The one with all the final summer purchases.

My plan this winter is to minimize my bills as low as possible and pay off my outstanding loans and credit cards. I realize that a plan like this is not foolproof. I’ve attempted this many times in the past only to fail like General Custer during his last stand. Or like Hiroshima against the atomic bomb. Or like Pokémon. So, what’s the catch? I want to make some final purchases which I find essential to my survivalism in the coming winter. This is what I had in mind: a smaller LCD monitor for my PC, a head unit for my car, a digital SLR camera, and a backup solution for my network. Lucky for me, I sold my HDTV and made some extra money from deliveries and PC repair on the side. As a result, I was able to pick up an Acer 20″ LCD for Ayukawa (my Acer 32″ LCD went to the living room where the HDTV used to be).

With the leftover money and help from delivery and PC repair cash, I was also able to pick up a new head unit for my car – the Kenwood KDC-MP735U. I had the Pioneer DEH-P6900UB originally in mind, but after driving Eugene’s GT4 for almost a week and using his Kenwood DVD player, I decided to go with Kenwood this time around. The reason is because the Pioneer was the second best CD model that they offered, and for a cheaper price, I could get a Kenwood model that has more features. Also, it has a 64 color OEL display! ^_^

As for the digital SLR camera, I’ve been wanting one for years, but could never afford one. Ever since a huge price drop a couple years ago, Canon released their EOS Digital Rebel XTi, which is pretty much a slightly more beefed up version of the XT. It normally retails for $999 CDN, but recently, Eugene bought a Nikon CoolPix on eBay for cheaper than retail, and it came with a few extras. Also, last month, a network tech from Sudbury, Everest, bought an XT from eBay as well, and it came with a bunch of extras as well. So, I finally decided to get one for myself. I found one over the weekend that came with three lenses, filters, flash unit, 8 GB CF, tripods, battery charger, carrying case, screen protector, and more. I got paid today and got it this morning, but I was a little short because of the extended warranty. The company I dealt with was pretty understanding and agreed to wait, even if the operator was a little pushy when it came to accessory sales. Also, they were the first eBay store I found that required phone contact in order to pay. I think that’s because of their sneaky sales tactics! Obviously, they can’t push their extended warranty if they don’t have pushy salespeople to help out. Very sneaky – but the extended warranty deal seemed good – free cleanings every year, plus no shipping out for repairs; just bring the camera in to a Canon authorized dealer or service center. Unfortunately, now that I think about it, there’s no Canon store available for 800 Km. I’m only short less than a few dollars, but I hate borrowing money, so I’m just going to have to fight-o for deliveries and PC repairs!

Finally, I need a backup solution. Originally, I wasn’t going to get one, but now that I think about it, I’d be pretty screwed without one. Sure, I have a cheap, manual solution, but I want a fully automatic backup solution with retention. The cheapest solution requires buying new, larger HDDs and fitting them into cases with adequate cooling. Instead of using hardware RAID, I would use software RAID because it’s easy to recover from RAID controller failure by ghosting the drive, which will retain the array information. My only issue now is to make a box cheap enough to handle software RAID under Windows Server 2003 or Linux. I have a full tower case, but I need a cheap barebone setup to get started. I’m looking to spend as less money as possible this time around. So, I basically need: 1 sysbd, 1 CPU, 1 GB RAM, 5 500 GB HDD (one for inventory spare). I might need a new PSU as well, depending on the sysbd specs. Anyway, I won’t have money again for at least another month, so that gives me time to do some heavy research on the subject.

Yep.

以上。。。であります。