natalie kirk » laptop http://www.nataliekirk.com Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:43:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 My laptop died. Again. http://www.nataliekirk.com/2009/03/my-laptop-died-again/ http://www.nataliekirk.com/2009/03/my-laptop-died-again/#comments Thu, 19 Mar 2009 02:55:52 +0000 Natalie http://blog.nataliekirk.com/?p=192 I ordered a brand new, fully customised PC yesterday, because my laptop’s power stopped working. AGAIN! Apparently, I’m doomed to forever have broken power adapters, if indeed that’s the problem this time around.

Never mind though, because this new computer is giving me a geekgasm. Check out the sexy spec.

  • Processor : Intel® Core™2 Duo ‘E8400′ (3.0GHz, 6M cache) ;
  • Memory : 4GB DDR2 Ram ;
  • Hard Disk : 1TB SATA Hard Disk; 32MB cache ;
  • Video Card : 512MB nVidia® GeForce 9500GT with TV-out & DVI ;
  • Monitor : 24″ wide LCD w/ Speakers; 1920×1080 res; 2ms response time wide ;
  • Network Card : On-board gigabit LAN ;
  • Wireless LAN : 54 Mbps Wireless-G adaptor ;
  • DVD Writer/Blu-Ray : DVD +/- RW Dual Layer Drive ;
  • Firewire : 3-port IEEE1394 PCI Card ;
  • Sound Card : Onboard 6-channel High Definition Audio ;
  • Keyboard (Mouse) : Keyboard + Optical Mouse (Logitech) ;
  • Card Reader : Internal Memory Card Reader/Writer (CF/SD/MMC/SM/MD/MS) ;
  • Operating System : Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional ;
  • Warranty : 2-Year Return to Base Limited Hardware Warranty
    Monitor 3-Year Manufacturer Limited Warranty ;

… All for $1600.
On top of that, I’ve spent a few days setting up a home office in my bedroom. It’s looking good but not yet finished. I’ll try to remember to post a photo once it’s ready.

]]> http://www.nataliekirk.com/2009/03/my-laptop-died-again/feed/ 2 A Scare… and Linux! http://www.nataliekirk.com/2009/01/a-scare-and-linux/ http://www.nataliekirk.com/2009/01/a-scare-and-linux/#comments Sun, 04 Jan 2009 05:51:22 +0000 Natalie http://blog.nataliekirk.com/?p=91 Me and my computer have had our ups and downs. It started when I bought it. My first mistake was buying a Dell. Now, I have come to love this Inspiron 1501 notebook, but it is a conditional love. It seems like Dell make their AC Adapters intentionally bad quality. I’ve already been through two official ones, two eBay ones, and finally I have one I bought from a website which seems the best quality of the lot, and it’s not even Dell branded (though it somehow miraculously works with this computer – more than I can say for the second adapter I got after about 8 months of use). Anyway, when I first bought it, it came with Windows Vista Home Edition. Worst operating system I’ve used since Windows 3.0. Blech. So I “downgraded” to Windows XP after a week. After that there were some debacles with the AC Adapters, and basically the hinge of the computer is stuffed. It’s coming apart at the side, though I admit I didn’t use it carefully.

I was playing Sonic 3 & Knuckles on it earlier, and I paused it to go with my sister to buy a new computer (more on that shortly). When I returned, it was off. I picked it up and tried turning it back on. The light popped on and I heard the fan start, then it switched off immediately after that. It felt hot. Really, really hot. I don’t know what the Genesis emulator did to it, but it was really overheated. I was worried, and let it sit for a while. Fortunately, once cool, it worked again. Better that it powered off instead of melting something, I suppose. But, it scared me quite a bit. I don’t want to lose this computer in the way I lost my IBM a couple of years ago. That one developed a design flaw that caused the monitor to go blank, and when my uncle was tinkering with it, it died completely. I was just lucky that I had backed up the hard drive when the bug first started to make the screen intermittently go blank.

So, anyway, I went with Allyson today to Harvey Norman, and she bought an Asus Eee PC for her next trip – she is going to America to be maid of honour in her friend’s wedding in San Diego.

It is a 7.8 inch (I think) netbook that runs some version of Linux. It’s really user friendly (well, once we got over problems with the wi-fi), and came with OpenOffice.org, Skype and Firefox already installed. I think it is excellent! But I can’t believe my sister got Linux before me!

Oh well. Anyway, it’s been an interesting day. Now I need to spend my evening working on my comic, which I haven’t been doing, instead procrastinating with Sega games (I got Hyper Sonic in S3&K, that’s got to count for something!). My nephew Jake is eager to read it once I’m done, so I have to make it, if only for him.

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