New computer!
Feb. 2nd, 2011 05:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carbonelAs is so often the case, it's a cat's fault. I'd been dithering about which computer to buy (computer purchasing decisions tend to induce choice paralysis in me), and dealing with it by pushing off the decision. Until Monday, that is, when Morwen bumped against the back of the computer and knocked the plug out of the sound card. When I went to put it back in, there wasn't a plug-shaped hole to put it in anymore. I don't know if she knocked it out of place, or destroyed it, or what. But in any case, no sound, not even an "oops, you did something wrong" beep. That was the last straw.
So I took![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aedifica up on her offer to help with selection. She suggested various parameters (4 GB memory, 32-bit processor), and I found a computer on the Dell outlet site that met all of them. It's a scratch-and-dent model rather than a refurb, and it was about $100 less than the comparable refurb model. It's also about $300 less than the comparable model would have been at the regular site. It only has a 320-Gb hard drive, which means my music (all 130 Gb of it) stays on the external drive for the nonce, but storage is cheap these days.
With tax, the computer (plus DVD-RW but no other accessories than a useless mouse) cost just under $500. The last computer I bought with my own money -- I've had a succession of company-provided computers for the last 10 years or so -- was around five times that, if I recall correctly.
It should be arriving next week, and while I'm not looking forward to the migration, I'll be very happy to have a new computer. It's really past time.
(Eep! I bet it won't have a parallel port. I'm going to have to buy a USB-to-parallel adapter to use my printer, won't I?)
So I took
aedifica up on her offer to help with selection. She suggested various parameters (4 GB memory, 32-bit processor), and I found a computer on the Dell outlet site that met all of them. It's a scratch-and-dent model rather than a refurb, and it was about $100 less than the comparable refurb model. It's also about $300 less than the comparable model would have been at the regular site. It only has a 320-Gb hard drive, which means my music (all 130 Gb of it) stays on the external drive for the nonce, but storage is cheap these days. With tax, the computer (plus DVD-RW but no other accessories than a useless mouse) cost just under $500. The last computer I bought with my own money -- I've had a succession of company-provided computers for the last 10 years or so -- was around five times that, if I recall correctly.
It should be arriving next week, and while I'm not looking forward to the migration, I'll be very happy to have a new computer. It's really past time.
(Eep! I bet it won't have a parallel port. I'm going to have to buy a USB-to-parallel adapter to use my printer, won't I?)
