Deck update

Wow, I cant believe summer is pretty much over and I'm still not done with my deck. Seems like I have been working on it for ever. Kinda have haven't I. Well I am pleased to report that I am staining now.

It was definitely a big project that I have done pretty much all by myself. I did have help on a few things from my dad and Jen's brother. Oops almost forgot her dad did help do some holes too. Yeah that is no excuse. Even I know it should have been done by now. Doing all the work or not. All the rain we had didn't help. Seemed that every time I had a chance to work on it, it was raining.

I do have a few little things to still do. Some trim pieces but they aren't getting stained so that will have to happen after I get the staining done. We picked a killer color for the deck. Its called baked brick which is a dark red/maroon color. I hate staining more that painting so this weekend should be lots of fun. I just started on Mon. night and its going OK so far. The upper part of the deck will be done hopefully Friday night. Stinks because its getting dark so early now by time I get home I have less than an hour to really work on it. Oh well all day Sat. should be able to get most of it finished up. One more big thing to still do is my post caps. I think I am going to make my own insted of buying the ones I found for $85 each. I need 5 of them. They are big, my posts are all 6"x6" and the tops are lite. See what happens.

I know I said this before and still haven't done it but I promise to get some pic's of it up shortly.
That's all for now.

Laptop Part 2

Still loving it. It seems as though every time I turn on my laptop I find something new to play with. Where to start. How about the cover. It starts there. It is a dark metallic blue. Pretty cool color. I do however wish they would have done something diff. with the key board though. Its just a plain silver. Not sure what all can be done with it. To dark you wouldn't be able to see it and to light it would be dirty all the time. So I guess I have to live with the silver.

Speaking of the keyboard......one of my favorite things happens to be there. The number pad! I am sure there are other laptops out with a full key board and number pad on the side but this is the first one I have seen. Now being a desk top replacement and the fact that this is a work computer it comes in extremely handy. Other cool things going on on the keyboard are the finger print reader. I still have some playing around with it to get it perfected but its a cool feature. Instead of typing in your passwords to get into the computer and other sites you just swipe your finger and it enters in the pass word for you.

Now there are a few things I do not like and this is one of them. The power connection is on the left side of the laptop. I know your thinking how big a deal can that be. Well its not the end of the world but you wouldn't believe how annoying it can be. I don't know how many times I have sat down on the couch and had to have the power cord draped across my lap to the other side of the laptop. Like i said not the end of the world but it would have been better in the back.

Sense we are talking about the left side lets stay there for a moment. I do have other huge issues with the left side. The left side does have 2 2.0 usb ports on it as well as the network plug. There is a new express card slot and what Toshiba calls an i-link port. One of the many things i have yet to explore so I'm not sure what an "i-port" is. I will do some research and explain in my next post. Looks like mini usb to me. There is a rgb port for an external monitor and some cooling vents. There is also a s-video port. Now for my biggest complaint of the whole computer. Actually came seriously close to sending it back over this. IT HAS AN S-VIDEO PORT!!!! If you remember my last post I talked about the very cool but very expensive upgrade I paid for the...... hd dvd player. So why on earth would you put an s-video port in this thing with a hd dvd player? I am getting mad just typing this. I can not believe it did not come with an hdmi input. So I am just left with hope that I can do something with the express card slot to get an hdmi input on my comp. Big reason I paid for the hd dvd player was so I could watch movies on my tv in hd.

Ok moving on before I call Toshiba. Lets jump to the right side. Nothing to exciting there like the hd dvd player that I can watch standard def movies with. Ok that's it when I'm done blogging I'm emailing Toshiba about the hdmi port. Not sure if it will do any good but I know it wont if I don't say anything. Oh yeah there are 4 more usb ports and the modem port on the right side as well.

Back to the top. I think I had already mentioned the 17" monitor. It also has a built in web cam and mic. Which are deff. cool. Great for playing on msn messenger live and putting up videos on the web. I might have to post a video blog just to play around with it.

Well that's about all for this one. Next time Ill talk a little about vista and some other programs on it. Stay tuned for part 3.

New LapTop Part 1

As bad as things are in the world right (whole other topic and many post's) I cant help but love the time we live in. The technology that is out right now is so much fun. Everyday something new comes out that is just a little better a little faster or does something just a little diff. I love it.

I recently posted about getting a new laptop. I am having so much fun with it I just had to blog about it. Maybe you are looking to get a new laptop yourself. If that's the case I hope this blog helps out in some way.

