LaurenandLloyd.com
where our wasted time becomes your wasted time
I’ve wanted to do this experiment for a long time. When Lauren told me that I had to write the post, I knew that my time had come. Extra large olives cost more than medium olives (I don’t actually remember what they cost. Just go with me here). But if all you’re doing is slicing them up to put on, I don’t know, two weeks worth of tacos, is it worth it?
I think everyone can agree that the moral of this story is, “Don’t let Lloyd write any more posts.”
After 4 long years, I finally found my own Magic Bullet for $10.00 at a garage sale. Lauren said that it couldn’t be done. She said I would have to buy one as I had seen on TV. But through patience and what has to be the most amazing blind luck, I now have one of my own.
I think the main reason that I failed in finding my own Magic Bullet for $10.00 at a garage sale was that I didn’t really go to any garage sales. Some might maintain that I was hopelessly optimistic. My current idea is that nearly every garage sale has a magic bullet.
I probably wouldn’t have one yet, but when my Mom and Aunt Lolly (Sam’s mom) came up a few months ago, they had to go to garage sales, and I drove them around. Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Aunt Lolly.
You might be wondering why it’s taken me so long to write about it. Last night Lauren told me that I had to write today’s post. Thanks, Lauren.
Lauren is mad at me, because I have all of these nearly interesting things that I could write a post about, but I never remember to take a ‘before’ picture. It’s all about the before picture folks. For instance, wouldn’t this post be a lot more interesting if you could see what my boots looked like, you know, before?
I don’t remember if these boots are 3 or 4 years old, but the soles were wearing out and had become detached in the front. I didn’t know if I wanted to have them resoled as that would cost $85 to $95. They are nice boots, but they were starting to look too shabby to wear everyday (which is how I wear my boots).
Instead, I opted for just getting the toes repaired. That cost $35 at Ole’s Shoe Repair. It looks like they did a nice job, and I suppose these are my emergency backup boots now.
I went to an auction on Saturday to buy some monitors for school. I learned that my way to pack monitors:
Is not the only way to pack monitors:
By the way, you can fit 46 twenty inch monitors in a Prius.
Speaking of mothers, it was my mom’s birthday yesterday. It was also my dad’s birthday three days before that, but he doesn’t believe in the internet, and doesn’t want Al Gore to know when his birthday is, so we won’t mention that.
Lauren said that I had to write a post, but what she doesn’t know is that I already wrote one. One that is guaranteed to put you all asleep. I hope you enjoy your naps; there is a summary at the end.
We are replacing 30 computers in our PC lab at school. The current machines were built by students six years ago (to save money and also as a learning experience) and I thought we would do the same thing this time for the same reasons.
Here are my goals for these machines:
I have about $350.00 to spend per machine. I would be happy to spend less than that, because that money would be used for other technology projects at school, and I could probably come up with a little more money if that would make the machines significantly better. I’ll be purchasing these in the United States.
One of my concerns is finding good prices for parts. I really can’t do rebates (MIR prices), because I don’t have 30 people to purchase these. I could have 6 people, so limit 5 offers are okay. Maybe someone knows more than I do about getting bulk discounts.
Here are the parts I’m considering and why:
CPU:
It didn’t look like AMD had anything better than Intel in my price range, so I didn’t really look at AMD processors closely. I don’t have anything against AMD (current machines have Athlon X2 4850e), so feel free to point me toward a comparable AMD processor. I do not see us doing any overclocking.
GPU
Onboard graphics only. I can’t see any reason to put a graphics card in these machines.
RAM:
It seems to me that 8GB is better than 4GB if I’m aiming 5 year out, but memory is easy to add, so I’m not above starting with 4GB and adding another 4GB in a few years if that seems reasonable. My preference is to use Crucial. I have had memory from them go bad over the years, but they have always been very good about replacing it.
Storage
I would really like to just put a smaller SSD in these. My current school disk images are about 64GB, so I’m looking at a 120GB SSD. These drives are not used for storing student data. I don’t know much about SSD reliability, so could use any help picking a good brand/model.
