Geek-Infused with Technology Zest
Jan. 31st, 2006 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
c9Today I spent $1267.86 at NCIX, and I'm giddy. Yay new toys! Luckily, the majority of the purchase is not actually mine, so I'm not spending that huge of an amount. I'm still spending more than I ought to, but whatever. I need a new toy or two.
The rest of this post is just me talking about the toys and why they were purchased. Probably not very exciting.
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200GB IDE ATA133 7200RPM 8MB 9MS FDB RoHS Hard Drive 3 Year MFR Warranty - $104.65 CDN - The home computer contains a 6.4 GB drive, an 8.4 GB drive, and a 40 GB drive. I removed the 6.4 recently, but teh intarweb (which is cool u gotta check it out man) keeps filling up the hard drive. Also music, TV, whatever. Time to reposition at the bottom of the price curve*.
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200GB IDE ATA133 7200RPM 8MB 9MS FDB RoHS Hard Drive 3 Year MFR Warranty - $104.65 CDN - Yes, another one. At work, we have a server that contains copies of basically every piece of software we teach, every operating system, every disk image, and every VirtualPC image. It's kinda full. So work is buying another one, via my Aeroplan Visa.
OPTI-UPS GS1100B 1100VA 550W AVR 6 Outlets With RJ11/RJ45 & 1 X USB Com Port Black - $90.32 CDN - Said setup server is not currently protected from the weirdly common power surges and outages in our office building. Now, Ontario's not known for quality or consistent power these past few years, but seriously it's not normally that bad. We're not in the sticks, it's not during storms. Anyhoo. Now we have** a shiny new UPS to protect us and also provide alarming beeps when needed.
nGear PS/2 Mouse & Keyboard To USB Cable - $6.87 CDN - People who own only one or two computers (some call them "normals," I call them "Luddites") may not know this, but we're currently in an annoying phase which occurs every few years in the PC world. It's the time between a feature becoming common and desirable and when it finally pretty much disappears. The PC world has many versions of this phase on the go simultaneously; the CRT to LCD switch is happening right now, and we're about 2/3 of the way through. This device allows you to connect a PS2 mouse and a PS2 keyboard to a single USB slot on your computer, this allowing the old, comfy input devices on the new, legacy-free PC. I work at a computer training company (Canada's largest), and we have entire classrooms now that have never seen PS2 anything. Sadly, we also have entire cases of PS2 keyboards and mice still in great condition that are useless when the new low-quality $4.99 mice die. So this helps. We bought five.
Kingston ValueRAM PC3200 1GB DDR400 CL3-3-3 184PIN DIMM Memory - $112.21 - Drool. I wish. These are for a coworker's husband's office. He bought three. I wonder if he'd notice if I only gave him two? For those who don't recognize the collection of acronyms in the name, this is more memory than you probably have ever owned in your lifetime, including calculators, digital watches, and your dishwasher.
Microsoft Windows XP Professional X 64 Bit Edition OEM Single Licence W/ CD - $172.80 - Coworker's husband's office again. I'm not sure I'd be willing to start using a CAD program that absolutely required XP 64. It must be pretty nifty.
LG L1751S-BN 17IN LCD Black 1280X1024 500:1 12MS 0.264MM VGA Monitor - $259.99 - Last but not least, the real reason for the entire order. I've been using ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cap_hill_latte's 17" Dell CRT for about 100,000 years, and it's time for a change. The flicker, the non-committal approach to refresh rates, the yellowed plastic when I mistakenly hold something white near it... it's gotta go. Hopefully this thing is as sweet as I imagine it to be. I could have purchased a 19" for only $70 more actually, but that might be too much screen for a machine that may be demoted to DVR within a year. And again, see the Price Curve note*.
The bad news: I'll probably be in Halifax when it arrives**. Dammit!
The Final Question: How many of you clicked the cut tag because you didn't know what kind of "toys" I meant, and were thoroughly disappointed?
* The price curve: technology starts off expensive and rare, then becomes plentiful and cheap, then becomes expensive and rare again. It's an upside-down bell curve for just about every thing you might want. The trick in buying computer shit is buying at the precise bottom of the curve. Far cheaper and still long-lived enough to be worth buying. Right now? 17" 1280x1024 LCDs and 160 GB HDs, it seems.***
** In 2-5 days and then 1-6 days.***
*** Is there a name for using footnotes in multiple locations, creating a mesh instead of a tree? Ow, I think I just hurt myself. It's like when I geeked out about screen-scraping andsimplisticton (yes, simplisticton!!) called me geeky.
