That's about the age of my desktop as well. So far, all I've needed to do was upgrade the RAM (which I did almost immediately) and replace the hard drive. It's been a great machine that I've used for all SORTS of things over the years, including video, audio, and image editing, and building and maintaining websites. It's probably considered "archaic" because it's from 2005 (oh the horror), but most people really do have too much computer and continue to think they need more and more.
Your desktop computer sounds like it's been really good to you over the years, and hopefully you'll continue to take care of it.
Wow, my jaw DROPPED when I saw you recommend a Dell. WHAT in the world???!! They are notoriously the WORST computers someone can buy, well-known among the computer-geek world. I used to work at a computer repair shop; we told our customers that if they didn't want to see us again, a Dell is the last thing they should buy. WOW. When my mother was looking at laptops, I told her to buy anything but a Dell. She didn't listen. The hard drive died on the second day she had it. She shipped it to Dell and waited a month to get it back.
Also, WHY would you say someone should buy a desktop that holds 10GB+ of RAM? Who in the world needs 10GB of RAM? That's overkill. 2GB is pretty basic these days, and 4GB is great. 8GB for a serious gamer or someone doing SERIOUS application processing. 10+? Never met anyone who needed that much.
As for hard drives, you didn't go into much detail there. You told people to think about pictures and get a big one, but I find that most people have hard drives that are too big for them. You get the middle-aged crowd who has mostly Office documents, and they really don't need more than 10-20GB (which you never find these days anyway... so the basic minimum 80-100GB is MORE than enough). You start to need bigger hard drives when you have a whole bunch of music and videos. Like... a LOT of music and videos.
I wouldn't recommend a Mac to a beginner either. PCs are more familiar, more likely to be compatible with software (and a lot of people need Microsoft Office), and I feel like a beginner would just run into a lot of headaches and questions when trying to use a Mac, that most of their associates wouldn't be able to answer because they're not familiar with Macs either.
Many of the postings on purpose try to be non-personal and not provide a way of finding out the hiring manager or HR person. What do you do when you can't find out..
Thanks for your comment. Abby recommends using LinkedIn to research hiring manager names based on information embedded in ads, though this process requires some guessing.
Sometimes these emails looks so legit that even the experts are fooled. They are very personal and customized to an individual. They can even have information about your employment etc. Just be careful.
I have to say that in my recent job searches, I've stumbled on a lot of "how to write a cover letter" articles, and I find myself saying, "well, duh" at the end of most of them. But this one is by far the most useful and succinct one that I have read in a long time. So thank you. Well done!
A friend of mine started having problems with skin cancer before she turned 30. It's scary stuff. After moving to (wonderfully sunny) Southern CA, I finally gave in and started wearing moisturizer that already has sunscreen in it. One of the best investments I've made in the last few months!
Isn't cold water creating problems for digestion, since it basically stops it from occurring?
What do you mean by "cold"? Ice cold or at room temperature?
This is a quite important distinction...
I've had a net spend card for some time now. I got it through a local grocery store here in town. I can reload the card for free, pay bills online for free, use it when I want and how I want as a credit card for free. The only thing I pay is a 7.95 monthly service charge. Compare that to a banks 14.95 monthly service charge and all the other fees a bank charges and I find that netspend is a great value for me. Any issues I had were resolved immediately and they were few. I am very happy with my card.
I like the idea of grocery shopping more frequently than once a week - I've noticed we have a problem with food spoilage because of unplanned meals out during the week. I'm going to try that!
I get so tired of people telling you to get the hiring manager's name. You can't. I work in IT, and a lot of my jobs come from Craigslist. The company name isn't shown, and even if it was, how would you get the hiring manager's name? Wishful thinking at best.
I have flown on over 100 flights this past 2yrs, and that journey has taken me on pretty much every airline in the USA. Flew Spirit this spring, 4 flights all booked at the same time. Thought I would save money, but I wish I had flown with another airline.
After all the extra fees, each of the 4 flights ended costing as much or more than if I had booked with another airline (and I used the $9 fare club tickets). They charged $20 for a carry on, charges for every bag, THEY EVEN CHARGED FOR WATER on the plane (no, I didn't want a bottle, just a cup of water for my medicine), the seats did not recline (none of them, and this was a plane with a capacity over 100), seats were not only uncomfortable but jammed very tightly up on the one in front of you (and i'm a short person).
