoping to get another year or two out of this machine, but that seems impossible based on current conditions. The computer started by spontaneously rebooting itself, first on occasion and then more and more frequently; now it refuses to boot Windows at all, restarting itself midway through its boot sequence. Sometimes it bluescreens and beeps rhythmically; sometimes it bluescreens and screams until I turn it off manually. Under the circumstances, it would likely be more effort than it's worth to have someone repair it when I could just put that money toward a new machine.

The issue now is that I need a new computer, and with this whole "about to give birth any time now" thing, I don't really have the time or inclination to do the necessary research. So I'm asking for advice. Here are the uses to which my computer is typically put:

- using Word, Excel, etc (and I'm looking forward to having a current version of MS Office)
- playing music and loading music onto my almost-as-ancient iPod classic
- storing large files (my ancient iPod is a 60 GB, and it's over half full, so that's a lot of music, plus photos)
- using the internets
- casual photo processing and touch-ups (I have Photoshop but never use it; more lightweight programs are fine)

At this technological moment in time, I'm guessing it would be silly to buy another desktop machine. Things are getting tinier and more portable. I would be open to having a laptop, but said laptop would need to be particularly tiny and portable (unlike the large and ungainly laptops loaned by my work IT department, which almost caused me a work-related injury when I had to lug one all over Boston last year). If I'm getting a laptop, I want to be able to stick this thing in my purse. However, I would also want to be able to use it like a desktop machine and dock it somehow to my current monitor, mouse, and keyboard for my home computing needs.

F and I had been thinking of getting a Kindle or iPad, so that I'd have something handy to use for reading one-handed while holding the baby, or for looking up recipes efficiently while in the kitchen without having to run upstairs and print them out. But I don't think I could deal with something like that as my primary machine, especially not when I have so many other life changes going on to adjust to. Baby steps here. For the same reason, I don't want to consider a Mac at this point.

Also, and hopefully this goes without saying, cost is a major factor. We got diapers to buy.

So: suggestions? Ideas? Things I should consider?

(cross-posting this to the FBs too, feel free to respond in whichever realm you're happiest.)

My new speakers work!! There's no AM radio!! For only $25!! It's Valentine's Day and I have the awesomest boyfriend ever and I'm going to go order my favorite pizza and watch Buffy and then eat truffles and drink wine and take a luxurious bubble bath! Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

this morning i went to self-defense class. i was on the waiting list, but since two of the girls ahead of me on the waiting list didn't show up for the class, the prof added ME! so now i am officially enrolled. and i paid the extra tuition online, so i am all set. this morning, we learned how to fall properly, and then we punched. i am all pumped up about self-defense. woot!

also, i looked up some info about the brasil.exe virus, and i think i got rid of it. i followed the instructions, and it seems to be gone. i found some other thing that looks suspicious, though, but it's not exactly news to me that i have some viruses--i've thought that for a while. it said to disable file sharing, so i did that, so hopefully my viruses can't export themselves. sigh.

other than that, i am psyched about this semester! on mondays, wednesdays, and fridays, i have self defense; on tuesdays and thursdays i have yoga, and on fridays at 3 i can go to salsa dance class. and my work schedule is perfect, and i have afternoons off. the exercise thus far has been making me feel like writing and getting my stuff done.

and last night, i went to target, and used my gift certificate on a new pair of workout pants, a new tank top, AND an expandable organizing thingy. so now all the poems that i'm working on are organized, and it's wonderful. i am all in control of things. i am super rox again. it is good.

Current Mood: powerful!
Current Music: LA LA LA LA LA LA!!!!!

so... the Brasil.exe virus just showed up on my computer. does anybody know anything about that? it showed up out of nowhere and added itself to my windows folder and to my win.ini. should i do anything?

Current Mood: worried
Current Music: jorn's computer thrumming unpleasantly

oh, and i got the harry potter game to install after all. it turns out that one of the things the help center guy told me to do worked (and i didn't need to do anything else to the antivirus program after shutting off the auto protect). it's a cute game. i'm going to play it now.

