My New Computer!

Well, I couldn't figure out how to fix my computer....so I bought a new one!

Staples was selling it for $664, which I thought was a good deal. Of course I went to a Best Buy store and TigerDirect first, but didn't find as good as a deal.

Here are the specs for other techie people:

• 2.66Ghz Intel Core 2 Dual E7300
  
• 4GB DDR2 SDRAM
  
• 640GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Drive
  
• Supermulti, Double layer, DVD+/-RW, DVD-RAM
  
• nVidia Geforce G100, 512MB add on graphics adapter
  
• 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) LAN
  
• High-definition audio with 5.1-channel audio support
  
• Front I/O ports: Five USB 2.0 ports, multi-in-one card reader, headphone and microphone jacks; Rear I/O ports: USB 2.0 ports, PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, five audio ports, ethernet (RJ-45) port, D-Sub VGA port (VIA Convertor), Serial port, DVI port (on VGA card), HDMI port (on VGA card)
  
• Microsoft Windows Vista® Home Premium 64bit

I'm really liking it so far!

It's really fast, I can do so many things at once, like run Firefox, a computer game, music on my Winamp player, and my email. Even my old programs still work, there's just a secondary Program Files (x86) folder for them.

Some things I don't like about it:

• Dungeon Siege and Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna don't work! Hopefully someone has found a fix for this, I just have to keep searching.
  
• User Account Control - Way too annoying, I've disabled it for now. It would pop up notifications even when I deleted stuff!
  
• You can't customize Vista folders by adding buttons to the toolbar. In Windows XP I used to add the Delete, Cut, Copy and Paste buttons to the top because I use them a lot.
  
• My folders don't stick to the viewing method I want them to. For example, a folder I've changed to tiles view will be details view when I open it again.
  
• The Witcher is still a bit laggy. I was hoping once I upgraded my computer and got a better processor (I had an Intel Celeron chip in my old one) it would run perfectly. But the video is slightly stuttery, and not flowing smoothly.

If anyone has any tips for a newbie Vista User, or if I'm wrong about the above, please leave a comment. Any advice is appreciated. :)

I'm just so relieved and happy that I got a new computer. It's gorgeous and I love it. Now I can get back to posts about computer games, yay!



P.S. I love how tiny it is! It sits right on top of my computer desk and isn't in the way at all. I just won't be able to modify it much as the case is so small, but that's okay.

Dungeon Siege: Legend of Aranna Review

So I finished playing Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna about a month ago, and I would really like to post about it here. I am just going to copy the review I posted to Facebook's LivingSocial: Video Games application because I think I expressed myself very well.

"The game is seriously cool, I mean what more could you want? Great graphics, great storyline, great monsters to fight! This game took me 39 hours to play (spread out over probably a month) and it was well worth it. I loved the addition of the displacer pads, much better than trekking backwards because you missed a quest in a past area (yes, I'm looking at you Dungeon Siege!).

My favorite dungeon was the Mountains of the Dead (exterior and interior), and my favorite monster was the Great Krakbone....just the way it appeared out of the water like that, scared me half to death! I think my least favorite area was the swamps, there's just so much you have to wade through (pun intended). Oh another great dungeon was Halls of the Lost with the Lost Queen.....that dungeon had so much atmosphere, it was great. I just loved how the Lost Queen talked at you while you were coming to get her. Great fight as well, I must have fought 12 of those purple spiders before I realized they were coming from the tail and I had to defeat that first.

Also, I didn't think it was possible, but this game drops way too much loot. I had to drop a lot of stuff because I didn't reach a store in time and wanted to pick up something more valuable. My seven characters and one pack animal (the one that looked like a dinosaur) were always packed full. And yes, they all had backpacks. I probably should've gotten a mule, I think they had more storage space. Also, there was a lot of spells for my nature and combat mages, it was sort of overwhelming.

My other complaint was the final showdown with the Shadowjumper. It just seemed over too quickly! My characters didn't even use that many healing and mana potions. And no, they weren't super characters either. I think he should have run away....to a big massive door with maybe 10 or 15 of his Shadowjumper minions (and him of course). That would have been a boss fight!

But other than those points, the game was totally awesome, and I'm definitely going to play it again sometime with different parties and such. Very fun!"

Without further ado, here are some cool screenshots I grabbed while playing:










See the rest at my photobucket album.

Thanks for reading!