Quick follow up to my previous post… I think everything with the new PC for my parents has been resolved. Luckilly the blown power supply didn’t appear to have damaged anything else. I ended up pulling the motherboard from the old case and moving everything to a nice, gently used, black case that I had… a few matching parts and a modem later, everything was working fine again… I kept it up and running for a couple days, just to be safe (no smoke and flames this time) then delivered it to my parents the weekend before last… Hopefully my dad will have a bit of an easier time with this one… I think part of his problems with the old PC was that it was just to sluggish… When things didn’t happen quickly, he’d think something was wrong and would start clicking other things and would end up doing who knows what… :)

Anyway, with that project in the back, I’ve decided to undertake a couple more computing builds… :)

First off, I’m going to build a new linux box to host this site and the couple other things the current box handles… Unlike the current and previous version, this new server will actually be constructed of all new parts, not just the hand-me-downs from my older desktops…

I decided to get a little fancy with this one too… :) Originally, I was toying with the idea of building another mini-itx form factor PC, like the car PC… But, after some more thinking I decided that wasn’t worth the hassle and expense… I then started looking at some the the small “cube” PC cases, but most of those seemed to come with their own propriatary motherboards, which was kind of a turn off for me..

Finally, I opted for the Aspire Q-Pack case. It’s a litte bigger than some of the small form factor and cube cases but it supports standard micro-ATX motherboards and comes “pre-modded” with a couple of windows, lighted fans, and some other cool features…

The rest of the specs are pretty basic… I decided to stick with AMD, an picked up an Athlon XP 2800+ processor (same as my desktop), Abit motherboard (I’ve had good luck with them in the past), 512MB of RAM and a DVD/CD-RW combo drive… nothing _too_ exciting, but it should yield a pretty cool box…

I’m still waiting for all the parts to arrive, but thus far, I think my favorite thing about the new system is the install instructions for the case… I’m particularly fond of step 19….

Anyway, it should be a fun little project… Once I get that up and running (I think I’m going with Fedora Core 3) and get all my web services, etc transfered over, I’m going to try my hand at building a MythTV box (just to copy a couple of friends of mine)… I’m not going to go for anything too extreme… Really, I think I just want something that I could use as an upstairs TV… :) I’m probably going to put two TV-Tuner cards in it (’cause I have two laying around) but I doubt I’ll ever use it to record anything… that’s what Tivo is for… :)

Anyway… I think that’s about it in the way of tinkering updates… In other news, Kris got back this week from her trip to Arizona and the Grand Canyon… Aside from the usual joys of extend family visits, I think she had a pretty good time… We both agree that we definitely need to take a trip there together at some point… some of the pictures she brought back were just breath taking…

Also, Kris began moving into her new apartment yesterday (with a little help from me :)). All-in-all, it seems like a pretty nice place… she definitely has a lot more space in her room, and I think the kitchen has a lot more storage space (despite beening kind of long and narrow)… Also, all the rooms have their own bathrooms, which is kind of nice… There are some things that the landlord will hopefully fix (some doors and cabinets that are in a bit of disrepair, etc)… but all in all, I think she and her roommates will like it a lot…

Anyway, I think that’s about it from the updates department… I suppose I should probably get to work… ;)