So Glad I Upgraded My Computer

It's been awhile, so I decided it was time to get a new computer.

This time, instead of getting a laptop, I decided to get 'back in the game' and gutted an old Pentium 4 desktop, and put brand new parts inside.

Why did I go this route instead of buying a pre built desktop? There are about 3 reasosn.

1. It was cheaper by about $200

2. I got all the features I wanted...with all the pre builts I looked at I had to make sacrifices of one thing or another.

3. Parts off a retail shelf come with 2 year warranties minimum, whereas a prebuilt only has a 1 year.

Put the thing together, spent a week sorting through the glitches (memo to self, never use a usb wireless network card), and now it's running smooth.

I gotta say, if you haven't upgraded your os from Vista to Windows 7, you should. Windows 7 is Vista with an extra 2 years development time....and it really shows.

Just as an example, Vista has a feature called 'aero glass'...problem is, if the program wasn't developed specifically for Vista, it didn't work...so the OS would disable the feature if you were running apps made originally for Windows XP and earlier.

In windows 7, areo glass was polished up big time, and now it's compatible with all windows apps, regardless of what OS they were originally made for.

Also, Win 7 has a magnification tool built in with virtual screening....so you can run hi res on your 32" flat screen, and use the built in magnification tool so you can actually see everything. My only wish now is that I could get it to run on startup.....sounds like I need to do some minor hacking.

Tonite, I discovered what makes Blu-Ray DVD's so great. Bought 'The Dark Knight' on Blu-Ray and watched it......and the picture quality was just awesome.

I also forgot to mention my boot time got reduced by 80% on making the switch....and that is with copying the contents off the hard drive in my laptop straight over to the hard drive on my desktop, then dropping in a Windows 7 upgrade, so it's almost the same programs (the antivirus had to get upgraded to the new OS) booting as before...except they boot much, much faster.

All in all, I'm totally pleased with this, even though it's still a work in progress. At the very least, this machine is now twice as powerful as my old one (probably more), so I'm glad I made this move.

Anyone need an old laptop?