Apparently fiscal responsibility and furniture assembly aren’t my strong suits.

October 29, 2004

Yesterday I got up about 15 minutes earlier, left a bit earlier than I normally do, and I dropped my car off at the dealership to have the scheduled service done on it. Normally I would just take it in to someplace local to have the oil changed, but since it’s a factory-certified used car, one of the terms of my extended warranty is to have all the service done at the dealer. That’s not too bad, I suppose, since their price for and oil change is competitive and the inspections and tire roations are free.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t an inspection or oil change. It was the 30,000 mile workup, and as I was afraid, they’re going to charge me the distance. I got an estimate from them before I hopped into their complimentary shuttle, and it looked like it was going to come out to be about $320. I had inquired with them that since I haven’t even been driving it for six months and I purchased it FROM them, wouldn’t a lot of that stuff have been done? Apparently not, according to their records. They only do the scheduled service when the car is on their lot and within 500 miles of the service. Since I purchased it with about 27-28k miles on it, I was out of luck.

Good thing I get paid next week.

I checked my checking account, and I had enough to cover my car maintenance, my new desk and chair, my rent, and have enough left over so that the checks I’ll write for my car payment, student loan, and rent next week will still leave me with money. Not a whole lot, but I’ll still have money. Wasn’t I trying to save money for something? My own apartment or something like that? I vaguely remember that. Anyhow, as it turned out, they didn’t need to do everything, and so I only got socked with a $230 bill. Not great, but still a heck of a lot better. I wish I could say my car “feels” different, but let’s face it: they just did routine maintenance. They didn’t install an NO2 system or a turbocharger. I wonder how much those would cost, though?

The good news of that particular transaction was that I paid less than they inititally quoted me for, but the bad? news is that I spent most of the difference already. You see, I’ve had my eye on a particular piece of machinery here at work for the last six months or so–heck I’ll even post a picture of it:

…and I finally got up the nerve to ask my boss if I could buy it off him. I had inquired abou tit at one point, and he’d said I could probably have it, but since I’d been working there for about a week I didn’t wnat to press my luck. So I waited, and offered to pay for it, but he just told me I could have it. My boss is kind of ornery sometimes, but he’s been particularly generous with me when it comes to stuff around the office that isn’t needed anymore. I figure since Dan gets the run of old computers at Red Hat where he works, I can get the run of PDAs and miscellaneous equipment. Last week he let me have a brand new piece of computer hardware that he bought to qualify for the Spanish version of Windows XP. You see, Microsoft has a strange licensing scheme where in order to buy OEM copies of Windows (the discounted copies they sell to computer makers), you have to buy hardware with it. They normally mean like a computer, but white box retailers can get around this by selling any old piece of hardware with it. My Dad and I both bought copies of Windows XP in the past that got shipped with a piece of crap mouse, and my boss bought the Spanish Windows XP with a particular type of network adapter that just happens to also work on my TiVo. I offered to buy it, he gave it to me instead, and now my TiVo downloads its program listings over the Internet instead of using the phone line to call up a local access number.

Anyway, I bummed the above piece of equipment off him. I wrote about this little gem back in May when I first started working here, but I kept putting off asking for it. To sum up, it’s not exactly a laptop. It’s more like an extended PDA. It has an LCD screen and keyboard like a laptop, but it runs Windows CE, Microsoft’s operating system for handhelds. It has no bootup time, no shutdown time (instant on/off), and about ten to twleve hours of battery life. It has versions of Word, Excel, and Outlook loaded on it, I can plug a network card (even a wireless card) into it and browse the Internet or check my mail, even load AOL Instant Messenger on it. In short, it’s an underpowered machine that has decent functionality and battery life.

