Upgrading the compy box!

alo....

... from my crappy, 'not so mach schnell', Dell laptop .... which I am writing this from ... because......I'm in the process of upgrading my somewhat ancient desktop workstation at the mo', which is laying in pieces on my bed right now. I have been wanting to 'optimise' it for CS2, and a possible upgrade to Vista Ultimate, or at the least the 64 bit version of XP Pro, if it can still be found (it's running the standard 32 bit version now).

gratuities wise, I had a rare, excellent weekend, ...especially Friday (thanks, Louis!). my sales that day were $25,744.00 and over $24,000 in cashed winnings, so I should have had a grand day!!

I was going to get a new lens, but decided I wanted it for all the wrong reasons (a rebate), and already have lenses that cover that range anyway, so what's the point?! the old desktop has been needing some work done on it for awhile now, so that is money better spent, and still cheaper than buying a new desktop. I couldn't get a desktop nowadays as powerful as the one I've had for almost 5 years now for less than $2000.00, so an upgrade is much more practical. I could build a better one myself, and for much less, than what is out there today!!!

getting....new memory (upgrading from 1GB to 2GB of RAM). Got, a new PNY Technologies nVIDIA Verto GeForce 8500 GT 512mb video card (on sale...woohooo), but for which I had to also do an 'unplanned' upgrade on the power supply, NOT on sale, upgrading from 250w to the Ultra brand 500w), a new Seagate FreeAgent 250GB external hard drive (also on sale...woohooo), a Belkin high-speed USB 2.0 7 port hub, and a Dynex internal media card reader to replace that floppy drive that has never been used.

it had been quite some time since I had to get into the guts of the desktop. when I first pulled the side cover off yesterday .... EGADS!!!! dust bunnies everywhere!!! now I have to take it to get it 'blown out'. I also discovered the rear exhaust fan is about to go tits up, so will have to make another trip to AlTex Electronics, or CompUSA ...which, actually I don't mind all that much (I'm a techie geek/nerd...lol...just of a different, passable knowledge sort maybe). Last night at AlTex I was walking thru the aisles ooo'ing and awww'ing at all the 'shiney' bits I'd like to get to build my own system!!

well ...gotta get back to work on the desktop now. just thought I'd take a break and post this... FWIW.

Regards,
Randy