Gadget fix

The end of another week. The weeks seem to be flying by and not much is going on.

Today I went to Best Buy and had my "gadget fix." I am a gadget freak and love learning all about the newest and latest electronic stuff and Best Buy is where I go to do that. I pick the brains of all the salesmen and learn so much. Today I learned that they have a combo DVD and VHS recorder at a reasonable price. I have had a combo DVD/VHS player for a few years now, but thought the 'recorders' were expensive and not really perfected yet. I have quite a large library of family home movies going back 20 years and would love to transfer them all to DVD for better and easier safekeeping and storage. I know that photo places will do that for you, but they charge a lot and I have so many. I learned today that I can now do it at home and don't need the camera it was recorded on to connect it to the recorder, OR another VHS player to hook up to the recorder. Needless to say, I am thrilled about this and plan on getting one as soon as possible. They may have been out and reasonable for awhile, but I just now came across it. I just haven't looked into it since it seemed such a daunting job, but now it may be a little easier.

I also learned a lot about digital movie cameras today. I was shopping for one for my sister for her birthday and she wanted something that was simple to use and easy to view on TV and then make copies from. Even though they told me the cameras in the DVD format weren't the greatest, they were the easiest to use for someone technically challenged. They only give you about 30 minutes of recording time, but hey, anything more than that at one time or of one event gets really boring! I know because I have many tapes of my kids school events or soccer games or just stuff around the house and they can get boring after a little while. I think 30 minutes will make you think more about what you are recording and it might make it more interesting. And, if you use the mini DVD-RW (rather than -R) disks, you can re-record till it is the way you want it, much like the digital tape ones. With these cameras, every time you start and stop, it makes a new chapter so later when viewing the disk, you can find any clip on it that you like! I like that idea, even though they said that it makes it harder to edit because it is already cut up into all these chapters if you start and stop a lot. She won't be editing anyway so that was a moot disadvantage. I don't know for sure, but with that type of thing going on with recording, wouldn't it be easy to upload just one small clip or recording session to your computer and then e-mail it? I will have to get her to try that since now that she will have a digital movie camera to film her two precious granddaughters with, I may not get as many photos e-mailed to me! I just hope that making copies isn't too difficult for her, since I know that one of the things she will want to do is pass all those great moments around!

I also checked out the laptops. I need a new desktop AND laptop, and don't know if I will be able to wait till the new Vista operating system comes out. What is taking so long? I wish I had the nerve to just get an Apple computer. My laptop keeps acting up, doing strange things, and then it just clears back up and behaves. Very frustrating, but now my desktop is starting to really slow down and even freeze up on me and it never used to do that. I did all the regular maintenance stuff to keep it clean and uncluttered, but it is still acting up. I have had it (the desktop) longer than any other I have had - 4 years. I usually upgrade after 3 years, but this one has been really good and technology sort of stalled as far as speed goes, so I didn't feel a need to "keep up." But now, I need to get something new and don't want to have Windows XP when the new Vista comes out and don't want to have to install the upgrade myself, soooooo.. I'm trying to hang on a little longer.
So, that's it for my exciting day at my favorite store!