Laptops are spectacular pieces of machinery. Having a whole computer compacted into such a small space where you can take it anywhere is great. When I use a laptop disconnected from AC power, though, I’m always worrying about battery life. My current laptop (that is, before the ability to run off battery finally gave out) had a battery life of about 30 minutes, and even when it was brand new to get the most out of battery life you had to turn down display brightness, not use hardware you don’t need, allow it to sleep when you don’t use it for oh, 30 seconds, those sorts of things. Laptops are great machines, but they’re notiriously power-hungry due to the display. In any case, once I get the Clio (the laptop-esque notebook I brought home) up and running, I’ll have a portable machine I don’t have to worry about.

Now, the key words there are “up and running.” The hitch with this thing is that there’s no AC adapter and no sync cable to connect to a PC. I don’t care about synchronizing an address book or calendar, but I do care about being able to transfer files. Fortunately, the company that took over manufacturing and distribution of the machines is not only still in business, but still selling parts. For only $50, I was able to pick up a combination of sync cable and AC adapter. For another $25 (minus $14 in rebates, bringing my total to $11), I picked up two 128 MB CompactFlash cards–one for the Clio and one for my digital camera. I already have a 128 MB card for my camera and can in fact store about 200 pictures on it before it runs out of room, but heck, it’s cheap, and extra storage is always nice. The other 128 MB card is going in the Clio, even though it’s overkill. A deal is hard to pass up, though, and the only other cards I have that would work are the one currently in my camera and an 8 MB one that originally came with my camera. That wouldn’t even be worth it.

So if I’m writing about wanting a new laptop on a regular basis, why would I pick something liek the Clio up? Three reasons. Firstly, I’ve always wanted a Windows CE device of my own. I used to browse the eBay listings for used Windows CE devices endlessly as long ago as when I worked at Stream in 1998-1999. The ones I was interested in were only a couple of years old and still about $200-$300. I just wanted one to play with, mostly. I’ve used them here at work, but it’s not the same. Secondly, having a lightweight ultraportable device that allows me to write, read, and browse for up to ten hours seems like it would have use to me. I’m sure I could find a pub or coffee shop with wireless Internet and hang out there with my Clio and look hip. Lastly, it makes a good addition to my computer hall of fame. As far as PDAs go, I already have an Apple Newton and a Sony Magic Link, and this will be a fine addition to my unusual PDA collection. Anyone can pick up an old Windows CE device, those are a dime a dozen. The Clios are works of art, very unique. Now if I can just find a working Palm Pilot (original, first generation) to add…I think we might even have one or two here.

My desk and chair were delivered yesterday, and I spent the whole evening assembling the two of them. The chair took me less than a half hour; the desk took me about three and a half. Technically, it’s still not “fully” assembled, either. I left off a couple pieces of backing because I have items on my desk with cords that need to drape behind it, and for some reason a couple of the anchor screws didn’t want to go in. From a structural standpoint, the four that didn’t go in are unneccessary, but it bugs me a little. Overall, it’s a success, though I need to move my desk further back into the corner. It’s too heavy to just push (particularly with my 55 pound monitor on it), so I’ll have to unload it a bit and try again. Today I’m all banged up, though, between what feel like callouses developed on my hands to the tears in my skin from catching myself on sharp edges to the very odd cut running across my nose. Apparently I hit my face on one of said sharp edges at some point during assembly, but I don’t remember doing it. I guess in a strange way that makes perfect sense.

But now I have a huge desk taking up a whole corner of my room, but it works nearly perfectly for what I need. The chair is comfy, my room smells like freshly cut (or drilled, in my case) wood, and I was able to consolidate a lot of computer and desk stuff into one place. Except for one incident of nailing a piece on backwards and the four anchor screws that don’t want to go in, it was a resounding success.

Getting it out of the room is not something I look forward to. It’s not exactly what I’d call easily disassembled.

Boy am I glad that today is Friday. I get to go home and not have to worry about getting up at 6 AM tomorrow morning, though I’m sure that I’ll be up by 7:30 and playign City of Heroes nonetheless. I haven’t touched it since Sunday, and so my reward for staying away from it during the week is going to be playing it this weekend. Hopefully not for nearly as long as last weekend, but heck, I gotta give my chair a trial run.

Happy Halloween, all.

Posted in Geekery, General