Lessons in Safe Computing, Part 2

And now, the conclusion to the long, laborious and boring saga of my latest computer travails...

I am now waiting with bated breath for the arrival of my new Gateway Laptop computer, an external hard drive enclosure case, and a replacement power supply and graphics card, all courtesy of Amazon.com, whom I love deeply and loyally. Yes, you can even buy a power supply for your computer model, or atleast I did. Isn't online shopping wonderful? Here's the official photo and stats of my new baby:



*Color: Slate Grey Ridgeview™

*Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor1 T5750 (2.00GHz, 667MHz, 2MB L2 cache)

*Genuine Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium (64-bit) SP1

*Operating System Backup Media: Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium Media (64-bit)

*RAM: 4096MB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2-2048MB modules) (Memory Capacity Maximum 4GB)

*HARD DRIVE STORAGE: 320GB 5400RPM Serial ATA II hard drive with 8MB cache (1-320GB)5

*External Ports: (3) USB 2.0 Ports, VGA Connector

*Expansion Slots: One ExpressCard™ Type 54 Expansion Slot

*Display: 15.4" WXGA Ultrabright TFT Active Matrix (1280 x 800 max. resolution)

*Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 with up to 384MB of Dynamic Video Memory and Intel® GM965 chipset

*Optical Drive 8x Multi-Format Dual Layer DVDRW with DVD-RAM featuring Labelflash™ Technology6

*Backup Media: Cyberlink Power2Go with Cyberlink Label Printer for Windows Vista

*Wireless Network: Integrated Intel® 802.11a/b/g/Draft-N Wireless Networking

*PAN (personal area network): Bluetooth® 2.0+EDR

*Integrated Modem: 56k ITU v.92 ready Fax/Modem (RJ-11 port)

*Integrated Network: 10/100 Mbps Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 port)

*Integrated Keyboard and Mouse: Full-Size Keyboard, Touchpad with Vertical Scroll Pointing Device and Dedicated Multimedia Panel

*Finished Goods: Brushed-metal precision-touch multimedia control panel, featuring smooth-cut keys and touch-sensitive volume adjustment.

*Web Camera: Integrated 1.3 Megapixel Web Cam

*Digital Media Manager: 5-in-1 Digital Media Manager (Memory Stick™ (MS), Memory Stick™ Pro, Multi Media Card™ (MMC), Secure Digital™ (SD), xD-Picture Card)
Dimensions (Box) 17" (H) x 13" (W) x 6" (D) or 432mm (H) x 330mm (W) x 152mm (D)
Dimensions (System) 1.1"-1.50" (H) x 14" (W) x 10" (D) or 28-38mm (H) x 356mm (W) x 254mm (D)10

*Battery: Primary 6 Cell Lithium Ion battery w/ 1 Yr. limited battery warranty

*65 Watt AC Adapter

*Software: Microsoft® Works 9.0, Microsoft® Money Essentials

*Warranty: 1 Year Parts and Labor Limited Warranty9

*Weights: 6.29 lbs. (2.85 kg) system unit only / 10.28 lbs. (4.66 kg.) box11

l) the Intel logo, Intel Core, and Core Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.
2) Windows Vista® 64-bit versions are intended to work with 64-bit drivers and peripherals. Windows Vista® 32-bit compatible applications work in Windows Vista® 64-bit versions. Visit Microsoft's page on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows for more information on upgrading 32-bit applications and hardware.
3) HD requires ATSC digital antenna (not included). HD signal reception depends on multiple factors.
4) Intel, the Intel logo, Centrino and Centrino Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

The best part is, I got ALL THAT for $780. Did you see, 4 GIGS of RAM and 350 GIGS Hard Drive? Vista Home Premium 64-BIT? Optical drive DVD BURNER? BLUETOOTH wireless personal network? Plus, the only other notebook I ever had was a Gateway back in 2000, and I LOVED it and the support. Missy got a lot of wear out of it as a hand-me-down, and we even took it to Europe with us in 2004. So, if this baby is anything like that one, I'm gonna like it a lot.

I did spend $230 more than my tentative budget of $550. But, for what I got with that extra outlay, I think it's a wise investment. I may even buy an additional 2 year service contract, because this thing's got the power to be around in 3 years...I think (who really knows?).



