September was the month I bought lots of new electronics. I wanted a new, bigger TV that would be a much better picture and big enough that it would be easy for me to see it and enjoy now that I have cable TV again and have more than one channel available. I bought a 50″ Samsung DLP – I also bought a Playstation 3 to go with it. Two days later, my computer died. Time for a new computer – I ended up with a Gateway PC desktop from Best Buy, with a 3 yr service plan – the last two computers I had were Compaq – a year apiece was all they lasted. If the Gateway dies within 3 years, Best Buy has to fix or replace it.
I was REALLY grateful that I had an external hard drive for storage of all my documents and graphics and pictures! This time, I didn’t lose everything since I tend not to be as good about creating CD backups as I should be.
I cannot stress enough to anyone the importance of backing up though – external hard drives are cheap and I plan to go buy a second one for a double backup … and I still need to store all the data on CD’s or DVD as well – sound paranoid? Not really … I run a business with these graphics … I lose them … I cannot work from them any more. Sure I create new ones … but I like the old ones too and sometimes I like to start from an older one to make a new one.
Then I also bought a laptop so I can paint digitally – it is a Gateway Tablet PC – I am still learning Windows Vista on both computers so I am not progressing quite as fast as I had hoped but I will get there. The main problem has been that I lost all my bookmarks from two browsers … both IE and Firefox PLUS I lost all my feed subscriptions! I feel somewhat lost without those but I will eventually get all those re-created too.
The bad news? There is something wrong with the TV – last week, one nite it wouldn’t come on for several tries. It did finally turn on & work ok. Then it was okay until last nite – it took over ten minutes of trying before it would come on and work. Once it comes on, it looks awesome … but … I will be talking to my son-in-law today to find out if he wants to take it up to Best Buy and drop it off for them to fix or have them send someone out. The problem with them sending someone out is that someone has to be here. I am swamped at work right now and cannot take time off work to be here for a TV repairman. My son-in-law and daughter are really busy too! I do not know if they can find time to be here for that either.
Posted under Computers / Electronics
This post was written by Barbara Burns on November 4, 2007
