Review of my Ibuypower machine after around 5 months.

I purchased a computer from Ibuypower in May of 2012.  I think it took until July to arrive I was pretty excited having never really owned a computer that was actually ready to play newish type games.  I was pretty disappointed when I first opened the box and realized that the video card had fallen out during shipping and so had the hard drives.  After hooking everything back up and trying it, I soon discovered that the hard drives were toast.  I blame the company for that as I don't believe they were installed in a way that had any chance of surviving being flown across the country (they are in California and I'm in PA).

So after much excitement the next day I had to send it back :(.  When it arrived the second time I noticed this time they actually put some packaging material inside the case that they had not the first time.  This resulted in the Video remaining installed this time.  They also tried to install the hard drives more securely but they still fell out.  But this time I was in luck they still "worked".  One of the hard drives sometimes takes 2 to 5 attempts to detect on power up which is pretty annoying.

For awhile I have been able to use the computer I have played quite a bit of Civ 5 on it.  I was also finally able to turn some of the setting up for the game Lotro game looks awesome on a computer with a real video card.  My old Dell laptop had some kind of Intel on board thing which meant I had to play Lotro on min settings. 

I tried installing Visual Studio on it around September the install seemed to go fine but soon after that it seemed like it would freeze every time I tried to make a system restore point.  At least I was able to back up my data though.  Not really sure if these are related.   

Now just recently I starting having more issues like I rebooted and it would no longer load any video drivers.  I tried doing a System restore and crap blue screen of death.  I contacted Ibuypower and they were willing to have me ship back the system but I would have to pay for it!  Never had to pay to ship back any of my Dells.  Money is pretty tight right now so decided to reinstall Windows myself which got my networking components back up and running!  Still having some issues that I am trying at this time to work through by myself including:

• Tried to check my backup drive caused a blue screen.  (I plan to try this again)
• Just tried running a backup and that seems to have failed for some reason as well.  
• Could be a Microsoft Issue.

 I would rank this computer a 2.5 out of 5 at this time.  When working its pretty nice but has really been a head ache.

Update 2/1/2013
I have contacted tech support and they initially wanted me to send the computer to them.  I would have if I didn't have to pay for shipping.  I am also not convinced that it would come back in better shape as FEDEX seems to be trying to destroy it as it travels across the country.  So I emailed them back and they seem willing to work with me to try to figure out what isn't working.  The latest is they had me download Seagate's SeaTools and run the long generic test which I ran earlier and found that my backup drive failed the check.  This might explain why I got a blue screen of death when I ran chkdsk on it.  I am somewhat surprised that the drive that always starts when I turn on my computer is the one with the issue.  Hopefully I can get this thing working 100%.

IBuypower Tech Support Rating 3/5 (Right in the middle as they seem to be trying to help but so far we haven't fixed anything)  
   

IHeart Organizing: DIY Cereal Box Drawer Dividers

IHeart Organizing: DIY Cereal Box Drawer Dividers: Home Office month is in full swing!  And it's not just about the papers.  And paper piles.  And filing.  And paying bills.  Another great Idea for the office that I need to try.  My desk drawer is a huge mess!

Um...hi, tiny snowy human! - Imgur

Um...hi, tiny snowy human! - Imgur

I saw this picture while randomly wandering around Reddit. It seemed like something that should be shared!

Organize Starting with Paper Piles!

I am a year late but I am planning to start working on my paper piles.  Actually it looks like iheartorganizing has declared this home office organization month so I'm right on time.  Going to focus on just trying to get paper organized first though.  I plan to utilize some of the ideas I found in the following blog posts (thanks iheartorganizing).  
Step 1
I found the following table:

Keep these documents at home
Documents	When to toss them
Bank deposit slips	After you reconcile your statements
Banking statements	After a calendar year; store with tax returns if they will be used to prove deductions
Brokerage, 401(k), IRA, Keogh, and other investment statements	Shred monthly and quarterly statements as new ones arrive; hold on to annual statements until you sell the investments
Credit-card bills	After you check and pay them, unless you need them to support tax filings
Employer defined-benefit plan communications	Never
Household warranties and receipts	After you no longer own the household items
Insurance policies	After you renew them
Investment purchase confirmations and 1099s	Hold until you sell the securities, then keep with your tax records for an additional seven years
Pay stubs	After you reconcile them with your W-2
Receipts	After you reconcile them with your credit-card or bank statement unless needed for a warranty
Safe-deposit box inventory	Never, but review and update annually
Savings bonds	Cash them in when they mature
Social Security statements	When you get a new statement, then shred the old one
Tax returns and supporting documents	After seven years
Keep these in a safe-deposit box
Documents	When to toss them
Birth and death certificates	Never
Estate-planning documents	Never
Life-insurance policies	Never, or when a term policy has ended
Loan documents	After you sell your home, automobile, boat, or whatever the loan was for
Marriage licenses and divorce decrees	Never
Military discharge papers	Never
Social Security cards	Never
Vehicle titles	After you sell the car, boat, motorcycle, or other vehicle

at Consumer reports(I put it here to avoid issues with dead links that might occur in the future. 

Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5

I plan to post updates as this progresses.  This is part of a bigger effort starting with papers trying to get the whole house looking closer to what I see on iheartorganizing's blog.

First Post

Not entirely sure where this blog is going to take me but I have created it so I guess I should post to it. I am not the greatest writer so part of my motivation is to just write more and hopefully with practice I will get better.

Off the top of my head I could possibly see myself tackling topics like:

• Reviews
• Programming