So, Life is looking good again. I am still going to be up to my ears in computer set-up, research, and instructions, but at least I'm travelling down the lit hallway to the end of the tunnel.

Only one mystery remains (and it's a big one, which is why I'm trying to think good thoughts): will I be able to access my hard drive data? Stay tuned for installment #3 later this weekend.

In the meantime, let's concentrate on more pleasant quandries, like this one:

We Be Cool

Good morning and happy Tuesday! Guess what?

63 more days until you-know-what!

Guess what else?

Aside from buying a few materials, I have not yet started my gift-making. At all.

How about you?

Don't hate me for bringing it up! I don't want to upset anyone or make your blood pressure rise, just puttin' it out there, LOL, for myself as much as for anyone else. We have time still.

I order most of my purchases online, have for almost 5 years now. And as far as scrapbooking supplies, one store I've bought from every year, Scrappy Dreams, recently announced they are going out of business, effective 12/31/07 (Loraine, the owner, is going back to school).

Since she's closing down, Loraine's having a 50% off sale, and I placed what I guess is my final order first thing this morning. I know that I am on a no-buy Dollar Diet, but that's a working rule. As with my diet, I stray from time to time and the rule keeps me from going wacko. I can tell you, the order I just placed was one smart deal.

Let's see, I spent $25 (plus $5 shipping), and among the goodies I got are: Scenic Route Rockland papers and Capitol Hill chipboard alphas; some black Doodlebug pp's and cardstock and some yummy striped pp's; 2 Stazon inks I don't have; some Junkitz long bradz, a few Chatterbox papers I didn't have; some 7G's Brompton pp (the last of it, I think); and some Modern Textures Specialty Paper in Purple Fizz.

She has a great assortment of specialty papers, which come in real handy in certain styles of cardmaking and altering. I would have doubled my order amount buying it all up if I didn't already have most of it. Okay, I have mostly scraps left and probably should have just ordewred it all over again at these discounts, but I was trying to be good! And I wanted to buy up every Junkitz Ringz she has, but with my arthritic hands they are sometimes hard to open. I'd decided a while back to switch to the 7Gypsies ones I can get at Joann's, but the Junkitz ones are so cutely colored! {pout}

Anyway, if you enjoy shopping somewhere trustworthy, and that's kinda picked over so you really don't know what you'll find til you look, check out Loraine's store. She may carry the one thing you've been looking all over for. I'm really sad to see her close, but I totally understand, she needs to move on to the next chapter.

Well, temperatures here are nice! Our cool front moved in yesterday and we got both rain and wind bustin' down from the north. Gusts even in the middle of the night! I sleep under a window and was actually woke up once from the noise of the shrubs lashing against the pane. And, a couple of times, my house frame creaked from the gusts. Since it's a very sturdy brick house, that's a forceful gust. In fact, it's still blowing. My wind chimes are singing nonstop, LOL.


Even so, we are sorely lacking down here for seasonal color. The leaves have begun falling off our oak tree in the front yard, so there is plenty of brown to mix in with the green lawn. But I took a photo under the tree looking up, and there is only one little forlorn reddish leaf in the entire canopy! Do you see it? Is that sad or what?

Sad for me, it is. The challenge this week at Funky Photo Friday is to photog our local seasonal changes. Well, that's my one leaf! Pitiful. Guess I won't be able to play in this one.

Well, all good things must end, and I have had nothing but annoying problems since installing my music player on my blog. So, gonna have to take the player off. I'm glad I tried it out. Learned to do something new. But, for me, choosing the songs took forever and they get old real quick, playing over and over again. The perfect player would be one that chooses congs from certain styles and always shuffles them so that I don't keep hearing the sames ones. Actually, the perfect player is one that operates as a standalone and does not suck my computer resources dry, who am I kidding? Time for me to get my Creative Zen player out and just listen to that. I have never had good luck with all-in-one devices or setups of any kind.

Which brings up a good question for those of you who download songs to an mp3 player that is not an Apple iPod: where do you get your songs? Please email me or leave a comment and tell me. I need to find some new tunes.

Have a great Tuesday, everyone!

Watery Wednesday Wrap-ups

I do hope those of you who read this blog remembered that I was up to my arss in tax returns and would not be counted on to blog with any regularity. Just in case you thought I drowned....

