Waking from my Computer Nightmare...I hope.

You may have noticed a lack of stories, especially local, being cranked out of Democurmudgeon lately. I'm between computers right now, using my laptop to post what I can.

I somehow broke my old dependable computer when I simply replaced the old graphics card with a newer more powerful one my gaming kids don't want to use anymore.

All my capture and editing software is on my newly constructed computer's older hard drives. I have a new motherboard, CPU and RAM. But I hit a road block when I took my sons advice and didn't get a tower case with a DVD rom drive, using instead an external portable one. Well, that new purchase, and LG drive, broke after two days, so I wasn't about to buy another one.

No internet!!! The new motherboard didn't come with installed Ethernet drivers either, which connect directly into my WiFi router. So I have no DVD Rom to install the drivers from the provide disc, and no online ability to retrieve the drivers through a Windows search.

I knew not getting a DVD Rom was a bad idea, but....so now I'm waiting for a WiFi/Bluetooth card, while waiting for a case that will house my old dependable DVD/Blu-ray optical drive (simply by plugging in a USB cable and power cord).

Amazon Next Time: So I ordered the WiFi/Bluetooth card and the DVD optical drive case from two different suppliers. Why? I wish I knew. Since I'm an Amazon Prime member I get free 2 day shipping. Long story short, I would have had my computer working a week ago.

Today I hope to have at least one of the two items installed and up and running.

Dad's Message to Computer Companies: You're Killing Desktops!

Computer manufacturers are killing me as they whine and complain about the "death of the desktop."

Hey guys, you're the ones killing em. I say to all of them, stop putting out desktops with the same processing capabilities as laptops, because people will just buy laptops. Duh!

My new "home page" at Protopage.com (iGoogle is retiring in November) came with a lot of techie computer news stories, so naturally, I started reading them regularly. Story after story lamented the slowing sales of desktops.

As a father of two boys, 11 and 14, I'm very familiar with the shortcomings the current generation of desktops, and the fact that I can't find a decent gaming computer on sale anywhere. Parents everywhere are scrambling to install larger graphic cards instead, but those cards aren't cheap either, and it doesn't solve the problem of their slow processors.

Not Marketing Geniuses: Please Dell, HP, Lenovo, Asus, Acer, Gateway etc, make high performance gaming/productivity computer desktops at low family friendly prices. Put them on sale from time to time so we can upgrade. Stop selling laptop comparable desktops, please. They shouldn't exist. Wise up. Is that clear enough?

Best Buy, You're not Off the Hook Either: Every week, Best Buy tries to sell low end desktop crap. Ever wonder why PC sales are down, wise up, sell performance computers instead...today.