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I've begun modern man's "quest
for fire." This quest is similar to early man's desperate hunt to recapture or
find a replacement for his lost fire. My journey may not risk life or limb, or
require me to run, hide or fight off wild beasts; but it will confuse,
frustrate and other wise make me want to kill something. I'm venturing into the
mysteries and un-known dark regions of the modern computer and like early man
learning about his new world this will be an education.
I've never
really been computer knowledgeable; in fact children in grade school probably
know more about the computer's inner workings and the flow electrons from ram,
to processor, to where ever they go than I do. Those same children can out play
me on any games and use shortcuts on the computer I have never seen. They've
learned this computer stuff in a lot less years than I've used to acquire the
little knowledge I have about computers.
My friends; most of whom are
my age and are similarly handicapped when it comes to computer knowledge; some
of them are under an impression that I actually know something about them,
because of my limited mastery of a few programs on my computer. What most of
them don't know; I have been using the same programs for more years than I care
to count. I'm not as computer savvy as much as I'm program familiar.
 As far as a technical knowledge or an ability to actually fix,
add or replace components inside the tangled wires and circuit boards that make
up the inside the computer's case; I have none. I try to limit myself to
removing the side cover and blowing and brushing out accumulated dust. On
occasion I can plug in new stuff as long as the socket on the back of the
computer is obvious and I have good written directions. So far I've been lucky
that my computer knows more about what's going on than I do; the wonder of plug
and play.
I visited a friend's web site to read an article he wrote,
he is a computer expert. He does it for a living and has been doing it as long
as I've known him. I didn't understand a thing he had written; it was all
technical jargon. It read well but the subject matter was way over my head; I
guess you would have to call it computer guy geek talk.
My one time
super fast computer has now reached the end of its service life. It's also
starting to make funny noises and do stupid things. I'm seeing a lot more of
the dreaded Windows blue screen of death and the messages that say "(program
name) is not responding" as the computer just freezes. Every now and then
there is a sound that comes from the tower; it sounds like a bad bearing. It
gets real loud and then stops. I'm afraid it's the hard drive. With the eye of
my imagination; I can see this silver 3 inch diameter disc spinning at a
gazillion RPMs wobbling on its axel, threatening to come loose at any moment,
and break through the side of the computer case flying into the middle of the
room.
So it's probably a good time for me to look into buying of a new
computer. If I act in time I might be able to prevent the computer from fatally
crashing. Maybe I'll keep someone from getting beheaded by the flying 3 inch
silver hard drive disc.
I've decided that the new computer will be
specifically built to do the things I do most. We've already established my low
level of computer knowledge, so this endeavor is not without a lot of
trepidation; and like early man I need the fire (computer) but have no clue
about how to make it.
 Since I do a lot of digital photographic work and I've begun
making and editing more and more videos I wanted a computer designed to do that
type of work. Video editing is the most resource consuming processes you can
ask your computer to do. It takes a lot of RAM and hard drive space and a very
fast processor; not to mention a really good graphics card.
Video
files are huge, and take up a lot of space. The program I'm currently using to
edit video is Adobe Premiere Elements version 9. Because of my computer's
limited recourses (Intel Dual Core Processor E2200, 3072MB Ram, and 500GB hard
drive running on Windows Vista, 32 bit) the newest version of Adobe Premiere
version13 won't work on my old computer.
So I decided to go big and
spend some, or all of my income tax refund on a new computer that will do the
job. I wasn't exactly sure what I needed in the computer; so I consulted all of
the usual internet places. Slowly I gathered information about what I needed to
have in my new killer video editing computer. I found a dozens of You Tube
videos about building super fast computers to edit videos. It also seems that a
computer built to edit videos will also rock when it comes to gaming.
By the way the gaming thing is lost on me; I don't play games on my computer;
except solitaire. After watching several of the computer building videos with
their host/expert talking about how and why they selected the processor, the
ram modules, mother board and graphics card and how they have to match up clock
speeds and hertz with a adequate power supply; I was convinced that building a
computer may not be something I really want to do.