Motherboard
I’m leaning strongly toward a mini-itx motherboard, because I’m leaning strongly toward some mini-itx cases. I would not be opposed to another size motherboard, but you’d have to sell me on another case as well. I really don’t know what to do here. I usually buy an open box mother board for my own computers, but that won’t work with 30 of them. reliability is probably my highest priority here. Other than that, I really don’t know where to spend my money. There was some talk of wanting the computers to be wireless, but that’s not necessarily a requirement. I’m going to just throw out the ones I’m currently looking at:
Case
I’m a little up in the air here. I could save some money by buying a case with a built-in PSU or with an external PSU. I’m tempted to do that, but my impression is that those PSUs are never very good. Here are the options I’m looking at with built-in/external PSUs:
I actually like the cases below a lot more, but pairing them with a decent power supply raises the price. Notice that they don’t have any external drive bays. Apart from liking the looks, I think they will continue to look good longer in a lab setting.
PSU
The cheapest, reliable power supply. I think I would like an 80+bronze PSU, but I could certainly be convinced that that’s not a good place to spend money. I think my absolute max load would be 138Watts. I would be very interested in knowing the difference between the various Seasonic PSUs listed below. I couldn’t find that information.
My current thoughts
Below are the choices that I would currently make from the above options. The prices shown here are a little low, because lots of these are special offers that I wouldn’t qualify for with 30 units.
PCPartPicker part list[15] / Price breakdown by merchant[16]
| Type | Item | Price |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Pentium G3250 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor[17] | $55.99 @ SuperBiiz |
| Motherboard | ASRock H97M-ITX/AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard[18] | $87.98 @ Newegg |
| Memory | Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory[19] | $50.99 @ SuperBiiz |
| Storage | Silicon Power S60 120GB 2.5″ Solid State Drive[20] | $50.44 @ Amazon |
| Case | Lian-Li PC-Q01B Mini ITX Tower Case[21] | $54.98 @ Newegg |
| Power Supply | SeaSonic 350W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply[22] | $39.98 @ Newegg |
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts | ||
| Total | $340.36 | |
| Generated by PCPartPicker[23] 2015-05-26 23:43 EDT-0400 |
Any thoughts you have about any of the choices would be greatly appreciated.
TL;DR
Need to build 30 reliable school computers. Money is an object. Obviously looking for help in quality parts, but also in getting good prices when MIR and Open Box isn’t an option.
With the success of three camping trips in our Prius with a cobbled-together mattress, I wanted to make something more fitted. Please note, do not do all of these steps. There is an easier way.
Lloyd and I agreed that a three-inch mattress would be plenty comfy. (Note: We are in our forties. It’s almost enough padding. We did have slight backaches in the morning.) Back in December, Wal*Mart had a 3-inch full-sized mattress topper (2 inches of regular foam, 1 inch of memory foam) on clearance for $30. Score!
It is vacuum-sealed, so I took it out and let it off-gas in the guest room for a couple weeks. Bleh. Do not do this project if you want to immediately use it. It is so, so stinky.
Once enough time passed, I started to cut it down to fit. (Note: I now know that it is not necessary to have a perfect fit. If I were to do this over, I would just slightly cut down around the wheel wells. The mattress – cut down so precisely – leaves a gap and I have to stuff a pillow in there to be comfortable. Mind you, I’m a big baby.) I used the floor mat as a guide. If you do this, leave at least 2 inches on each side. Stupid me.
See how it fits here? You could just leave it like that. Or, just shave a little from the wheel-well areas.
This was a mistake. If I could communicate with Past Lauren, I would. “Stop!!”
Too late now.
I also trimmed around the top so it would fit nicely against the seats. A good step, but not necessary.
When we first tested it, we were sleeping with our heads toward the front of the car. Lloyd didn’t like that his toes were dangling over the edge, so I spliced some of the cut foam to the end. As it turns out, with the Habitent we prefer having our heads at the rear of the car, so this step isn’t quite as crucial. (Although, there is the small matter of trying to keep your pillows from falling out of the car, but that’s another post for another day.)
Now, here is another part that I would do over if I weren’t so cheap. I bought a twin-sized flannel sheet set for $15 and cobbled-together a removable, fitted cover. I wanted to be able to remove it when it got dirty. This was stupid. Next time I would pony up money for two flat sheets and just sew an envelope.
So, the only benefit of having the mattress cut down is that it folds nicely into thirds and fits the back space wonderfully. However, this is foam, so it could certainly just squish into place as well.
TL/DR: Get a 3-inch foam topper. Put a sheet on it. Go camping.
