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You are here: Home / Tech / I Actually Bought a Computer Instead of Building It

I Actually Bought a Computer Instead of Building It

May 31, 2007 by Kris McDonald Leave a Comment

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It’s no secret that I love to tinker with computers. From the time that I got my first computer when I was about 9 years old I knew that I loved them. That loved turned into my building computers. I did it for years for myself and others. For the first time in years I actually bought a name brand computer!

That’s right… I recently gave up on my several year run as a computer builder at home when my desktop took a nosedive and I didn’t have the time or energy to resuscitate it. I think it I built it 4 years ago, or rebuilt I should say. It had a good run. I wanted a reliable new machine that would serve me well. And maybe when it breaks someone else can fix it this time if I don’t hav the time. So…. Dude, I got a Dell!

This is the first name brand computer (desktop) that I have purchased personally since 1998. WOW! Before that, I had built my first machine which was an Intel Pentium 133Mhz, with I think 64mB of RAM, and a 1.2GB hard drive. Something like that. I had also built a less powerful 486 for my mom. I hung onto that for quite a while and then passed it on to my nephew. Well, once I decided that I wanted something more powerful, I made the huge mistake of buying a Powerspec from Microcenter. All I can say is ICK!

Why on earth did I do that? The hard drive died after one month. I had home repair service, but that did not help the stuff on my drive. Luckily, since I had not had it long, I had not added much and the old content was still on my old computer. I upgraded that one a couple of times to fix it, then passed it onto my mother and went back to building my own. It was certainly the best way to go at the time. Prices on parts were so low that there was no doubt that I could build myself a really good machine for the same or maybe even lower than buying one.

Well times have changed. Computers from Dell, HP, and Gateway are now priced great and you can always find a great deal on the web. I did some searching online for a few days until just the right coupon deal caught my eye. I got a great machine, the Dell Dimension E521, and a 22″ widescreen flat panel to boot. WOO HOO!! Along with this machine, I decided to be daring, bite the bullet, and get Windows Vista….

Windows Vista

So far things are going pretty well. I have to be honest. I don’t use that machine as much as I should yet. I am still all over the house with my laptop (Also a Dell, but with XP). But when I do use it, I am pretty happy with it. Yes, Vista has crashed a couple of times, and I did have to go through a couple of simple hoops to get some software to work, but nothing serious. All my hardware had updates from the manufacturers, so that was a relief. I still have some more things to install so I may encounter some problems. Here is what I dislike so far…

  • No RDP server (Remote Desktop) – I used this heavily with my old machine to connect from work, friends’ houses, or just the laptop from another part of the house. Well, Vista Home Premium does not have this included. To get RDP, you have to purchase Ultimate. I have NO idea why MS thought this was a good idea. It is bound to just annoy people and then make us all get VNC. I have not installed that yet, but I MAY consider the Ultimate, I just don’t know. Sigh…
  • The annoying security pop-ups that alert me for EVERY FREAKING THING THAT I DO. The other day, all I was doing was renaming files and I had to accept and re accept to allow myself to do this. Oh, it is very annoying. I am not exaggerating when I say that it does this for EVERYTHING. (see attached movie)
  • EVERYTHING seems to be in a different place now. Some are easy enough to find, but did they have to move it all??

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Filed Under: Tech

Kris McDonald is Chicago mom to 2 sets of twins, wife, photography nut, gadget addict, travel addict, and tech blogger who has worked in IT for over 20 years. She figured out a while ago that she was destined to be really busy (hence the 2 sets of twins), and she has found peace with that. Read More…

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