Low battery

In the wake of the trip to the concert this afternoon, somehow everything I own needs charging at the same time. I didn't use all this stuff today but I guess I haven't been keeping up. MP3 player, GPS, both camcorder batteries, camera battery, eBook reader and laptop, all dead.

I went to the concert (Motor City Festival of Bands) intending to record just the mass band pieces, since I just recorded FCB last night. But Jenn's mom who we met there requested a full DVD for a friend who was very interested in the concert but can't really walk anymore without pain, but luckily I was able to nurse my two batteries through it, winding up with about 8 minutes worth of battery life at the end. I very nearly filled the 16G card in the camcorder too, though I had a 16G card in my camera I could have used.

Now I remember...

Why I replaced this machine. It can't play high def video to save its life. I suppose just dropping in a new video card would solve the problem, but if I'm going to get a new video card, I'll put it in the new machine.

Ordered a dual-DVI nVidia 9500 card from Newegg, found one with tons of good reviews for $59.

I also found a laptop for $500 that looks excellent, it has VGA+HDMI output, 3 cores @ 2.3 GHz, 4GB RAM and a 500 GB hard drive, 15.4" screen. Still, I think I'll wait just a bit. I don't actually need it right this minute so I'll see what goes on sale over the next few weeks. I do want to get over to my mom's place sometime in the next couple of months with a laptop, a hard drive full of scanned photos and Picasa and find out who some of these people are. The netbook is OK for checking email but it isn't going to cut it for this job.

Dual monitor turns out not to be a huge deal - there are USB monitor adapters that reviews claim are fast enough to play 720p HD video. The one I have at work is good enough for a 2nd monitor, so for $60 I'd just go with that rather than buying a laptop that costs $300 more.

If I was still running the PC I'm typing on now as my primary I'd jump on this laptop as my new primary machine, but as is I think I'll just get the newer desktop working again for now.