Weird Looking: I may have no convictions left

So…you went with the AMD processor, but not with the AMD (ATI) video card?  What kind of brand loyalty is that?

Actually, I see nothing wrong with your choices.  Oddly enough, that actually sounds like my current system, which was near-top-of-the-line back in 2000 when I got it.

Intel may have a minor performance edge at the moment, but I think I’ll stick with AMD as long as they are in the same performance ballpark.  The competition has been very good for the market, and I’d like to see it continue.

But when I decide to upgrade, I’ll have to do a lot of research again because I’m no longer up-to-date with all the features and marketing hype.

As for video, I used to be pro-nVidia because ATI burned me with sucky drivers one too many times while nVidia once released a new driver that increased my gaming performance by 10%.  I even had a game (Final Fantasy VII) with a “designed for ATI” logo on the box that stopped working after 6 months because of new drivers.

But then nVidia released some crummy cards that made a lot of noise, produced a lot of heat, and took up way too much real-estate.  It’s good to see that they’ve managed to get back to making good hardware as well as good software (although their “unified drivers” no longer seems to support my old Vanta card).

And now ATI’s drivers are seeming like bloat-ware, but at least they tend to perform well.

So right now, I can’t say I have a preference.

The ATI drivers were a long road to travel, but they’re finally pretty good.  Unfortunately their hardware is lagging.

I wasn’t going to buy a new case, but today I found one I liked.  It has 120mm fans in front AND back.  That’s a lot of fanage.  It’s like a wind tunnel.

I’ve been a bit concerned that XP Home might not support dual core processors (I remember it didn’t at one time), but after a lot of searching around, I finally found out it does.  Which is nice because I wasn’t going to buy Pro with Vista’s release only a few months or maybe years away.

Apple hardware…

I don’t know if you are capturing my browser identifier thingy or not, but if you are, take a look at it…

Safari’s user-agent string made me chuckle.  I think it says “KHTML, like Gecko”.

Which means that all of the log analyzers I wrote back in the day report it as “Other Gecko” along with Galeon and Kmeleon.  Someday I’ll fix that.

I also wasn’t going to buy any new optical drives… but then I saw Newegg has a DVD burner for $29 with free shipping.  How could I NOT order one?

Speaking of ATI/AMD, I went to ATI’s website to download some drivers, only to find that it has turned into St. Patrick’s Day.

Oh, and the website is apparently at ati.amd.com now.  I remember back when it was “atitech.com” because “ati.com” belonged to some other company of which I had never heard.