Jay Currie

After the kids got their PLAYMOBIL® and Susan her boots I had just enough money left over to get a new computer…or “new to me”.

I managed to find a used “gaming rig” with one of those video cards which arrives with a fan bigger than your last video card for playing Counterstrike and a lovely, fast processor and matched, high-end memory. It is a couple of years behind the bleeding edge and a light year ahead of the machine I have been using. We’ve all upgraded so I won’t bore you with the details of file transfers and hard drive strangeness.

Two interesting things: the first is that the machine prompted me to obtain a really upper end version of Microsoft Windows Vista. Which, I have to say, I rather like. Graphically it is modern, it seems stable and I had it installed by a pro so my few remaining hairs remain, more or less, attached to my skull.

The other thing it set me to looking for was a second SATA drive. Wow: Seagate Barracuda 1 TB SATA Hard Drive is $371.00 at Amazon. No doubt cheaper elsewhere.

On my old computer there was no SATA connection and it simply chugged along with a 300GB drive. Now the TB looks attractive. So, of course, does the the idea of the home server with a couple of these…and that way lies madness.