I almost did, but only figuratively. Man, the procrastinators on my client list are just gonna have to speed things up next year, cuz I'm getting too old for double all-niters (yep, I did not sleep from Saturday evening until Monday afternoon, then took a nap and stayed up again Monday night, just barely making the midnight deadline on my last 2 returns). When folks bring you moving boxes full of craps on the Thursday and Friday before a Monday deadline, ya kinda haveta stay up. But, no worries, they will get theirs, for I will remember this at invoicing time! LOL

Bad thing is, I did not have time to do my usual thorough start-to-finish on each client, so all my paperwork is still to be done for them, like document file copies, printing, collating, packaging and invoicing. And that all needs to be done this week in order to get paid before Christmas, because it starts all over again right after that! And plus, I want some time off. I want to at least pretend to be a seasonal worker! LOL

So anyway, back to drowning...good segueway to the one thing I did do yesterday (Tuesday) besides sleep all.day.long. I took off with my camera and snapped some shots of water for this week's Funky Photo Friday challenge. I really had fun doing this, although it was more difficult to get interesting shots than I anticipated. Once I figured out to use my zoom, though, it got easier. Didn't get up early enough to catch sunrise and didn't want to wait long enough to get sunset, so I had to settle for overcast midday. Then, I took the photos and editied them in PaintShopPro, some lightly, some heavily. So, I learned some new moves, not that I'm gonna remember them, LOL. One can hope.

That first shot (above) looks like a waterfall, right? Well, It's not. It's water rushing out of a bayou dredging outflow pipe into a containment pond. What I did was zoom in on the water when I snapped it. Then, back at my computer, I used the curves function to add some heavy duty whitecaps. I love how it came out, but I confess I did not know beforehand that I was going to do that. I was just playing around with the different things in my PSP. I had read of lots of people using this functions, so I thought, what does this do? Me likey!

This next photo (at left) is just barely edited with an unsharp mask and a tiny bit of brightening. This is a tributary gully creek that winds through my city and has the infamous nickname Gator Gully. More than a few alligators have been sighted on its banks over the years. There's luckily a safe concrete perch near the banks where I stood to take the shot, so no Aimeslees were sacrificed for it, LOL.

I have to admit, I had the most fun editing this photo (at left). This is just a boring old shot of our dirty brown bayou and bank near my house that flows into Galveston Bay. Boring shots like these make me want to glitz them up, so I went exploring in PSP's Effects. This one was done using the Rotating Mirror Reflection Effect. What it does is rotate part of your image however you tell it. This one is a very slight rotation, clockwise -- can you see it? What is cool is that it created a digital smush in the upper righthand quadrant that kind of looks like there's a buddhist fairy with wings sitting there on the grass. Click on any of these for a larger view.

Well, I have to say that during my overtime at work I almost literally ached to do some creative playing. I missed it that much. And I even missed blogging. Yet, no rest for the weary. As I explained, I'll be working on finishing up the paperwork, tomorrow it's to the dentist for a cleaning, and then I will be on vacation until November 1. Not from blogging, I'll still blog daily (ok, that's the plan). But I won't be crafting for that time. The crafting supplies are going to get packed up and put away, and I'm going to tackle the remaining parts of our house reorganization.

My goal is to have most of it done by Oct. 28th, which is the next day off for DH. I need to move my computer and internet cable to my front office from the family room, as well as clean up all the accumulated crap from the family room and the front dining room and office. Then, once that goal is met, I can work in my spare time on cleaning out the back 10' x 22' room behind the garage and making it into our fitness gym! I am so jazzed at the thought of getting that done that the mere visualization of it is enough to get me moving, even when I'm in pain. Hubs wants it badly too, and we really only have this remaining window of time open, since I need to use Missy's room to store stuff in while I move other stuff around. And she will be home for Thanksgiving. So, the craftings gotta go for now. Also, I won't be online as much, but that's going to be a good thing, because I've noticed that my old bones are less painful the less time I spent at the keyboard, ya know?

So, you have all been told! LOL Please, if ya see me online alot, feel free to whip me and yell at me to get back on plan! I just feel that if I get somewhere with this, my life's gonna improve to the next level, cuz all of this clutter and stuff not being where I want it to be is bugging the caniption outta me. And being able to use all of our gym equipment, OMG, I literally cannot wait!

Have a great HUMPerdink DAY, everybody. (Gina, I will do your tag on Thursday, okay?)