And once you join the $9 club, you are enrolled in "AUTO RE-ENROLL MEMBERSHIP". There is no way to opt out of that. The only way I could see, was to cancel your membership, which means you will loose whatever is left on the current $69 membership and you will not be refunded your money. My workaround was to go into my account payment information and change the expiration date on my card, so when they go to AUTO charge it 9 months from now, it will not go through.
So, if you really are tight on money, make sure that you are really going to save money after you figure in all the baggage fees and discomfort. then if the savings, if any, go for it, if it really makes sense.
I would rather spend an extra $50 for my flight, then to fly with Spirit. So that means I will probably not be flying on them again, as most everything I price out (including the carry on charge they have $20) means I will find a flight on another airline that is a much better value.
I don't pay for chores. I expect my children to help out around the house for the good of the household, not for monetary compensation.
That said, I feel like they should do *something* for their pocket money... their allowance shouldn't be "free money", so we do have some chores tied to dollar values.
My son has an allowance that is linked to 5 daily chores. When these are not done to our satisfaction then he does not receive the allowance. It puts the onus on him to be more responsible if he wants to save or buy something at the store.
I would have to say I'm a savvy coupon person. I enjoy going to the store to gobble up savings on things I need, without paying full price. However, there are coupons for instance that say: buy 2 boxes of cereal for $5.00 and you have a coupon where you save $1.00 on 2 boxes of cereal. Well, that's great, but with that 1.00 off for 2 boxes of cereal, you're still on loop to pay 4.00 dollars, when you could use your 1.00 coupon on a sale item with 2 for 3.00 and really see the savings with your 1.00 off coupon.
Sometimes with coupons, you have to use common sense.
I will only pay my child for extra chores beyond the usually weekly ones. I don't want him to think that every time he does something that helps our family, he should get paid for it.
It would be especially hard to fight the urge to brown my hide a little if I were in Los Angeles. The beaches, they call to me. :)
That's about the age of my desktop as well. So far, all I've needed to do was upgrade the RAM (which I did almost immediately) and replace the hard drive. It's been a great machine that I've used for all SORTS of things over the years, including video, audio, and image editing, and building and maintaining websites. It's probably considered "archaic" because it's from 2005 (oh the horror), but most people really do have too much computer and continue to think they need more and more.
Your desktop computer sounds like it's been really good to you over the years, and hopefully you'll continue to take care of it.
Being a shut-in does wonders for the skin!
Thanks -- glad you found useful information!
Wow, my jaw DROPPED when I saw you recommend a Dell. WHAT in the world???!! They are notoriously the WORST computers someone can buy, well-known among the computer-geek world. I used to work at a computer repair shop; we told our customers that if they didn't want to see us again, a Dell is the last thing they should buy. WOW. When my mother was looking at laptops, I told her to buy anything but a Dell. She didn't listen. The hard drive died on the second day she had it. She shipped it to Dell and waited a month to get it back.
Also, WHY would you say someone should buy a desktop that holds 10GB+ of RAM? Who in the world needs 10GB of RAM? That's overkill. 2GB is pretty basic these days, and 4GB is great. 8GB for a serious gamer or someone doing SERIOUS application processing. 10+? Never met anyone who needed that much.
As for hard drives, you didn't go into much detail there. You told people to think about pictures and get a big one, but I find that most people have hard drives that are too big for them. You get the middle-aged crowd who has mostly Office documents, and they really don't need more than 10-20GB (which you never find these days anyway... so the basic minimum 80-100GB is MORE than enough). You start to need bigger hard drives when you have a whole bunch of music and videos. Like... a LOT of music and videos.
I wouldn't recommend a Mac to a beginner either. PCs are more familiar, more likely to be compatible with software (and a lot of people need Microsoft Office), and I feel like a beginner would just run into a lot of headaches and questions when trying to use a Mac, that most of their associates wouldn't be able to answer because they're not familiar with Macs either.
Many of the postings on purpose try to be non-personal and not provide a way of finding out the hiring manager or HR person. What do you do when you can't find out..
Thanks for your comment. Abby recommends using LinkedIn to research hiring manager names based on information embedded in ads, though this process requires some guessing.
Yikes, that's a scary idea for freelancers!
Sometimes these emails looks so legit that even the experts are fooled. They are very personal and customized to an individual. They can even have information about your employment etc. Just be careful.
