PewPew 2.0 - Blogs about hardware

It's a Clinker.

Well, I'm going to have to buy a new hard drive. I want to buy this 500 GB SATA Western Digital hard drive from NewEgg - it's a heck of a deal. But I have a smidgen of a doubt that it'll work with my motherboard. It's an MSI K8NGM2, and supports SATA II up to 300MB/s. But the hard drive is 3.0Gb/s - what's the dealio? All the drives seem to have that spec, but it's an order of magnitude off from from my motherboards' spec. Unless there's an important difference indicated by the lowercase versus the uppercase "b".

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Crabwhomper!

My desktop computer is giving me trouble again. It's the same trouble as early in the month - random boot failures, a couple of page fault BSODs, and now the dirty bastard won't boot. Lucky for me, I installed the Recovery Console on the hard disk after list time. Unluckily for me, CHKDSK is now saying that "The volume appears to have one or more unrecoverable problems."! At least now I have a suspect in the whole debacle. Sigh. Time for a new hard drive.

I'm really glad that the Macbook Air is still working perfectly. Otherwise I'd be in real trouble. Still, I'd much rather not deal with this at all. It's been quite a few years since I enjoyed dicking around with my computer. I just want to move on to writing web pages and wasting time on the internet.

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Sometimes, Cursing Does Help.

Last weekend, I finally got around to installing some new parts on my Antec Aria Case. Around the end of last year, the card reader had quit working, and one of the LEDs was constantly blinking. So I emailed Antec, and they sent the parts right over.

I'm a reasonably competent computer technician, but I had trouble installing these. No instructions were included, and it was a pretty complicated install. The worst part was getting the old faceplate off - it was screwed on in the middle, and it took me a good bit of yanking before I discovered the screw. Once discovered, it was tricky to reach the screw - it was right in the middle of the case, near the bottom. I had to pull out the entire drive mounting mechanism, and there was quite a bit of cursing.

Oh well. The new parts fixed all my issues once I got them installed. This computer should continue working for quite a while yet; unless I get into digital video. I still won't hesitate to buy an Antec case in the future.

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I Regret Nothing.

After hands on testing, careful consideration of all of the available options, I've done it. I ordered a Macbook Air. In December, I went to a couple conferences and had to haul a big work laptop around. This made me really want something light and easy that I could take to conferences or use to code or surf on the couch.

I put my hands on the Dells and the Sonys, but none of them felt as light or as sturdy as the Air. I'm aware of all of the limitations to the Airbook, but they do not matter for my use of a laptop. I am not looking to replace my desktop computer. The applications and file formats I use will work with both Windows and Mac. I use my iPod for music, and flash drives for data.

I had the husband order the Macbook Air online; using his employee discount saved a few bucks. Now I just have to wait a couple weeks for Apple to configure and ship it.

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Contemplating the Dark Side.

I've been thinking about getting a laptop for myself. The new laptop would be my secondary machine - so portability is much more of a concern that storage or horsepower. Even my work in Photoshop just isn't taxing to any modern machine.

I've been comparing Dells, Sonys and even a Toshiba and a Panasonic. But the Macbook Air is just so sexy. Yes, there's a price premium for that fancy design and the Mac name. But I'm not laptop shopping on a shoestring budget - my recent raise at work means I can afford to splurge a bit.

Last night, I dragged the husband to the Apple Store to touch the Macbook Air. Just as expected, it was very light, and pretty sturdy with the aluminum case. The larger Macbooks, a 5 pounds, felt very heavy. Then we went to the Sony Style store at the same mall. Sony's laptops were very light, but very flimsy feeling, and really no cheaper than the Macs. Blech.

I really ought to touch some Dells before I choose. I think I'll have to call a Best Buy and ask if they've got any in stock, since Dell is closing their kiosks.

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