I CAN HAS NU COMPOOTER NAO?

[slr2moons]

Interesting news this time! Last Monday--not yesterday, but a week before--I went on a mini road trip with the ever-awesome mcruthless and neekaneeks to raid Fry's Electronics. Neeka shooed us away and talked shop with the computer parts guys while Chiz (mcruthless) and I wandered the store and looked at everything we either didn't want or couldn't afford. :B

What were we doing at Fry's anyway? Buying the parts for my new computer. Yes, everyone, I have finally upgraded. *le gasp* The third time Chiz and I touched base with Neeka, she let us stay. (Apparently we distracted the salesboys when we were there.) Anyway, Neeka gleefully waved her hand at all the components inside the shopping card and said, "Come look at your black stallion!" for the case she had chosen for me was indeed black.

And that did it, the new computer officially has a name: Shetan, AKA the actual name of the Black Stallion in the Walter Farley books I adored in childhood.

When she asked me what I wanted, I narrowed it down to: fast, killer cooling system, above-average parts (these latter two I learned my lesson about with Utena2), tons of USB ports, and a DVD burn-capable drive. Neeka gave me a list of Shetan's guts specs, of which I only understand about 1/4th. :B Here it is, for posterity!

Asus motherboard, P8P67-B3 S1155, DDR3 32 GB max (4 GB DDR3 but clocked oiut at 3.5 GB), Intel Ci5, Win 7 Home OEM, 500 W Power Supply, Asus GT520 video card, and a blu-ray DVD drive.

One thing of note: Neeka made sure Shetan is running 32 bit because Wacom, my drawing tablet manufacturer, only writes drivers(?) for 32 bit. Good thing she was there, b/c I did not know that, and if I bought a lovely new computer and couldn't run my drawing tablet on it, I'd be very upset. Apparently she had to argue with the salesboys about it, including a call to Wacom to verify she was right. I'm very glad she was in my court!

Neeka put him together that Monday afternoon, and came back Tuesday to finish him. He lives up to his name: he's FAST. DAMN FAST! O.o Photoshop loads in 3 seconds! A massive Naruto magazine-sized two-page spread opens in about 2 seconds! I no longer pre-letter on a different computer, because Shetan doesn't need 20 seconds to save/print/process/think about things. O.o

It's...different. Very nice, yes, but different.

Now I am burning files to DVD off Utena 2, and today I will turn on Tsukushi (old work computer) for what very well might be the last time and do the same for past work pages--which will go onto blu-ray intead of regular DVDs.

I only have two irritations with Shetan, at least so far, both of which are Microsoft's fault: 1. Shetan doesn't want to share anything over the network to my XP machines, but at least I can open stuff from them onto him, and 2. Wordpad won't let me open regular. doc files (my manga scripts from Viz). I have to save them on an XP machine as .rtf files, then open those on Shetan. I'm sure if I bought a new copy of Word it would handle old-school .doc just fine, but that really bugs the hell out of me. Microsoft trying to render obsolete their 10+ plus standard format just because they can. *ira ira ira*

So yeah. I have a new computer! He is fast! He is fully customizable! He eats gigantic Photoshop files for breakfast! Once I clean out my towers, he'll have dual monitors! It's a whole new world!!!

And that's what I've been up to. :D Waiting to start Natsume 12 and Skip 28 for script/raw page reasons. Currently working on Naruto mag pages and fanart advertising opportunities. FUN TIMES!