New Computer :D

My first blog post from my new computer! I've had it for 2 weeks now. I spent the first week getting everything all set up. Installing programs and personalizing my settings and such. And the second week I found myself preoccupied with Pinterest...I finally got around to exploring it and, of course, became obsessed.

But! My new computer! It's here! It's beautiful! It's fast! It's quiet! It's toddler-proof! I am totally in love ♥



How can you not love the prettiness?

So, a few system specs for the other nerds out there: 3.3 gHz dual core processor, 8 gb RAM, 3 internal hard drives (250 boot, 160 and 500 slaves), DVD burner, Radeon HD 4830 512MB 256-bit graphics card, and Windows 7 (64 bit).

Love love love. And I love that my 2 year old can no longer push the power or reset buttons on me.

Just for kicks, here's a shot of the innards of both my old and new computers:


The old one no longer has hard drives since they're now in the new one. And, as I expected, the hard drives were perfectly fine. Yay for no data loss!

Adjusting to Windows 7 was super easy. I had XP on my old computer, so it's definitely different. But, I've used John's Vista lappy enough to be familiar with the visual changes. I love the prettiness of 7 :D

I love how fast my new computer is. Photoshop is sooooo much faster than before!! Love it!

I've had some issues with importing my Sims 2 neighborhoods. Lisa figured out a way to make it work, but it's a long tedious process. We've only got one neighborhood working so far. We'll get there; it just isn't my highest priority.

Ooooh how I love having my own awesome computer again! Thanks to Lisa for building it and to Mom for paying for all the non-Lisa-hand-me-down parts :D I'm so super blessed. And spoiled. I think I'm pretty spoiled. I sent Mom and Lisa some pretty flower clips and a thank you card.

Now that I have a working computer again, I'll be able to get back into posting more. More to come soon!

On the Way

My new computer is finished and on the way!! YAY! Lisa finished building, testing, and installing programs on Wednesday. It should be here Monday. I'm soooo excited!! I've been computer-less for far too long. 4 weeks is a long time to be without a computer...at least for me.

I'll finally be able to share more pics of the 3 cutest kids ever! It will take me at least a few days after it arrives to get to that, though. I'll need to do an XP transfer and install Photoshop, Office, Sims 2, and other necessities. Lisa already installed Firefox, AVG, etc. She also ran about a billion tests. According to PC Pitstop, my new computer is in the top 23%. Sweet! Better yet, the graphics card is in the top 5% :D And it's one of Lisa's hand-me-downs. Yep, my sister loves fancy graphics cards. She's a little OCD about it. Not that I mind; I always get her old ones when she upgrades!

Yay!!!!! I'm finally going to have my own computer again!! Soooooo awesome! I can't wait!

Computer-less

I am still computer-less. The building process is taking longer than anticipated, due to a flaky motherboard. It wasn't playing nice with the graphics card or the RAM.

On the plus side, this means I get a new motherboard...and a new processor!! It'll be twice as fast as the one I was going to get :D

The downside, however, is that we had to order those parts, so I have to be computer-less for longer. It's definitely worth the wait, but...I'm more than ready to have a computer of my own again. Especially since I am now craving to scrap and play Sims 2. Why does lack of accessibility cause such cravings? *sigh*

But, life has a way of keeping me busy, whether I have a working computer or not. I've been trying to keep up on cleaning. I started working on our bedroom, but I didn't get as far as I wanted to. At least I got my clothes all hung up and put away. But the clutter? Still got a long way to go.

And, of course, kids definitely keep me busy. Since my last real non-computer post, Hyrum said his first official sentence: "Mommy, I love you." <3 Best first sentence ever! He picks up on more and more words and phrases each day. He totally repeats everything he hears. He also discovered that he can open the fridge...and doors, with or without the plastic knob covers. Good thing we keep the front door locked at all times!

Nathan rolled over since then, too. He's getting soooo big! He's 17.5 lbs and 27.25" long. What a big boy! He's getting close to growing out of his infant car seat. Nathan is such a sweet, cuddly baby. We love our adorable little redhead!

Emma is such a knowledge sponge. She's going to do so great in school! What a smarty. She loves doing at-home preschool each day. It's so fun! She always asks to learn more, and she remembers extremely well. She has an amazing memory. Clearly, she takes after me ;)

Speaking of school, John applied for grad school. Yay! We're still waiting to hear back; we probably won't hear until March since the deadline is March 1st. We're also on a waiting list for an awesome duplex near our grad school of choice. It's exactly what I'm looking for: inexpensive, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, garage, yard, and only sharing walls with one neighbor. Yay!

Graduation is coming up in less than 2 months and we couldn't be more excited! It'll be sooo nice to have that behind us. I can't wait to move to a bigger place. We so desperately need more space. I even have a list of organizational projects to do after we move. It's pointless to do all of it now since I don't know what kind of space I'll have to work with yet.

OPKMJHNBGVZW

[Emma typed that and said, "don't take it off, ok?" So...I'll leave it just for her :)]

So, overall, life is good. Stressful, what with kids and school and everything, but good. I am very excited for my new computer to be done and here. In the meantime, I'm going to work on other non-computer things. The kids are clamoring at me, so this will have to be short. Time to make dinner! The life of a mom. Always busy!

Computer Failure

One of my goals this year is to blog and digiscrap once a week. Last week, I was going to blog about Christmas (yes, I know it's late). This week, it was to be Hyrum's birthday celebration post. How ironic that my computer decided to die just a few weeks into the new year...