I guess Ill give a little back ground first. I bought my first laptop about a year ago. Before that I had never even really used one very much but had always been interested in them and the fact that you could take them anywhere. That in itself is just completely cool. Anyway my first laptop was an Acer with a 15" screen. Just a little budget laptop that for the price was completely awesome and still works great today. So then why did I need a new one you ask. Well technically I probably didn't. But that laptop seems to have found its home at my home. The whole family uses it now pretty much daily. With 5 of us in the house it does get a little crazy with just one computer. Jen and I probably use it the most because we can get on the Internet from anywhere in the house via the built in wifi. So much nicer than being tied down in the kitchen on the desk top. The other reason is I needed a new computer at my shop and the Acer isn't really a desk top replacement. As good as it works its not really big enough for that. So as most guys I took the few little excuses I had and ordered up a new one.

So lets get down to it. It is a Toshiba Satellite series notebook. I ordered it directly from Toshiba off there web site. They have quite a big selection to choose from. They do have some different categories to help get you started. You can pick what you want your laptop for and it will narrow down the selections from there. They have many computers to choose from that are pre-built or you can customize them to suite your needs. If you know me at all you already know which way I went. Customize.......One of the greatest words in the english language.

Ok so here are some specs for my fellow techies and those of you like myself who just like to know how much power something has no matter what it is.

It has an Intel core 2 duo t7300 2gig. processor.

It operates on Windows vista home premium (which I love) I am even considering upgrading to Vista ultimate. Just to see what else Vista has to offer.

It has 2gig of ram and is upgradable to 4 gig.

17" monitor w/1440x900 resolution. Yeah I wish I would have upgraded to the 1680x1050 but I had to stop somewhere.

It has an ATI Radeon HD2600 graphics card. OOOOHHH Yeah!!! you saw the HD in front it. Yes that means it supports HD video. It has 256mb of discrete memory and another 255 allocated.

I did only get a 120gig hard drive. But I think that is plenty. That and it has a bay for another 120gig. So if I did fill that one I can always add another. Its a 5400 rpm sata.

Now one of my absolute favorite things about it. I did upgrade to the the 12 format dvd player/burner. One of the formats being HD. Yes it will play HD dvd's. I am working on getting the adapters so that I can use it as a dvd player and play the HD dvd's on my tv. So that upgrade was not at all necessary but it was cheaper getting it in the laptop then buying a HD DVD player. Which the last time I checked were still up above $400.00.

It does have built in wifi. I just got plain old a/b/g just because there is still to many questions about the new n. By time they get that all figured out it will be time to get a new comp anyway. That and it doesn't sound like its all that much faster.

I also opted for the blue tooth even though I haven't had a chance to even see what that does at all. I am thinking about getting a blue tooth keyboard to use when its at the shop.

I also got the upgraded Harman Kardon speakers which I'm not sure if I am completely happy with. They are better than the speakers in my Acer by far but just not sure if it was worth the extra money.

6 cell battery seems to be ok. If I switch to power saver mode I think it will go 2 and a half hours before needing plugged in.

So there are specs. Wow this got longer than I had intended and I haven't really said anything about the laptop except the specs so I think I will make this Part 1 and part 2 will follow shortly where I will go more into some of the features it has that I like and a couple real bone-head things that I'm not happy about.

Til next time.......

Blogger Jail?

Is there such a place? I think if there was I would have a warrant out for my arrest. It has been forever sense my last blog. For those of you who were reading my blog I apologise. I hope that you will forgive me as I promise to try and keep up a little better.

So what have I been doing these past weeks sense I clearly wasn't blogging. Well quite a bit actually. The shop has been crazy busy. That is awesome thing. It seems to have slowed a bit this last week. This is normall with school starting and all. I know all to well how much it costs to get kids in school. That and my younger clientele has gone back to school. Now its just time to get ready for remote start season.

I have been trying to get the deck finished up as well. That hasn't been easy with all the rain we have had. Got delayed for over a week because of it. Seems every time I can work on it.....rain. This weekend I hope to get quite a bit done. Looks like great weather and its a long weekend.

What else.......Lets see I got a new lap top. Which I completely love. You know what I think I'm going to dedicate a post just to my new laptop. I have been having a blast with it and all its cool toys. Been doing a lot of work on it as well because it is a work computer too. Not easy getting all that swapped over.

The kids are back in school now so that always makes things a lot crazier. Now this week they all start dance as well. I'm sure that means girls scouts will be starting soon for my oldest. Another thing to cram into our week. I cant believe my oldest is in third grade already. Even worse my baby is starting pre-school.

Don't want to over do it so I guess that's all for now. Need to get to bed anyway.