Monday, May 14, 2007

Run Sheryl's Life!

OK, Blogosphere. Time to make decisions for me so I don't have to do so on my own.

I found out today that, thanks to my efforts to improve my credit, I can be approved for financing to buy a new computer (by a real company - the one that rhymes with bell - not some fly-by-night). I can afford a new laptop easily with monthly payments.

So, do I buy one?

Here are the factors to consider:

  • My current computer is a Pentium 3 machine with 128 MB of RAM. The highest upgrade it can handle is an additional 128 MB, which isn't much.
  • I can only have dial-up in my apartment right now. For some reason, I can't get broadband from the phone company, and I think the cable company is evil.
  • I really like the idea of being able to leave my apartment to write (longhand really hurts my wrists, and then I just have to type it again later).
  • Debt scares me, even though I am making good money now, and I have been responsible enough to handle my debt over the past year or so.
  • With the price I have, I can afford a digital camera, too, and I really would like to have a camera.
  • My current computer does not have a USB port (at least not that I can find) which makes transferring files really, really difficult. It also makes it difficult to do anything with a digital camera if you have one.
  • I am afraid of being a conspicuous consumer. In other words, I am afraid that I would be buying this computer just because, not because it is a real need in my life.
  • My current computer, despite being slower than molasses in January, works just fine. I just need to limit the number of windows I have open at any given time. Oh, and I can't upgrade any of my software to newer versions because I don't have enough RAM to run the most updated versions. And sometimes I have to wait for the computer to catch up to me when I am typing, because if I don't, it will skip letters and words.

So what should I do? Should I go ahead and buy the new machine, or should I wait until I move to an apartment where I can finally get high speed internet (keeping in mind that that may be a ways off - at least 2008)? Or should I do something else entirely?

3 comments:

Tim said...

It sounds like you're ready to handle the payments, which only adds to your credit rating in the future, plus I think you deserve to splurge a little, so buy it! :)

LutherPunk said...

Computers are intended to be disposable. If you can finance it and handle the payments, then this will not only get you a new computer but will also help out your credit score, as tim rightly points out.

And you need to just start nursing at the breast of the evil cable monster if that is the only way to get high speed. Once you get high speed, you can never go back to dial up.

Sheryl said...

Yeah, I have a high speed connection at work, which is where I do anything that involves heavy graphics on the net.

The most inconvenient thing is that I don't have a USB port, so I can't use my thumb drive to bring home files from work to work at home, and it takes forever to download some of the large files I work with with dial-up. Thus I end up spending far more time in the office than I would like.