I've been computer-less for a week and a half, and it's driving me crazy! I'm currently using John's laptop. However, sharing John's computer doesn't really work well. For one, it's a laptop. I don't like laptops. I use them as rarely as I can. And it runs Vista. Blech. Secondly, John's homework trumps blogging...or scrapping, or Facebooking, or Sims 2. It's kind of in my best interest to let him do his homework...I kind of want him to graduate in 2 months ;)

Thank goodness for my Android! It's let me keep some semblance of sanity while being computer-less.

As for what's wrong with my computer, we (meaning my super techy-nerd sister Lisa and I) think there are several issues. First, the graphics card seems to be dead, as well as the DVI cable (cord that connects computer to monitor for the non techy-nerds out there). We borrowed a VGA cable (another kind of cord that connects computers to monitors) and a monitor from a friend so I could test things out.

The most success I've had is routing the borrowed VGA cable to the craptastic on-board graphics. Windows started to load, but the computer randomly shut itself down. This happened on multiple occasions, at different parts of the startup. So, now we're thinking that the motherboard and/or the power supply are dying as well.

Thankfully, my hard drives seem fine. They better be! Especially the slave drive I just replaced a few months ago when its still-under-warranty predecessor had bad sectors. I have a fairly recent backup, so I wouldn't lose everything...but I would lose a bunch of Nathan's baby pictures :( I'm pretty sure my hard drives are ok, though.

Rather than try to replace out-dated old parts, we decided it was time for me to get a new computer. After all, my current motherboard and processor are 7 years old...I've upgraded other parts in the meantime, but most of what I have has been there for 4 years or more. So, it's time.

The good news is, my sister is building my new computer! We've actually been talking about it off and on for almost a year now. Like as a, "when you need a new computer" thing. Ironically, we were literally talking about it moments before my computer randomly shut down; the first of a series of computer-dying-ness. I did a full virus scan one of the times it was working and it came back clean. No virus; just old dying hardware issues.

Some of the parts for my new computer are Lisa's hand-me-down parts. Like the motherboard, processor, graphics card, RAM, and power supply. None of them had problems; Lisa just likes to upgrade. When we first started talking about building me a computer, we decided that a locking Hyrum-proof case would be necessary. He has this thing for power buttons... I tentatively thought of naming my new system The Childproof, but Lisa pointed out that'd be like calling the Titanic unsinkable...

My new computer won't be top-of-the-line, but it will be substantially better than my current one. Of course, a working computer is always significantly better than a dead one. I'm getting a dual-core processor, a better graphics card, more RAM, and SATA capability. I'm also getting a bigger boot drive and Windows 7 :D And a pretty black case that locks over the power button. No more Hyrum pushing the power or reset button on me!

So far, all the parts have shipped and some arrived already. The case came yesterday, so I wouldn't be surprised if Lisa installed the hardware she already has. Once it's all together and set up, Lisa will send it to me. Then, I'll get to install necessary programs like Photoshop and Sims 2.

I'm so excited!! I can't wait to play with my new computer! But first...it needs to be built. I hope to be up and running again soon!

Failure is Imminent

Hard drive failure, that is. Oh yes, I get to go through that again.

Thankfully, this time I had 1. forewarning, 2. a back up of the bad sectors, and 3. a valid warranty.

It all started when I tried to open my family pics folder...and it wouldn't open. It just hung and then tried to tell me that the drive wasn't formatted. Um, yes it is...the other folders worked just fine, too. Well, except for the friends pics folder. On the whole drive, those are the only sections I haven't been able to access. Good thing all those files are backed up on my external!!

I ran a diagnostic test on the drive. Or tried to. It stopped itself and said there were too many bad sectors to continue.

At that point, I looked into warranty info and thankfully it's still covered. Yay! So I get a replacement drive for free! Ish...I have to pay to ship the bad one to them. But $5 in shipping is a lot cheaper than buying a new 500 GB hard drive...

And then I backed up everything that wasn't already backed up. Thankfully most of my files were already backed up on my external. Phew! No data loss for me!

I'm also glad that if I have to lose a drive that it's my pics and digiscrap drive - as long as I've got everything backed up, that is. Which I do. I'm glad I don't have to reinstall Windows or Photoshop or any of my other programs. All those are on my main drive. I'll still have a functional computer while I wait for my replacement.

I'm not exactly thrilled that I have to go through the whole RMA process and wait for my new drive. But considering what could have happened, it's not so bad. Just a minor inconvenience. I have to pull out the bad drive, put it in an anti-static bag, wrap it up in bubble wrap, find a box, slap my shipping label on it, slather it with my RMA number, and ship it out. Annoying, but certainly not the end of the world. Nowhere near as awful as losing all my files (been there done that, it sucked) or being without a computer for awhile. Or having to *gasp* actually pay for my replacement drive. With money I don't have, of course. So glad it's free!

In the meantime, I'll be scrapping off my external hard drive! I should reorganize my files while I'm at it; it'll make the transition from back up to new drive much smoother. Ha - if I can find the time to do it! I've got a billion things to do in the next 3 weeks before my due date! Sorting through 5 months of files isn't exactly my favorite activity...;) But it needs to be done. It's just not the highest thing on my priority list at the moment. Packing my hospital bag is much higher on that [extremely long] list and I haven't even started yet. I've still got time, right? ;)