Bit of Ivory

Well, it took pretty much all night, but Harry II is up and running. And he is screaming fast. Of course, he doesn’t have hardly anything installed at the moment, either– we’ve got Windows, of course, and Norton Anti-Virus (downloaded from BYU), and Firefox and Thunderbird, and Microsoft Office (I bought it today under protest, and will only use it when absolutely necessary– like for my new job), and Semagic and Yahoo! Messenger. And that’s about it. I’ll continue to install things tomorrow, including my WordPerfect Office (which I’m only not installing now because I’m not sure where I put the installation disk), and my Adobe stuff (unless I cave and buy the Creative Suite for $199 at BYU), and various and sundry other things. We’ve got Harry’s old hard drive installed in the new machine, so I still have access to all my files (yay!), and I’ll have to migrate all of them shortly as well.

In the meantime I’ve having trouble adjusting to typing on a full-sized keyboard again.

Yay for new computers.

(notice the correct use of “it’s” and “its” in the title. :P)

My computer has shipped! We finally decided on building one and reusing some of my components. Luckily I’ve got a dad who understands these things. For those who actually understand this stuff, specs are as follows:

Case: Antec Solution SLK1650 Beige Steel ATX Mini Tower Computer Case 350W Power Supply

Motherboard: ASUS A8N-VM CSM Socket 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6150 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard (this one has an integrated video and sound card, which saves some money)

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz FSB 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor

Memory: CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 SATA NCQ 3Gb/s ST3160812AS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

DVD player/writer: PLEXTOR Beige 16X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 16X DVD-R 4X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2M Cache IDE DVD Burner

No, it’s not a super computer. It’s not even a darn sweet computer. Instead it’s a perfectly adequate, bottom-of-the-line-while-still-getting-decent-quality computer. I think it’ll suit me just fine, as it’s about a million times better than what I have at the moment (a 500 MHz Pentium III with 512 MB RAM and a 20 GB Hard Drive) and isn’t going to break the bank. Pretty soon Harry II will be up and running!

First day of class today. It went well. I think I’m going to love the class. Great teacher, great classmates, and great subject matter. I mean, any class where we get to read Byron and Austen (Persuasion, yay!) and watch The Madness of King George is a-ok by me.

I was supposed to have a meeting today with my new boss and the guy who wrote the dissertation I’m working with, but– the boss forgot about it. So I drove all the way to Provo for next to nothing. I did get a couple of things done, though: I went to the library and got my mom some more Nero Wolfe books to read, and I stopped in at the bookstore and looked at both my books for the next school year and educationally-priced computers. The books are luckily already taken care of– I was just confirming that the list I got off the internet was the same as the books available in the bookstore. They’re all novels and such, so I ordered them off Amazon. Cost me $40, all told. I could have spent $2.50 more and bought another version of Persuasion, but I think 4 is enough.

As far as the computers, they’ve got a deal with Dell, which I’ve already been looking at. On closer inspection of my case, dad has decided it might not work (it’s an HP Pavilion 8525, and is short and wide) because the modern motherboards and stuff need more vertical space than horizontal. So that ups the price a bit for a home-built model. Then he decided that the motherboard he’d found on NewEgg didn’t get good enough reviews, and so he looked at another one which was both more expensive and didn’t have an integrated video card, which means I’d have to buy one of those too. And the price kept going up and up– and I decided to look at just buying either a pre-built or a custom tower from a reputable company. Since I categorically refuse to shop at Best Buy, especially for a computer that might in some future day need servicing, I’ve been looking at CompUSA and Circuit City. They have a few options, mostly eMachines and HPs. Now, since Harry is an HP (one of the reasons he’s named Harry. :P) and I haven’t had much trouble with him at all, I’d be willing to get another one. On the other hand, I’ve never had an eMachine and don’t know what kind of ratings they get. And they all looking to be about the same price as a Dell.

I’ve so far been quite satisfied with Ginevra– the services I’ve needed have been mostly my own fault (I broke the enter key on the keyboard, and I simply overused my adapter) rather than inherent defects in the machines, and the service itself has been fine. I got my new keyboard the day after I requested it, and my laptop adapter came this morning (yay!). It’s all been covered under warranty. If I’m going to go with a pre-built computer, I’d rather go with Dell, I think, because I trust them to provide a quality product and a reasonable level of service.

So at the moment I’m looking at the Dell E510. Rather than getting a monitor (since I already have a flat panel), I’ll upgrade the hard drive to 160GB (that’s 8 times larger than Harry’s current disk!), and with the BYU discount and the free shipping and all, it’ll cost me about $650. And that’ll include the OS and WordPerfect (not the whole office, but I can install my copy that came with Ginevra on both machines and stay within the license). I need to order today if I want to get the free upgrade to 512MB of memory, though. And I’ll need to get a new printer, I think, because mine is nearly 8 years old and uses an LPT port, and I don’t think the Dell has one. But they’ve got some good back-to-school deals at the Bookstore for those– a new HP Photosmart one is only $69, for instance. Still it looks like this is the best deal: it has everything I want, but nothing I don’t really need.

Now I get to figure out how to spend the rest of my day. I think I’ll do thesis research for a bit, and then do some knitting, and maybe attempt to rearrange all the books on my bookshelf into some semblance of order.

Well, I contacted Dell via their customer chat option. It took a while, but was preferable to speaking over the phone with someone whose English is limited, which I’m sure is just as frustrating for them as it is for me. In any case, I was finally able to convince them that the cords were okay, that the green LED on the adapter didn’t light up either when it was connected to the computer or when it was connected to the wall alone, that using my brother’s adapter worked just fine, etc. In other words, that I knew what I was talking about. In any case, it’s covered under my warranty (IMO, computer and car warranties are SO worth it, while other ones not so much), and I should get a new one in 2 business days. Last time, when they sent me a new keyboard, it only took one, so I have high hopes that I’ll be back on Ginevra again tomorrow.