The rest of this post is just me talking about the toys and why they were purchased. Probably not very exciting.
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200GB IDE ATA133 7200RPM 8MB 9MS FDB RoHS Hard Drive 3 Year MFR Warranty - $104.65 CDN - The home computer contains a 6.4 GB drive, an 8.4 GB drive, and a 40 GB drive. I removed the 6.4 recently, but teh intarweb (which is cool u gotta check it out man) keeps filling up the hard drive. Also music, TV, whatever. Time to reposition at the bottom of the price curve*.Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200GB IDE ATA133 7200RPM 8MB 9MS FDB RoHS Hard Drive 3 Year MFR Warranty - $104.65 CDN - Yes, another one. At work, we have a server that contains copies of basically every piece of software we teach, every operating system, every disk image, and every VirtualPC image. It's kinda full. So work is buying another one, via my Aeroplan Visa.OPTI-UPS GS1100B 1100VA 550W AVR 6 Outlets With RJ11/RJ45 & 1 X USB Com Port Black - $90.32 CDN - Said setup server is not currently protected from the weirdly common power surges and outages in our office building. Now, Ontario's not known for quality or consistent power these past few years, but seriously it's not normally that bad. We're not in the sticks, it's not during storms. Anyhoo. Now we have** a shiny new UPS to protect us and also provide alarming beeps when needed.nGear PS/2 Mouse & Keyboard To USB Cable - $6.87 CDN - People who own only one or two computers (some call them "normals," I call them "Luddites") may not know this, but we're currently in an annoying phase which occurs every few years in the PC world. It's the time between a feature becoming common and desirable and when it finally pretty much disappears. The PC world has many versions of this phase on the go simultaneously; the CRT to LCD switch is happening right now, and we're about 2/3 of the way through. This device allows you to connect a PS2 mouse and a PS2 keyboard to a single USB slot on your computer, this allowing the old, comfy input devices on the new, legacy-free PC. I work at a computer training company (Canada's largest), and we have entire classrooms now that have never seen PS2 anything. Sadly, we also have entire cases of PS2 keyboards and mice still in great condition that are useless when the new low-quality $4.99 mice die. So this helps. We bought five.Kingston ValueRAM PC3200 1GB DDR400 CL3-3-3 184PIN DIMM Memory - $112.21 - Drool. I wish. These are for a coworker's husband's office. He bought three. I wonder if he'd notice if I only gave him two? For those who don't recognize the collection of acronyms in the name, this is more memory than you probably have ever owned in your lifetime, including calculators, digital watches, and your dishwasher.Microsoft Windows XP Professional X 64 Bit Edition OEM Single Licence W/ CD - $172.80 - Coworker's husband's office again. I'm not sure I'd be willing to start using a CAD program that absolutely required XP 64. It must be pretty nifty.LG L1751S-BN 17IN LCD Black 1280X1024 500:1 12MS 0.264MM VGA Monitor - $259.99 - Last but not least, the real reason for the entire order. I've been using cap_hill_latte's 17" Dell CRT for about 100,000 years, and it's time for a change. The flicker, the non-committal approach to refresh rates, the yellowed plastic when I mistakenly hold something white near it... it's gotta go. Hopefully this thing is as sweet as I imagine it to be. I could have purchased a 19" for only $70 more actually, but that might be too much screen for a machine that may be demoted to DVR within a year. And again, see the Price Curve note*.The bad news: I'll probably be in Halifax when it arrives**. Dammit!
The Final Question: How many of you clicked the cut tag because you didn't know what kind of "toys" I meant, and were thoroughly disappointed?
* The price curve: technology starts off expensive and rare, then becomes plentiful and cheap, then becomes expensive and rare again. It's an upside-down bell curve for just about every thing you might want. The trick in buying computer shit is buying at the precise bottom of the curve. Far cheaper and still long-lived enough to be worth buying. Right now? 17" 1280x1024 LCDs and 160 GB HDs, it seems.***
** In 2-5 days and then 1-6 days.***
*** Is there a name for using footnotes in multiple locations, creating a mesh instead of a tree? Ow, I think I just hurt myself. It's like when I geeked out about screen-scraping and
simplisticton (yes, simplisticton!!) called me geeky.
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