Then I stumbled on
a You Tube video about a guy who wanted to edit video; and how he found the
perfect laptop. Of course he had to make a few changes to it so it would really
be perfect. It seems nothing in the world of computers is ever perfect out of
the box.
I searched for that laptop on
AMAZON couldn't find one; I
then went to the manufacturer's site and then discovered that the super laptop
is no longer made and by the time he paid for the laptop and the additional ram
and solid state hard drive he was well beyond my "income tax return
budget".
 I not only searched the internet, I
spent a day traveling around visiting stores in the area looking at the
computers they had on the shelf. I was comparing features and costs. Most of
what we found was low end consumer computers. But at
OfficeMax I found a HP tower that was
almost everything I needed and well within my budget.
From everything
I've read, or seen on You Tube, I am convinced I need an Intel i7 processor and
a Nvidia graphics card with onboard ram. The one I had found at Office Max had
an AMD processor which I had no idea if it would work for me along with an
unknown graphics card. I decided to visit HP's
website and see if I could get answers to my questions. I found out the
computer I was looking at in the store was already discontinued. That's when I
noticed HP has hundreds of computers and HP will customize them at the factory;
so for fun I designed a HP ENVY 700xt Desktop computer with all of the things I
think I needed to have…
Operating system: Windows 8.1 64bit
4th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 processor quad-core [3.4GHz, 8MB
Shared Cache]
16GB DDR3-1600MHz [2 DIMMs]
1TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard
Drive
16GB mSATA SSD Cache
4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 745 [DVI, HDMI, DP,
DVI to VGA adapter]
460W Power supply
Super Multi DVD Burner
HP
WLAN 802.11 b/g/n 1x1 MCard BT
15-in-1 Multi-slot Media Card Reader, 4 USB
Ports (Front/Top), Audio [Front 2USB2.0, Top 2USB3.0]
Integrated Sound,
Envy Audio; Beats Audio
HP wireless keyboard and wireless optical mouse
Adobe Premiere + Photo Shop Elements 13 DIB SW
I designed and
re-designed the computer until I had what I thought was the best of all worlds
and I was delighted when the cost of the new computer was well within my
budget.
I visited the Dell Computer website to do a little comparison
shopping. The Dell site was a disappointment; it was hard to navigate and it
was difficult to understand. I quickly became confused and frustrated. It was
difficult to find the right computer to start with and customize it. Their
choices were not all that good. I wasn't happy with the results and the price
was 500 dollars over cost of the HP and I didn't get exactly what I wanted. The
Gateway site was better but they didn't have a way to customize the computer
and the only computer they did have that suited my needs was not available via
the internet.
I have to tell you I like my current HP a6400f computer.
I have two desk top computers here at the "Hovel" mine and Flo's. Flo's
computer is the same as mine except for her operating system is Vista 64 bit
and she has 4 GB of ram. My HP computer has been running 24-7 since 2006, and
when it was new, it was fast. But computers are one of the fastest changing
items in our world, and now eight years later my computer is running at model T
speeds compared to the newer up to date machines.
Video editing puts a
heavy demand on the computer resources and it slows the computer down. At times
the program's demands dominate the computer completely; making a lot of my
editing frustrating and time consuming. Not to mention my computer's older
architecture keeps me from being able to render video in true HD and Blue Ray.
I did look around for a local company that could custom build my super
video editing computer. This would be a little cheaper and guarantee that I
would get exactly what I wanted. In the long run I think dealing with HP would
be the better deal; and I get a year's worth of help and support free.
If I was more knowledgeable about the components and just what will work with
what; I would give the computer building a try. However I can't count the
number of motorcycles I've repaired because unknowing owners did the repair
themselves. Only to discover they made the problem worse. I don't want to have
to carry all of those new computer parts to someone else to assemble and look
like the dummy.
Right now, way out in the dark on the horizon I see
the glow of fire … |
