Technical Difficulties

First of all I apologize for a lack of updates, I added all the new RS3067 units like 3 weeks ago and still haven't gotten the refresh on the database done yet.  Between the holidays, a car accident, and serious computer issues, my productivity is down to crap.

And speaking of computer issues.  I live on my computer far more than most and my computer is far more valuable to me (monetarily) than most of ya'lls.  My current configuration cost me almost $10K and is about 4 years old now.  It is actually the oldest computer I've owned in 20+ years, typically I buy a new one every year.  My servers are up, and it isn't like I have a dozen other computers in the house, but none are my "primary" with the 4 monitors, all my play files, a good video card, and 12GB of ram (yes, I actually use that).

So anyway, the first week of December my SCSI RAID card decided to throw errors when I rebooted.  I hadn't backed up that drive in about a week, and didn't want to lose my work.  The drives appeared fine, just the controller card that lets the OS see them.  So I scoured ebay and found a replacement, got it ordered, and received it about a week before Christmas.  I was able to get my OS running, got everything backed up, but after about 20 minutes it died again.  I figured I had another bad card (it was used) so ordered an Intel card instead of the old LSI card.  It ended up having the same issue, ugh.  So I swapped slots in my motherboard, disabled the memory on the card, and my computer can run for maybe an hour or two, then it dies again.  By dies I mean the mouse cursor even stops responding, the system locks up completely, and requires me push reset.  So I turn it on to get some files occasionally, but leave it off most of the time.  I think I've troubleshooted everything, and it just appears this motherboard doesn't like SCSI controllers anymore.... or a lot of coincidences are throwing me for a loop.  So I'm just kinda sitting on it until I figure out what to do.

Normally I'd just go buy a new computer, which is about due.  I haven't needed to upgraded as my system still runs everything fast, and processors and drives aren't getting any faster.  I ran Linux for a week to give it a thorough chance at being my new OS, but it sucks horribly, and its my professional opinion that its a poor man's OS, with no advantage at all over windows, unless your dirt poor.  Anyway, I haven't bought a new one as taxes are coming up, plus the "fiscal cliff".  Even if we don't cross over the cliff I expected to have to pay $10K or more this year (tax return, wtf is that?) even after both the wife and I have 0 deductions set... damned IRS, plus the $1000 deductible on my car.  Anyway, I want to get my taxes paid off before I go buy a new big machine, so it may be as late as May before I can get running again.  Probably a lot sooner as I'll just reinstall windows on one of the 10 SATA drives in my computer and I think it'll be ok, it'll just be slower and annoying to me :).

But anyway, just wanted to let readers know why updates have ground to a halt.  They aren't halted, just delayed for a bit.