In the meantime, I’m using Harry. Harry runs on Windows 2000, which is pretty stable but which takes forever to boot. He also has a bit of bad memory installed, which causes programs like Firefox to close at inopportune moments (in the middle of chats with Dell Customer Care, for instance). His sound card is whacked.

But he’s got a flat-screen monitor, good keyboard and mouse, and the case is actually in good enough shape and convenience that we can probably reuse it in building a new computer. That way I can keep my floppy drive, which is nice, I can keep my CD-RW (although I’d like to get a CD-RW/DVD combo drive, if it’s not too expensive), and we won’t need a new chassis or power supply, which is also nice. I’ll need a new motherboard (probably one with sound card and video card built-in), hard drive, some more USB ports (Harry’s only got 2 and they’re both often full), and a new OS. But my sister just got a new copy of XP Pro for her laptop, which means her copy of XP Home is now unused. And that would help. I’ll need a new Norton Anti-Virus as well, as mine hasn’t had virus updates since 2004. Eek.

My head hurts thinking about backing up all the stuff that’s accumulated on this thing in the past 6 years, but having a squeaky clean new computer is also a very nice feeling. I’ll keep you updated (especially wolf550e and all the other assorted geeks on my flist) as to exactly what we end up with.

My laptop’s power cord has apparently gone kaput, so I’m back to using my ancient desktop (it’s six years old now, that’s like 87 in computer years). I’ll have to call Dell tomorrow about getting a replacement, and it should be under warranty. Since I plan on spending a goodly amount of time on my computer in the next little while, I’m looking into getting a new desktop soon. My dad’s probably going to build me one on the cheap– I don’t need a new monitor (I’ve got a flat screen) or a keyboard and mouse (I’ve got wireless for both), so it’s just the tower that needs replacing. I’ll probably call it Harry II.

And, since it’s a new year and all, let’s see 2005 in review:
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So guess what we’re doing for New Year’s Eve?

Watching The Lord of the Rings. All of it. The Extended Editions.

I love my family.

I love not having to do anything in particular at any particular time. It’s great.

I’ve spent mucho time at the Quill, stayed up late and slept in, gone shopping (I got two new pairs of boots! Yay!), met up with my fellow SQUtah Quillers, locked my keys in the trunk at said summit and had to have my mom rescue me, played games and ate pizza and the chocolate waffles Alton Brown made in the Waffler episode (yummy!) at my brother’s and sister-in-law’s, and generally goofed off. I like it. I like it a lot.

I got my grades, finally. A- in rhetoric, A in British mystery writers. Whee. I can handle that.

Has anyone listened to the newest Pottercast? Hear anyone you know? No? Well, listen at about 30 min, and you just might hear yours truly gushing about H/G. I hope I don’t sound like a complete idiot. And I really didn’t mean to plug This Moment, really I didn’t. Melissa stampeded me into it.

Now, I need to go make a spice cake to take to my grandma’s tonight. We gave her Persuasion for Christmas, and she doesn’t like to watch movies alone, so we’re going up for dinner, and we’re bringing dessert. I always like watching Persuasion.

Did you know that Christmas break is seriously one of the best time of the year? It’s not just the good food and the presents and the family– it’s the time off! Three whole weeks, this time. Yay!

The presents were good. I got a new bow for my violin (I used to play the violin, did any of you know that? Ages ago. I was very bad). I want to try to take it up again, but it was in bad shape. The bow had about 4 hairs left on it, and it wasn’t worth re-hairing. The violin looks terrible (have any of you ever read that poem The Touch of the Masters Hand? It’s like that. It sure sounds good, though. Nice and loud– much better than the shiny new one I rented the last year I played in junior high orchestra. Of course, it doesn’t sound all that great with me playing it. It feels like I’ve forgotten more than I knew. Anyway, it’s fun.

I also got Goblet of Fire for Game Boy Advance as well as the GoF soundtrack, lots of new clothes (a skirt, two blouses, two sweaters, some SOX and a pair of trousers), some new yarn and knitting books–The Knitter’s Companion, The Knitting Experience: The Knit Stitch, and a book of patterns for bags, one of which is a cute felted bag I’m going to make to keep my knitting supplies in (yay! knitting is my new passion, methinks), some money (which I used to buy some earrings) and the Deidre LeFay edition of Jane Austen’s letters. As a family we also got Wives and Daughters and Serenity (which we’re watching right now :D).

Today the SiL and I (and probably too) are going to go out shoe shopping. Yesterday we spent all day looking for slightly larger clothes for Amanda– ’cause she’s going to have a baby! *does happy dance* She’s been sick, sick, sick, poor thing. But come July, I’m going to be an aunt!

We’ve got other family news as well. I was putting off posting about this until my sister announced it to everyone she cared about, and by that time it seemed like old news and I could never think of a good way to bring it up– but anyway, my sister is engaged! She’s getting married on February 24 in the Salt Lake Temple. Wedding plans are therefore getting into high gear. Planning weddings is fun.

This time, you get to read my essay on mystery in HP. It’s much too short, again: I was forced to merely mention what I’d love to explore in detail. But there it is.

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Okay, you guys want it, you get it. Here’s my Dorothy L. Sayers paper. It’s condensed down from a presentation I gave in class in which I explored the time in which Sayers wrote, and compared her to several of her contemporaries on both sides of the pond. I’m not sure how good it is, but it’s what I wrote.

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