I have to say that in my recent job searches, I've stumbled on a lot of "how to write a cover letter" articles, and I find myself saying, "well, duh" at the end of most of them. But this one is by far the most useful and succinct one that I have read in a long time. So thank you. Well done!
A friend of mine started having problems with skin cancer before she turned 30. It's scary stuff. After moving to (wonderfully sunny) Southern CA, I finally gave in and started wearing moisturizer that already has sunscreen in it. One of the best investments I've made in the last few months!
Isn't cold water creating problems for digestion, since it basically stops it from occurring?
What do you mean by "cold"? Ice cold or at room temperature?
This is a quite important distinction...
I've had a net spend card for some time now. I got it through a local grocery store here in town. I can reload the card for free, pay bills online for free, use it when I want and how I want as a credit card for free. The only thing I pay is a 7.95 monthly service charge. Compare that to a banks 14.95 monthly service charge and all the other fees a bank charges and I find that netspend is a great value for me. Any issues I had were resolved immediately and they were few. I am very happy with my card.
I like the idea of grocery shopping more frequently than once a week - I've noticed we have a problem with food spoilage because of unplanned meals out during the week. I'm going to try that!
I get so tired of people telling you to get the hiring manager's name. You can't. I work in IT, and a lot of my jobs come from Craigslist. The company name isn't shown, and even if it was, how would you get the hiring manager's name? Wishful thinking at best.
Buy onions instead of apples.
They are always much cheaper!
I did this in 1999 and it was the best thing I have ever done!
Not leaving my home works for me,.
Seriously, you fly round trip after all fees for $40-50 dollars, including taxes, fees, fuel charges, and at least one carry-on?
WORST AIRLINE EXPERIENCE EVER!!!
I have flown on over 100 flights this past 2yrs, and that journey has taken me on pretty much every airline in the USA. Flew Spirit this spring, 4 flights all booked at the same time. Thought I would save money, but I wish I had flown with another airline.
After all the extra fees, each of the 4 flights ended costing as much or more than if I had booked with another airline (and I used the $9 fare club tickets). They charged $20 for a carry on, charges for every bag, THEY EVEN CHARGED FOR WATER on the plane (no, I didn't want a bottle, just a cup of water for my medicine), the seats did not recline (none of them, and this was a plane with a capacity over 100), seats were not only uncomfortable but jammed very tightly up on the one in front of you (and i'm a short person).
And once you join the $9 club, you are enrolled in "AUTO RE-ENROLL MEMBERSHIP". There is no way to opt out of that. The only way I could see, was to cancel your membership, which means you will loose whatever is left on the current $69 membership and you will not be refunded your money. My workaround was to go into my account payment information and change the expiration date on my card, so when they go to AUTO charge it 9 months from now, it will not go through.
So, if you really are tight on money, make sure that you are really going to save money after you figure in all the baggage fees and discomfort. then if the savings, if any, go for it, if it really makes sense.
I would rather spend an extra $50 for my flight, then to fly with Spirit. So that means I will probably not be flying on them again, as most everything I price out (including the carry on charge they have $20) means I will find a flight on another airline that is a much better value.
I don't pay for chores. I expect my children to help out around the house for the good of the household, not for monetary compensation.
That said, I feel like they should do *something* for their pocket money... their allowance shouldn't be "free money", so we do have some chores tied to dollar values.
My son has an allowance that is linked to 5 daily chores. When these are not done to our satisfaction then he does not receive the allowance. It puts the onus on him to be more responsible if he wants to save or buy something at the store.
I would have to say I'm a savvy coupon person. I enjoy going to the store to gobble up savings on things I need, without paying full price. However, there are coupons for instance that say: buy 2 boxes of cereal for $5.00 and you have a coupon where you save $1.00 on 2 boxes of cereal. Well, that's great, but with that 1.00 off for 2 boxes of cereal, you're still on loop to pay 4.00 dollars, when you could use your 1.00 coupon on a sale item with 2 for 3.00 and really see the savings with your 1.00 off coupon.
Sometimes with coupons, you have to use common sense.
Boy that just makes my blood boil! Even public shame doesn't deter them? Dang.
I will only pay my child for extra chores beyond the usually weekly ones. I don't want him to think that every time he does something that helps our family, he should get paid for it.