January 1, 2002

I borrowed a spare video card from work today and when I got home I plugged it into my computer and everything worked! So I hurried out the door and drove to Silverdale to pick up a new part for my aging computer from Best Buy.

Best Buy, for some reason, has decided to make it a pain in the rear to purchased video cards. They are now all in the "Geek Squad" section of the store, so you have to wait in line and then tell them which video card you want to look at. So to compare two different ones, you have an employee breathing down your neck as you look at the boxes. The computers and every other computer part are out in the main store... Why the heck have they done this? Such an inconvenience.

Anyways, after looking at two different cards I ended up purchasing one for a little over $150. Ouch!

When I got home, I put it in my computer, and powered up. Nothing happened. "Oh no," I thought, "I purchased the wrong type of card!" However, the built-in fan was turning and I realized that one of the requirements for my new video card was to have a "powerful" power supply. So I looked a little closer, and as I had guessed, there was a plug for it to receive juice directly from the power supply. Man this thing seems powerful. :)

I came online to make this post and my web browser was complaining that a certificate was required for Blogger and it would not be valid until 2006. But wait a minute, it's after 2006! So I looked at my computer clock and it said January 1, 2002. My computer must have "gone back in time" when I removed the CMOS battery from my mother board to do a reset. Opps!

The new card seems pretty nice, although I still need to play around with WoW to see what type of improvements I can get. The specs list that it can do over 4.8 Billion Pixels per second Fill Rate. I am not really sure what that means, but it sure sounds impressive!

One last note, I took some pictures of my computer escapades but I need to get my "new" web server up and running before I can post them. My trip to Silverdale today delayed this a bit, but hopefully it will be completed by the end of the week.