Starting fresh - The Black Box

Finally got myself a new computer. Been a long time coming.

I've been working off of the same laptop since December of 2000. It was a Dell laptop that was top of the line in 2001, with a Pentium 850, 20GB drive, 192 MB of RAM, DVD player, as well as a CD Burner. Had everything you need, like a firewire port, dual battery capability, digital sound, S-video port...the whole enchilada.

I've also been a computer geek since I was about 12. Somehow, I've never built an entire PC from scratch! I've taken PC's apart, and replaced or upgraded virtually every part of every PC I've ever owned! (Right down to adding a clock card to the Apple IIe that I had to throw a clock card into when I was running a BBS off of it back in 1988!!!) But I've never bought all of the parts seperately, and put 'em all together myself.


Well, it's about friggin time!!

I've been acquiring pieces for some time now, and have finally put together an Intel Pentium 2.44 GHz PC with 512 MB of RAM, 160 GB drive (and 6.5 GB Drive as a system drive), DVD-RW, wireless network card, too many USB ports, a couple firwire ports, on board digital sound, and an extra system fan. The power supply was even purchased seperately from the case.

I'm happy with it. Have learned a couple lessons, and have realized that I'm now an old bastard...When looking for a case, I found myself commenting to the salesguy that "All of these cases seem to be built for teenagers that want flashing lights and neon signs". He smiled and pointed me directly to the simplest, blackest, cheapest case that wasn't even on display. It was perfect. Will hold a TON of drives, has two front facing USB ports, and a very small drive light, and a very low level power light.

My first goal with her is to get my whole CD collection ripped on to it, and start developing playlists. I figure this will be the perfect test to make sure that the drives are in good order, and can last a while.

Anyway...back to ripping discs.