It's part pleading for assistance, part rant and part terror. I'm doing a blog post.
Phase 1 - I can't be fucked to build PCs any more....
There are a few reasons for this, but they all come down to the simple fact that i don't really know what I'm doing and I don't really want to know what I'm doing. My last build worked well enough for a while, the SSD is a great bit of kit, but I've never quite managed to get the performance out of it that I'd like. I should be a getting a big fat deposit back on my rental soon and I've not included that in any budgeting, so I'm thinking new desktop for the boy cave (or box room as people may wish to call it).
I know roughly what I'm looking for in the rig itself, but if anyone knows of any particular deals or retailers I should be avoiding please let me know! Budget will be somewhere between £600 and £1000.... Can't remember how big the deposit was tho.
Phase 2 - I own two flats.
My two flats are at opposite ends of the country and contrast in almost every way apart from size and layout. I love them both, although the Edinburgh flat in which I'm currently sat is the most excellent. It is a colony flat (only seen them up here, everywhere should have them) which means it has a private garden of reasonable size and it located down the end of a very quiet delivery van trap (took the John Lewis van a full 30 minutes to reverse back round the corner). The bloke that owned it before me was a kitchen and bathroom fitter so they are decked out in a plush style. That said I discovered that you can get the toilet flush to stick and can only unstick it by hitting the wall.... Insurance around that is needed methinks.
So whilst I'm mortgaged to hell and back I am actually making a bit of money out of property atm and in 25 years time I'll start making a shit load!
Phase 3 - 4G
I got the massive Note 2 recently on EE. 4G is ridiculously quick and makes stuff like videos and the like all the more viable on a mobile device, but it comes with a bitching data cap. 1 gig a month for me just now and videos chew through that like nobodies business. On the plus side EE are almost completely inept when it comes to measuring how much data you've used. I recently "hit the cap" according to their bullshit system and was banned from data for a full 20 minutes on the train back up north. I was all ready to shout at them on arrival in Edinburgh, but by the time I was back they'd added another gig to my allowance. I can't recommend it in good conscience right now, but when the coverage is there and the data caps are sorted it will kick ass.
That's my rambling done for now. I'm off to spurt out another essay. Soon I shall be free of the OU and a whole 80% less stressed as a result.
Comments
Re: Phase 1
I've been using 3xs.scan.co.uk to configure PCs for work that I can't be arsed to build.
Look forward to seeing the new place
Cheers, will check 'em out.
I can confirm the flat is fully Fish + Alex enabled! Should be slightly comfier than the last one n all.
Phase 3 - 1 gig is very little! Especially when you can rip through it so quickly.
I've been using 3G to stream TV at work onto my Nexus 7, and regularly go over 10 gig/month.
Re: Phase 1. Chaps I've worked with get their rigs from PC Specialist and have given it a quick go myself. I think the charge for build and shipping is very reasonable.
Grats on the flat buy. Sounded like a right bane.
Balls to 4G. Data is a rip atm but it's good that you got an extension.
Will check 'em out. Quite liking the look of cyberpower n all... There are plenty of options out there for custom rigs atm. I should get the funding next week, shortly after I'll order myself a beast.
A gig is sufficient for most of my needs, more annoying that I've got to keep eye on it. No chance of any telly streaming tho.
Assuming you are on Android, you can set an alarm for data usage;
Settings > Data Usage
Then you can set a data period (Data Usage Cycle) to align with your billing month, and the limit line on the graph can be dragged up and down to set a warning when you exceed the data cap in a given period. I think it defaults to 2 gig.
It's actually harder to _remove_ the blighter, if you have unlimited data...
I found that pretty quick. It's far more accurate than EE's system (accessed via an app), which if plotted on a daily basis, would look something like a sine wave over the month.