Jeannie’s Brain

I love this phone. Read the rest of this entry »

I had a Linksys WRT54G since 2004.
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I wanted an external hard drive. The reviews scared me. Horror stories abounded. I looked but didn’t buy. Read the rest of this entry »

The Motorola Droid had really tempted me, but the finances just didn’t work out. When I saw the video reviews of the Incredible I stopped drooling long enough to call Verizon. The operator who answered was a phone geek who had also preordered it. We spent about an hour whittling down the monthly bill, removing one charge and switching to a different plan. I bought the Incredible for $99. Read the rest of this entry »

At the end of last year I got this:

HP Pavilion Elite e9280t PC

* • Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
* • Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-920 processor [2.66GHz, 1MB L2 + 8MB shared L3 cache]
* • 8GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [4 DIMMs]
* • 2TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s – two 1TB hard drives
* • 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 [DVI, HDMI, VGA]
* • LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive
* • Integrated 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) Ethernet, No wireless LAN
* • 15-in-1 memory card reader, 1 USB, 1394, audio
* • Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio

HP 2159m 21.5″ Diagonal Full HD Widescreen LCD Monitor
4-year HP Care Pack House Call Service for HP Pavilion Elite or MS200 Desktop PC

I turned it on. A minute later during Windows setup the screen went black. A balloon popped up that the video driver had stopped responding and recovered. This continued periodically – sudden black screen then the message about the video driver. I went to the Nvidia site and downloaded the most recent driver. This stopped the black screen. Then it proceeded to crash every time I went full screen on anything – black screen, had to hard restart. Plus it just randomly froze when I opened or dragged a window. Unresponsive. I discovered this thread which proved I was not alone.

I fought with HP on the phone. Only the lowest level of customer service ever answers the phone. I tried chat. Same thing. I tried email, got one stupid reply, complained about it, then got a couple of actual replies and convinced them there was a problem. They came and replaced the motherboard. No difference. They replaced the video card. No difference. It continued to crash randomly when I opened or dragged a window. I don’t even try to watch video full screen any more. At the end of last week I downloaded the fifth new driver in four months.

Waiting for the next freeze.

I made up my mind and ordered a new laptop. It’s a Sony Vaio FW Series. Yes I know a lot of people hate Sony for various reasons, but I have a Vaio laptop now. It’s from 2003 and is still the most gorgeous laptop I’ve ever seen, with the most spectacular screen. The new one looks even better. Read the rest of this entry »

Just saw this: Netbook vs. iPhone: A better comparison

At last someone noticed! All the teens I know positively swoon when they see my HP Mini. Why? Because they live on their various smartphones. To them a netbook has a big screen and keyboard, a fast processor and is very comfortable. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday morning I witnessed IRC history.

I was logged into #CNETFans on WyldRyde as usual, when a Global announcement popped on: the network had been sold. Read the rest of this entry »

I needed to unplug from social sites this weekend (Memorial Day). Obsessively keeping up with Twitter and IRC was beginning to stress me out. After more than a year without a break it was time. Read the rest of this entry »

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