new thread
the bad news is my computer died :-(
the good news is new one has been orderd and is on the way :-)
and I was lucky in that I had just done a back-up of files
on a usb hard drive and real imprtant stuff is also burned
to CD/DVD so I did not lose any data.
in the mean time I am using my lap-top so I do still have
net acess.
here are spec's on the new computer that I am getting:
Dell XPS 410, Intel Core 2 Quad Core Processor Q6600 (2.4GHz,1066FSB) with 8MB cache
4GB DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz
Dell USB Keyboard
128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8300GS
250GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Dell 13 in 1 Media Card Reader
3.5in Floppy Drive
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition,Service Pack 2,English
Windows Media Player 10
also a reminder to make sure you back up any files you do not
want to lose,I am sure glad I did!
congratulations on not getting the bloated piece of crap that is Windows Vista :D
that is one of the reasons I am getting that one
is becase you can still get it with XP and not Vista.
also if you do not like microsoft you can also get it
loaded with Red Hat or Ubuntu
That's not a PC! That's a server! Seriously, I have a Dual, Dual Core Server at work waiting to be installed. All you need is the multi terabyte SAN to plug that bad boy into and you could do some pretty awesome stuff with that machine. :-)
What are you going to run that is using that much power? I bet you could run all the games out there on that PC. :-)
not into games but do a lot of photos and have a lot
of music files.
also messing a bit with video
It's a good thing you did a back-up not long ago I had to learn the lesson the hard way. Those specs are not bad at all. Is that a notebook? If so, it definitely must be costing you a kidney.
it is a desk top you can see witch one it is here:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/xpsdt?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&~ck=bt
it is the XPS410 that I am getting
Good advice. I have been nagging myself to back up the hard drive on my laptop but still haven't done it yet.
Since I got the laptop 1.5 years ago, the hard drive died 3 times, the system board went dead twice, the speakers were replaced (damaged by tech support), and the mousepad was replaced 4 times (they are manufactured broken in my opinion). It got to the point where I just kept all my files on a flash drive and just edited them directly off of it. Well, at least now I can setup my windows/linux dual-boot with my eyes blindfolded and one hand tied behind my back (need other for typing).
Anyway, good luck with the new computer. It makes my computer look like a vacuum tube.
Have fun with it,
Mathew
That's a more powerful computer than most servers from a year ago!
I work in the computer industry and it never ceases to amaze me how much computer one can buy for not too many $$$.
For backups, I own three PCs and periodically mirror the disks between them. This is easy to do under Linux and makes all three computers essentially interchangeable.
Ed
It it amazing how fast the computing industry changes. What amazes me even more is how two years ago, applications that needed 6 or 8 servers can now run on one multi-core server in a virtual environment. Throw in a second multi-core server, and you will never even have to down your production environment to do maintenance. It's hard to imagine what the next two years is going to bring. I remember when the 1 gigabyte drives came out, and now 1 terabyte drives are now available. 1 gigabyte is nothing today!
Its fun to see the reaction of friends and co-workers when I show them a 20 megabyte MFM hard drive. :-) Even better is the reaction I get when I tell them it still works. I had a friend tell me, "it's scary you have that old drive.", "it's even more scary you have something to plug it into.". LOL
Actually, the older kit was surprisingly well designed, and has remarkably good "staying power". I routinely fire up 20 and 30 year old machines as part of my hobby, and, for the most part. they just run as designed. Yes, the media sizes are ridiculous compared with today (think a 14" hard disk that holds 2.3 Megs or paper tape that holds 120 bytes to the foot) but I's nice to see stuff like that still run!
oh man i wish i had a computer like that!! mine is good and really fast, but that computer would keep me from having to upgrade for at least 2 years lol