Light blogging next few days...
Kinda busy with some projects.
The local Farmers Market starts this Sunday and we have a booth there.
If that wasn't enough, that weekend is also the
Bellingham Highland Games so we will be there Saturday through the afternoon and then its home to madly label and pack.
Finally... I have been looking for a
relatively inexpensive CHEAP computer system for use for the CAD/CAM system I'm building. Plus, I want to put all of our CD-ROMs onto a hard disk and put an iTunes machine in the living room tied to our hi-fi and household network. Used machines were running around $200 for something decent (more than 1GHZ CPU speed).
I was turned onto
these systems from Fry's. It comes with Linspire Linux preinstalled but I already have a few licenses for 2000 and XP (I used to work at MSFT and can get the software for cheap through the company store). $150 for a 1.4GHz CPU, 128MB RAM, 40GB hard disk and OK video (but an AGP8 slot if I want to upgrade).
I bought two of them and have been getting them configured.
The iTunes machine is not tech for tech's sake, Jen and I both had large collections. I am about 40% through importing our CDs and have over 8,000 individual tracks and 21.5 days of material.
I had been using WinAMP for my personal machine but the new versions have major suckage -- to many features getting in the way of easy operation. I wish there were a few more things added to iTunes but it is a new program.
A quick rant -- when I bought the systems from Fry's/Outpost, I was planning to ship via UPS Ground. UPS is in this area pretty much every day and with the upcoming Memorial Day holiday, any shipment would be delayed a day or so.
The Fry/Outpost online ordering system defaulted to 2nd Day Air from DHL. I was unable to change it after I hit submit. I had calculated my shipping costs using UPS Ground but I didn't see that I had to re-enter my choice when submitting the order. $40 instead of $11.
What chaps my lilly white butt is that
it took DHL one week to get those two packages from California to WA State. I got fed up yesterday, called and found that they were sitting in a depot about an hour south of me and would not be delivered for a few more days because "
We only run a truck up there a few times/week."
I was a bit incensed and the dispatcher promised me that they would get it to me today. A guy driving his personal car dropped it off around 2:00PM.
DHL may be fine for large-city --to--large-city shipping but for suburb and rural, forget them. UPS and FedEx do excellent service and I will using them for all future orders.
I heard that the two were merging.
The new company is going to be called FedUPS
(rimshot)
Posted by DaveH at June 1, 2006 9:06 PM