Current Mood: awake

new years was good. went to the party at missi's house, and it was quite fun. a board game or two and some alcohol will loosen up anyone's slightly odd group of friends. laur and i stayed at missi's till around 3, then drove the three blocks or whatever back to my mom's house and slept here (ie, two double beds in my room vs the floor at missi's). on new years day, we were so freakin' lazy we slept in (laur till 10:30, me till noon) and then sat around with my parents watching the twilight zone-a-thon on the scifi channel all damn day in our pajamas. it was nice. a good start to the new year, even though i felt a bit queasy all day from being up late the night before (as if my feeling a little nauseated is out of the ordinary or anything).

i miss jorn.

okay, going to try (AGAIN) to install the damned harry potter game. i got an email back from the help center dood, although not addressing the issue of HOW TO TURN OFF THE DAMNED ANTIVIRUS PROGRAM. hello, that's what i said the problem was in my original message, thanks, could you respond to that instead of giving me explicit directions on how to copy files to my hard drive? but it gave me a few ideas of things to try, at least. sigh.

the heater broke here at our house, on new years eve no less. it made a horrific growling sound. instead of just calling up and insisting that the repair guy come out right away, my dad chose to rig up something to make the thing work again until the guy could come out today (thursday). i didn't really care, but my mom was all rrwrr about it. and of course the thing slipped or broke again or just evaded my dad's care to continue making the horrible noise periodically, and every time it did, my mom would get all rrwrrly again. so the repair guy was supposed to come at 1pm today. instead, he rings the doorbell and wakes me up at 10:30. now, this is not too big of an issue, since i was here all day for the express purpose of letting this guy in. but what if i had gone shopping in the morning or something, or what if i wasn't here at all and my dad was coming home on his lunch break to let the guy in? it just seemed like a sort of shitty way to do it, you know? early was fine since i was here anyway, but if i hadn't been here, what would he have done? just come back later? sigh.

tonight: go over to vinnie's house and then to the movies. The Two Towers again. i'm psyched.

i spent the past few days reading some terry goodkind books. numbers 2 and 3 in the sword of truth series. there's like three more books, but i'm at a good stopping place right now, so i probably shouldn't continue. i mean, the world *was* about to end, but richard saved it again, so it's all good for now. i'll read the rest of them in may when i'm allowed to read whatever i want again. (if i tried to read the others now, i'd spend the next two weeks all caught up in them and then i'd be behind planning for my thesis reading. sigh. i can't wait till grad school is done.)

i'll be back in greensboro on sunday night, 1/5/03. woot.

Current Mood: whateva
Current Music: heater humming quietly, now

okay, i *HATE* windows XP. it is absolutely horrid to navigate if you want to actually make changes to your computer. i'm guessing it's trying to be "user-friendly", but it's not, it's awful. i'm not exactly a computery person, but i'm a lot more computer-literate than, say, my mom. and i cannot figure out how to get past the user-friendliness to actually access something useful.

for those of you who care, i'm trying to install "harry potter & the sorcerer's stone", which my mom got for christmas. and we're getting a weird error message, the installshield wizard won't even start installing. i've been fiddling with this for over an hour total, i think, i've gone to the EA help page and found the customer support thing for *the exact error message we're getting*, but i can't actually do anything that the directions say to do, because the directions i think are written for win 98 or NT and i can't follow the same process for XP. for example, ctr-alt-del works differently--instead of getting a "close programs" window, i instead get a thing whereby i can "close applications" or "close processes", and i don't what needs to be closed or not (or what will crash the computer if i close it). and it's not showing norton antivirus as a program to be closed, although it's obviously running in the background. and the antivirus program doesn't give me an option to just close it. this is the stupidest operating system ever, and i don't want a new computer ever EVER if it's going to come with this crap.

the worst part, i think, is that my parents' computer is almost brand-new, and by rights should be running this game with NO PROBLEM AT ALL. there is absolutely no reason why the game should not work; there's plenty of room on the hard drive, and the system exceeds all the game requirements by a lot.

