I has a new Laptop

And I'm typing this blog on it now.

It's a Toshiba Satellite L675D. Here's what it looks like on Toshiba's website.

Mine has a few Angelspit stickers on it and I only paid $499 for it at Office Depot's Black Friday sale. The folks there were pretty nice too. They had donuts and bottled water for those of us waiting in line. And all I had to do is just go up to the register, tell them what I wanted, they sent someone to grab it. Door opened at 6:00, I was out of there with a new laptop in hand by 6:05.

I set this one up differently from my Dell. My Dell only had linux. It came with Vista, I hated it. The drive got wiped and I installed linux and never looked back. Well not until I tried installing games on it and ran into compatibility issues. Seriously, when you have to recompile the kernel, edit several text files, tweak a virtual windows registry, apply several patches, sacrifice a virgin, do a voodoo dance, and offer up your own soul in eternal damnation just to get one game to run, you start to reconsider things. Now can someone pass me the goat's blood? I need a virgin to masturbate in it so I can play Minecraft, the penguin said so.

So I have Windows on here for playing games and Kubuntu linux installed on a small partition for everything else. So far I'm liking it this way.

And aside from being able to play games once again at work, I'll be able to type my book instead of hand writing it. I type faster than I write. It's easier for everyone else to read too.

That's about it for now.

Need help deciding on a laptop

With a better soldering iron than the one I have, I might be able to fix my Dell. The power connector has gone bad. Actually the connection between it and the motherboard is what has gone bad. As I said, with a good soldering iron I should be able to fix it. According to Dell, I should be replacing the motherboard. I've looked at new and refurbished cards online and $300-450 is way too much to soak into a 3 year old laptop that has had a quite few issues since I bought it. If I can't fix it, I'm going to have to replace it.

The question then becomes what with? I at least need something that can handle Eve-Online. I haven't played Eve in too long and I miss shooting at Amarr. If it can run Eve, it can run the other games I like. I did see this Toshiba at the local Walmart. Less than $400, meets the requirements. Not sure how good of a laptop it really is though. I don't want another Dell. I will not buy another Dell product again. I'm open to suggestions here. I don't want to spend a lot of money, but I don't want to buy a piece of junk either.

So can anyone recommend a good laptop with a good graphics card that's not too terribly expensive?

Sometimes I can win, sometimes I can't

I managed to make the fridge work, now it's my laptop that's making problems.

The AC adaptor went bad and the battery emptied out. So I get a new AC adapter. When I plug it in to the laptop, the light on it goes out and the laptop does not see that the AC adapter is connected. So I was thinking it was a bad battery. I got a new battery and the same thing happens. It will boot up and run on the new battery. It doesn't run on the AC adapter. When I plug it in, nothing happens on the Laptop. And the light still goes out on the adaptor.

The only thing I can think of this being here it that something may have gone bad in the connector on the laptop. I have a good battery and a good adapter, both work fine on another laptop.

The Laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1420. If anyone can give me some advice here, I'd really appreciate it.

Annoyance and excitement

I got a call from Dell today. They wanted to make sure I got the box they sent me for the laptop. I got it Wednesday and sent it back to them the same day. He then tells me they recieved it today and would have it for a few days before they sent it back. I asked if the people working on it can call me with a status update and he tells me that they don't have access to that.

This guy had a thick Indian accent and was difficult to understand. I doubt he was in the same place as my computer. My computer was being shipped to Texas. Now I do understand that he could have been there, but more than likely I was talking to yet another outsourced call center worker. I'm really annoyed about this.

On to more exciting news, I have just a little over a month until DragonCon.

I need to update my blog

No, I don't.

Ok, maybe I do.

Not much going on here. Been working out as often as I can. I don't appear to be losing any weight according to the scale, but I look more deflated than usual. I keep pushing myself harder every time I go to the fitness center too. With my computer gone, I'm there more often. Nothing better to do.

I've almost got my finances stabilized. Which is good because DragonCon is a little over a month away. I have the room and the car reserved. Just need to get my costumes done at this point.

Life is pretty damn good.

Dell is finally going to fix my laptop

I'm still a little pissed with them though. I should not have had to direct them to something posted on their own website to get it done. That's just annoying.

I'm still not going to be buying another Dell laptop. Or an Alienware for that matter as they are owned by Dell. I'm not sure where my next laptop is going to come from actually. Maybe System 76, but their laptops look so bland.

I'm not planning on buying another Dell computer, you should not either

I used to like my Flamingo Pink Dell Inspiron 1420 Laptop, now I have become quite angry with it and it's manufacturer. I recently got a screen full of multicolored vertical lines at startup. Long story short - the video card has failed. According to Dell, the warranty has been extended for users experiencing this very issue as detailed here. However, I have been given nothing less than a run around with tech support. Every time I have called in the last week I have been told they are unclear on the warranty status and that they would look into it and call me back. They never call me back. It's always me calling them back and not getting a definitive answer even after telling them that the warranty was extended because of this specific issue with this specific video card.

I'm not pleased with this. They are supposed to fix it and I want it fixed. This is my first direct experience with Dell and I have to say it will be my last. I'm not the only one having this difficulty getting support. In the link above, there are quite a few people having this trouble, both with this video card and tech support jerking them around.

That being said, any recommendations on who to go through for my next laptop will be greatly appreciated. I'm just looking for something inexpensive that will last me a few years and will run my games (Particularly Eve Online) and will run Linux with minimal effort on my part. If pink or purple is an available color option, that would be a big plus.

So after a week in the new place

Life is pretty good and my finances are starting to find their way back on track. I've still got a lot of stuff in boxes but I have started decorating. I'm thinking there's going to be a lot of purple and black. Just what I'm seeing now.

My old landlord still has not paid me back my deposit. Last time I spoke to him was Wednesday. He was still out of town. Said he would be back in town on Thursday and would be checking the apartment and mailing my check then. I'm going to give him a call in the next day or 2 and see what the status is.

My laptop has been down. The AC adapter has been giving me trouble for a while, it finally died out totally. I bought a new one today. The good news is I have a laptop with a fully charged battery. The bad is that replacing it didn't cure the video problems I'm having and I have a feeling it's going to be the motherboard. So much for my idea that they were the result of an underpowered vid card. :(

To keep my sanity on the past 2 days I've had off, I've been working out in the fitness center and doing lots of design work on my DragonCon costumes. Most stuff is drawn, next is patterns, schematics and a materials list.