Tales of the Fedora

So I’ve noticed that I post depressing things. Or things that I’m concerned about. Or big decisions that I’m about to make, or have to make, or am avoiding making.

Well, in an effort to spice up the place, here’s something that’s absolutely inconsequential but at least it’s not depressing.

Ready?

Here it goes.

You sure you ready?

Okay.

Yesterday I was about 2 millimeters from buying a computer. I know what you’re asking … 2mm? How’s that? That’s the space between my finger and clicking the “BUY” button on the online store I was at.

Now the next question is, of course, why was I 2mm from buying a computer, but didn’t? Well, it’s not like I couldn’t have afforded it. It wasn’t much, and I was going to salvage most of the parts from my existing computers. But you see, my Digital Video Recorder has been rather disappointing lately, and I’ve been yearning to delve into High Definition television, too. However, I’m currently using a Pentium III 550 MHz with 256MB RAM, a 250GB drive for recordings, and a standard definition television capture card (the Hauppauge PVR-350, to be precise). An HD card would only be about $130 or so, but the data-rates are extremely high, and it would be too much for my poor DVR to keep up with. So I was going to get a cheap Pentium 4 2.8 GHz (good prices now that they’re being supplanted by the new Core and Core Duo processors). I was also going to get 512MB RAM, a decent video card for TV out, and a nice, but cheap case to make it look like an entertainment appliance.

So, like I said, I was 2mm from clicking “BUY” on the shopping cart. I had all my information filled out. I had the money, and I knew I was going to get my next paycheck later that day. But I thought better of it. The money I would have spent certainly wouldn’t have bankrupted me, but my current DVR is still working well enough (although I think I need to just reformat and start over fresh — except I don’t want to lose my recordings. Maybe I’ll archive them to DVD.)  I just felt that I would be better off saving the money for later.  That’s certainly the reason why I haven’t replaced my current workstation, which is itself aging (though not as badly as my DVR).  I just don’t want to part with that much money when I could save it for when I really need it.
So that’s a taste of the tech in my world. Who knows, maybe I’ll make a tech category and make more posts about my misadventures. Or maybe not. They’re not that interesting, and sometimes rather embarrassing. Oh well, I’ll decide later.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 22nd, 2006 at 7:58 am and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.