As I have said before, I do a little light maintenance on computers to make a little extra money in my area. Nothing major, stuff like getting rid of viruses, malware, replacing hard drives, graphics cards, getting internet connected (broadband), wireless internet connections, etc. That plus my writing keeps me busy. I have an old Dell XPS 200 that I bought 5 years ago. I was enthused when I first bought it. But, I soon found out it had a design fault. To put it simply, if the processor comes under any kind of load (like a virus scan), it sounds like a jet engine is taking off in your house. Or at least on the sound level of a vacuum cleaner. I inquired with Dell about this many, many times. I changed out the system fan and an updated processor. The result was the same. I decided I wasn't going to invest any more money in that thing. I also decided I was tired of the noise factor. Sure, I could have built my own computer. I looked into that. I found out I couldn't build it as cheaply as the new computer I bought two weeks ago.

The new computer is the HP E-130F. It came with 8 Gigs of memory, 1 terabyte HD, 512 Megs graphics card, Scribelight CD-W and an HD Tuner built-in. In short, it does everything I need. I am very pleased with this computer. But, there is one thing I should have checked on before I bought it. I bought the computer with the built-in tuner because I wanted to be able to record programs off my cable provider, Comcast. Unfortunately, that is not possible right now except for a few local channels. They say in the very near future we will get something called a Digital Transport Adapter (DTA) that not only will allow you to view and record programs that your HD-DVR does now, but it will carry 3000 HD channels and about 17000 movies in the ON-DEMAND lineup. I think that is unreal! Don't bother going to your cable or satellite provider and ask for a DTA. Chances are they won't know what the hell you are talking about. The local Comcast cable customer service representative didn't have a clue what we were talking about. It's a relatively new technology being beta tested right now, according to the customer rep at Comcast's toll free number.

Anyway, I highly recommend you consider this new (was released last December) HP E-130F computer if you are in the market for a new computer. I really like this thing, old geek that I am. Now, if that whole DTA thing will get into my area...