You would think that knowing what I do about computers, and considering how many I fix, I’d surely know to check to see how bloated my hard drive is. You’d think. You’d be wrong.

I’ve been growing more and more frustrated with this laptop and now I realize it’s because I’ve neglected to clean up my hard drive. I know it’s filled with junk that I don’t need but going through my files and streamlining my drive takes time. I don’t have time right now. I want to be able to push a button or click an icon and have my hard drive lean and mean. I guess I’m looking for a software Leptovox solution, to burn the fat from my hard drive and get it running like new. Or close to new.

Okay, so there’s no easy solution. Looks like I’ll be doing some digital cleaning this week.

On the one hand, the computer replacing my fried Windows 98 machine has a faster processor, a bigger hard drive and a newer OS. On the other hand, I’d upgraded the old machine and it did have 1GB RAM while this XP machine has only 512MB. I think that should be enough for what I want to do with it, but I’m still considering a system memory upgrade later this year. Maybe.

Most important, I’m going to be able to move a lot of stuff from my laptop and onto this spare XP machine. That should speed up my laptop. I really didn’t want to add more than the 1GB that it currently has. It’s just that running a local version of WordPress on my laptop (thanks to the excellent instructions at the old Geeks Are Sexy blog) really bogged down my laptop. It’s old and needs replaced but until I can afford that, it’s going to have to do.

So now that WordPress is on this old XP desktop, it’s time to clean up the laptop. Wonder what interesting files I’ll find stashed away on it. I’m such a digital pack rat, you know.

My sister gave my parents a really nice gift for their anniversary this past year. She had all their old 8mm movies put on DVD for them. It was really nice, watching hours and hours of film, spliced together and playing on the TV.

Of course, there was no sound on those old films so my sister added music to them. We sat around and discussed who was who and what year it might have been. Trouble was, my dad couldn’t hear our discussion since he has so much hearing loss. I was thinking how great it would be if we could have subtitling done to those movies. It would be more of a way for my dad to read each person’s name as they appeared. I think he’d like that.

Back when I worked tech support, I had at my disposal a treasure trove of information. I could call one of the four partners who owned the business to find out just about anything I needed to know about technology. Those four guys amazed me with all their knowledge.

So today I was thinking about that because I’d really like to ask them if there’s a difference between Cat5 and Cat6 cabling. I just want to know the advantages of disadvantages of them. I’ve read a few things online but I really want more simple answers than what I’ve found.

If anyone can tell me the difference, in very simple terms, I’d be grateful.

With my birthday right around the corner, I thought I’d show you all an easy way to get rid of a few years. All you need do is hop the next space shuttle for one of the other planets. Well, except for Mercury and Venus, since that’ll make you older.

If you don’t have the funds for a space shuttle ride, then head on over to Your Age On Other Worlds. Just enter your birthdate and calculate. Even though I’m creeping very close to that half century mark, if i were to relocate to Mars, I’d be just 26. Ah, yes. That was a very good age. And if I head just one planet over from there to Jupiter, I could go way back and be just a little over 4 years old!

The site is really just a simple javascript but my kidsenjoy it. If your own kids are studying the planets, this simple exercise gets the point across because you can see the relationship between the planets and their rotations and revolutions with the day and year count. I found this one quite a while ago and I’m just happy it’s still around. Enjoy!

Online shopping princess is at it again. Winter is around the corner and my costruction workers (husband and son) are needing to “warm up” their work clothes. I hope they head to Hawaii before it gets so cold they’ll need a North Face jacket, though. Yes, that means I get to take a trip, too. I’m pretty smart like that, you know.

I think a few hoodies, some thermal shirts and new carharts should do the trick. Online shopping, here I come!

It seems all I’ve done this week is run around. I haven’t had nearly enough time to blog, yet there are ideas running through my mind, demanding to be blogged.

I think I’m going to sit here all night and not move until I’ve typed out every singer idea I have. I guess I’ll have to take a few bathroom breaks, unless I can find some protective underwear for this all night blogathon. Just don’t ask if I’m wearing them because I’m not telling.

I’ve got my office very much the way I like it. I’m not really an organized person but I do try to maintain an appearance of organization. It’s more for me than anyone else; I trick myself into thinking everything is neat and tidy and that makes me want to work. Don’t laugh. I’m weird like that.

The part of my office that’s giving me a problem now is the “spare parts” area. I have two boxes, a pretty blue one and a nice Sephora one, holding most of my spare computer parts. I’ve had to get things from those boxes a few times and now they’re just all messed up and unorganized.

I started sorting through them but gave up. Everything is in those boxes! I found a baseball, Kendyll’s binky, my hair clip and a couple kitchen sinks, too, I think. Sheesh!

So now I have my job for this week. I have to go through those boxes, remove stuff that doesn’t belong there and throw away at least 25% of the stuff I have. Because seriously, if I haven’t used it in the last year, why keep it?

Score another point for technology. My husband, the man who doesn’t know a mouse from a jump drive, has once again requested the services of my computer. Seems he’s looking for various truck accessories and isn’t happy with the local offerings.

This may not seem blog-worthy to some but to me it’s huge. Every time he asks for information from the internet, I make a mental or blog note. Then, when he makes one of his comments about “computers are junk” I can remind him of these moments.

Not to worry. It’s become a game for us. And it’s all in good fun.

So sorry for the delay in approving comments to this blog and responding to legitimate comments. I got hit hard by some comment spam and I’m having trouble digging through it.

Please note that if you enter a link in your comment, I’ll definitely check it out and usually remove it. Also, if you are part of the “pay to comment” network, there’s a very good chance that you’ll have your link to your name removed also. I’m being very careful about this. If I remove your link by mistake, please let me know.

All legitimate commenters: I’m working hard to approve your comments.