Black Velvet

After a year of consideration, I finally built my own computer. I had hoped to build one over Christmas break, but I was too busy with finals to research parts and such. Towards the beginning of May, I got serious again about building a computer and ordered the parts within a week. All of my parts came from Newegg. Here are my specs:

• LIAN LI PC-7B plus II Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
• GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard
• EVGA 512-P3-1150-TR GeForce GTS 250 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
• Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL-S 600W ATX12V v2.01 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Power Supply
• AMD Phenom II X4 940 Deneb 3.0GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition Processor
• mushkin 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
• (3x) Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
  
• Microsoft JUA-00003S Black USB Wireless Optical Desktop 700
• ASUS VH242H Black 23.6" 5ms HDMI Full 1080P Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 1000:1 (ASCR 20000:1) Built in Speakers
• LG Black 22X (CAV) DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X (CAV) DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 22X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe
• ENCORE ENLWI-N IEEE 802.11b/g, IEEE 802.11n Draft 2.0 PCI 2.3 Wireless Adapter Up to 300Mbps Data Rates 64/128-bits WEP Encryption WPA, WPA2 WPA-PSK, WPA2-PSK

The three 500 GB hard drives form a RAID 5 array. A blog will soon follow on my lovely experiences installing the RAID controller drivers with Windows XP. I also have plans to install Ubuntu, which is the main operating system I will use. I set Black Velvet up to dual boot into XP so I could play games.

I named my computer "Black Velvet" because it is entirely black, except for the blue glow from the power supply. It is also a song performed by Alannah Myles.

The major driving factor for me building a computer is the fact that my laptop is about three years old, and is no longer able to fully meet my needs. For one thing, I had to use a special cheat when playing The Sims 2: Free Time to prevent my game from crashing to the blue screen of death, due to the insufficiency of my graphics card. The Sims 3 released June 2nd. Releases from the development team made it very apparent this edition would be highly graphics intensive, so I knew I would need a new computer to even attempt to play it. The second driving force for building Black Velvet is: I am a computer science major. I tend to lean more towards the programming side of computer science and haven't had as much exposure to computer systems. This has been a great learning experience. If something is wrong, I am the one who needs to fix it. Not to mention, I spent around $1100 for the entire thing, but in turn have gotten a computer 10x better than one bought from a retailer.

All I Need

After seeing Shawn's results for this game, I thought I would give it a whirl. To play, go to Google and search for "(your name) needs", then take the top ten search results. I was a little skeptical what kind of results I would get since Jessa isn't a popular name, but here they are:

1. Jessa needs to stay vigilant and confront them about the blackmail request and make sure it was just a “misunderstanding”.
2. Jessa needs nudes.
3. Jessa needs to take English lessons.
4. Jessa needs to hear her Grey's Anatomy pictures, videos, images and albums from Webshots.
5. Jessa needs to come over soon to check out the play room & new toys.
6. Jessa needs to clean it up.
7. Jessa needs some Zzzz's.
8. Jessa needs to release magic before Líana can steal the magestone.
9. Jessa needs to stop because her parents do not have much money to send them.
10. Jessa needs some rest.

hmmm... the only needs from this list that are true are the ones concerned with sleep deprivation. And definitely the one about needing to clean it up, implying my room. Andrea came up to my room to burn a CD on Monday night, and ended up attempting to clean my room while she waited. The rest of these needs are a little ridiculous.

I Get Weak

I have decided to name my blog postings after song titles or random lyrics from songs, since it seems like that is what I have naturally done with past posts (except for my first blog). So this blog title comes from "I Get Weak" by Belinda Carlisle. The reason for this title is I HAVE MONO! :( BOO!! I went to the Student Health Clinic yesterday, and after a strep test came out negative they decided to run a blood test, which indicated mono. When the doctor told me the diagnosis, I was relieved. I had an absolutely horrible race on Friday at Iowa State, and I couldn't figure out why. I ran 11:34, which would have been very embarrassing for a 3000 meter time in high school. I have felt generally tired the last week or two, so knowing there was a reason for feeling like crap was kind of comforting.

So... I am finished with indoor. I am missing out on the UNI Dome Open this Saturday and Conference at UNI the next weekend. After my race at Iowa State, I kind of lost any hope for having a good season. My best time in the 3K this season was 10:52, which I was content with, but anticipated improving as the meets progressed. I won't be able to run for probably three to four weeks, though the doctor said I could try the stationary bike after two.

I am taking the rest of this week off from school and work for sure, and will see how I feel next week. I got an extension on a programming assignment due Friday, but I have another programming assignment and a speech due next week. I had also planned on going to the career fair, but whether I end up going to that is to be determined.