on the subject of computers..

We've bought several computers over the years. We've owned a range of different brands.. Apple, Compaq, Toshiba, Gateway, IBM, Sony, Alienware, and one computer swiped from a now defunct ISP that Josh used to work for (and no, it is not the same company I currently work for, I wouldn't call this place defunct just yet) that was put together from parts.

The Compaq was the first desktop we owned, and we quickly grew to hate it because it was virtually impossible to upgrade it with non-Compaq parts. We owned a Toshiba laptop before the Compaq, and it was OK for its time. I think this was before CD-ROM drives became a standard feature on computers, so we were loading all software from 3.5" floppy disks.

The next desktop PC Josh bought was a Gateway, and my computer at that time was the stolen-from-the-dead-ISP model. Both worked pretty good. Gateway had pretty decent computers & service, so when we could afford it, I ordered my own new computer from them as well. We had those two computers for a while, upgrading them with new video cards, hard drives, and memory.

Well, Josh's P2 400, while working well enough, couldn't keep up with the ever changing technology of first-person shooter games, so we bought our first Sony, and along with it, a spiffy new Nvidia video card (can't recall which model). He quickly found that the Sony did not like the Nvidia card, and would lock up the system.

He looked around for other options. After a bad experience with Gateway's customer service when we ordered a laptop from them and it had bad pixels (wanted replacement with guarantee of 0 bad pixels, but they found 10% bad pixels acceptable.. so we returned the stupid thing, and went with another Sony laptop, I believe), we decided to shy away from them, and we discovered Alienware.

This is a company where you can get customized computers with colored cases. Josh chose a Martian Red case (and matching keyboard & mouse). I got the Sony, because it worked fine with my current video card. My Gateway went to (or maybe we sold it to him? I can't remember) one of Josh's friends.

So I have my Sony (the first one), and he has his red Alienware. Hardware upgrades follow as warranted.

Then my hard drive on my Sony bites the dust. We're not exactly sure what happened, as we were still able to retrieve all of my data from it, and the same hard drive is working perfectly fine in that Sony now. But at the time it looked hopeless (that dumb thing just would not boot). So, since we had the money, or the balance on a credit card, rather, we went and bought me a nice new Sony to replace it. Old Sony gets reformated after retrieving my data, and gets given to the same friend who got my Gateway. (I think the gateway fell victim to their toddler). That Sony is still working quite well as far as I am aware.

Then Alienware comes out with a new style of case, that looks, conveniently enough, like an elongated alien head. He drools. He wants. He wants bad.

So we get an alien-head-shaped case Alienware, this time in blue (with matching keyboard.. at this point he has a new mouse and doesn't feel like changing it, so does not order a mouse from AW). The red Alienware gets formatted and turned over to me. The second Sony, well, for a while it served as a network server for our printer, and for various shared files. Now, as my previous entry states, it is going to my parents for $800.

The Alienware is a P4 1.7GHz, while the Sony is 1.8, but the Alienware has at least twice as much RAM, so that's no big deal for the minor loss of processor speed.

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