Current Mood: hatred, frustration

so jorn and i took our computers over to Best Buy to get the free check up. here's what the dood told me aobut my computer (which i really didn't know): the CPU speed is 166Mhz, total memory is 31.0M, total disk space is 2.3G, and i have 172.0M free. i've had this computer since '97, and it's worked hard for me, but it's really slow, and if i want to do something like play Teh Sims, i have to uninstall things. plus i think it might have a virus--every time i start up, it tells me that the tssg.exe file is corrupted, and i should reinstall the file and try again. i wish i could afford something new. every week i look at the sales flyers from circuit city and best buy and comp usa, and even the cheapest of cheap computers they're selling have 128M of RAM and 40G hard drives. and i don't know much about computers, but those numbers seem significantly higher than the ones my computer has. but new computers cost hundreds of dollars, and i have a chunk of credit card debt to chip away at, plus car insurance to think about for next semester (i don't want to have to charge it again), so no new computer for rox. :(

time for a shower, time to get some work done. i meant to get home from jorn's by like 11am, but instead we slept till 11, got up after 12, watched a Buffy, then came to my place. jorn left at 3:30 i think, after we had breakfast and read the paper and stuff.

things for rox to do:
--read and critique poems for tuesday's workshop--i'm in charge
--read a lot of pages of Gender Trouble
--write those response papers that have backed up (at least i have notes to go on)
--write and write and revise

that doesn't seem like a whole lot of things to do, now, does it? can i get any of those things done? no i cannot. why am i such a lazy slack ass?

we keep playing the When We Live In Boston game. when we live in boston, we'll see our friends all the time. when we live in boston, we'll eat crepes and go to the aquarium. when we live in boston, we'll share an apartment so we'll always be together. when we live in boston i'll have a normal job and i'll be allowed to do whatever i want in the evenings. when we live in boston i won't feel guilty for not writing, because i won't have to if i don't feel like it. when we live in boston i can read all the books i want to read that i don't have time to read now. when we live in boston things will be better.

thanksgiving will be a good and needed break for me. but for now, a shower will have to do.

Current Mood: depressed
Current Music: the nasty rainy rain outside

okay. so i just took my computer over to the Best Buy (and it's incredibly complicated to get there, even though it's right on a main road), but i was unable to get my free check up. i bring the thing in and plunk it on the counter, and Reggie hooks it up to the monitor and keyboard and mouse they have sitting right there for just such a need, and my computer does not turn on. this is because my computer does not have an ON button. seriously. it does not. i just push the space bar and on it goes. i tell Reggie this, and he looks at me incredulously, pushes the space bar a few times, and of course, on it does not go. Reggie calls over Jason, who pokes at my machine a few times (there's a hole on the top right corner of the front of it where there used to be a light, and Jason seems to think this would be the ON button), and then he pushes at the space bar a few times. no ONing occurs. so Reggie tries hooking a different, older monitor and keyboard to my machine, and this doesn't work either. so what can he do for me? i take it home.

obviously, the computer is now ON, here in my apartment. i hooked it back up to the regular monitor and keyboard, plug it in, and it goes on immediately. and now, looking at my keyboard, i see that there's a little icon on the spacebar of a computer with little rays coming out of it, like the sun or jesus's head or something, and i can only assume it means "press here for ON". unless it's a warning about radiation or something, which i prefer not to consider.

so i'm going to take the thing back on saturday, with the keyboard that it refuses to be parted from. Reggie said i could do that, and he'll remember me, so i can still get my little check-up. and i can also bring jorn and his computer with me too, and they can also get a check-up.

but i ask you, what idiot would have designed a fucking computer without an ON button on it?

one good thing about my fruitless trip to the unfindable Best Buy--i ran into thad in the parking lot. yes, thad, my friend and sometime boss from teh HLC, who i've bitched and ranted about, and who i really do miss. so we stood around and chatted in the parking lot for a while, it was good to see him.

Current Mood: WDP?!?!!?
Current Music: my computer, happily humming, and ON