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We’ve had this EEE PC 900A that we bought off Woot.com for a while now. I used it my last semester at Georgia Tech to help me take notes in class. It’s super light-weight and fits in my bag really easily.

Since I got a new laptop to help me to do freelance website work, the “old” EEE PC is going to be used by Amanda now.

Overall the process was pretty easy. I didn’t really know if I would be able to do it without any help, but turns out it was a lot easier than I thought.

1. I Googled for tutorials on how to upgrade the EEE PC and found this one. It helped me figure out that we may want some new parts as well as let me know that I should probably upgrade the BIOS.
2. We took a trip to Fry’s Electronics and picked up the stuff we needed pretty easily. Compatible with the EEE PC, we found a 32GB Patriot Lite SSD drive and a 2GB Kingston RAM chip.
3. Easily found the BIOS on the ASUS website. Put the .ROM file on a USB drive (correctly named as 900A.ROM), booted from the USB by pushing ALT + F2 during startup, and it automatically detected the USB drive as well as the new .ROM file. Then I rebooted the computer to make sure the new BIOS worked.
4. I took out the battery and popped off the back panel and put in the new chips with a Phillips 0 and 00. Put the battery back in and we’re almost ready to turn it back on.
5. I grabbed the latest release of Ubuntu and put that on a large USB drive so I could install it on the EEE PC. It was difficult trying to figure out how to put a .iso disk image on the USB drive, but I was able to find a nice little tool called UNetbootin. It “allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for a variety of Linux distributions from Windows or Linux, without requiring you to burn a CD.”
6. Plugged the USB fit with the lastest copy of Ubuntu into the EEE PC, made sure the power supply was connected, and turned it on.
7. Started pushing ESC (as read on this site about installing XP on the EEE PC) in order to boot from the USB drive. Some very-easy-to-understand text-based prompt came up and I selected to boot from my USB.
8. The .iso file of Ubuntu loaded onto the screen and I clicked the icon to “Install Ubuntu 9.10″ to the EEE PC. The steps to install are pretty straight forward and you just restart the computer when everything is done.

I hope some of this helps someone. If you have any questions about my process, just let me know. I wanted to take more pictures of each step showing what the screen looked like at different points in time, but I really seriously just forgot.

Life has been changing a lot lately. Old jobs gone, new jobs come, and stress all around. It is definitely difficult sometimes, but being able to manage all of the new changes has been pretty easy.

WHAATTTTTTTT?

The most recent stresses have been with my newest job. I have to go in at 4:00PM four days per week. Sometimes I forget to eat dinner and I have to work a 6-7 hour shift. It’s important to me to not be down or disgruntled or in a bad mood when I go to work. Last week at small group I had some thoughts while pondering over 1 Peter 5:2-4.

²Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; ³not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. ⁴And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.

I’d like to think that every verse in the Bible has something to give. Regardless of who or what the verse is about, wives or children or anything, I would like to think that I can learn something from everything. So here, I’m trying to understand who my flock is. Where in my life can I be a shepherd to others?

Coming full circle now, I think work can be one of those places. That’s why it’s so important that I’m upbeat and sociable. I want people to know that everything in life can be dealt with and that I can overcome anything. Everyday before I go into work I pray for the strength to not get hungry and upset and the strength to keep it together when things start to fall apart.

Earlier today the power went out. I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying “save early, save often” at some point in your life. Especially if you work with/on computers for a living. Well, add another reason to the list of reasons why you should save early and often.

Amanda was entering our finances into Quicken and the power went out. I went outside to go knock on a neighbors door to see if their power went out too when I saw a Georgia Power truck. I went around to the side of the building and started talking to the employee. He was replacing a defective meter — our defective meter. In order to replace the meter, they have to cut the power. I asked him if he usually knocked on people’s doors before cutting the power to their house. He said they usually don’t and he took it for granted that their might be someone home. I politely made him feel bad for cutting our power in the middle of Amanda doing some work and went back inside.

Dear Georgia Power: Thanks for the warning.

Jerks.

PS — I wonder if we’ve been overcharged all this time. I should probably call them. Might be cathartic to complain a little bit too.

Due to some recent changes in my professional life, I’ve decided to try my hand at staging homes and interior design. I graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in architectural design, and I have a real passion for interior design and photography. On top of that, I’ve always prided myself at being able to design on a tiny budget. So this weekend, I traveled up to Virgina to visit my amazing friend, Jenna, who let me make some changes to the house she and her fiancé bought back in October.

Because I was only going to be there for three days, I chose to focus on a few key rooms instead of taking on the whole house. I decided on the half bath, guest bath and bedroom, dining room and living room. It was a lot of work but we were able to get all rooms to about 90% complete except for the guest bath. Pictures and figures of the guest bath will be coming soon.

1/2 Bath: $79

Before                                                              After

The half bath was a lot of fun. It was very plain and had dated brass fixtures and accessories. I chose a nice tan color to give the room a little warmth and oil rubbed bronze fixtures to replace the brass. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a bronze faucet that was within the budget, so I told Jenna to search online for a better deal. For the mirror,  I chose a dark frame that complimented the fixtures and had a lot more presence than the frameless oval one. I also wanted to update the light fixture, but didn’t want to spend a lot of money so I spray painted it. When I was done, it looked like a completely new fixture.

-Paint: $12
-Spray paint: $7
-Mirror: $30
-Accessories: $30

Guest Bedroom: $45

Before

After

Updating this room was really simple. I just painted the bookshelf black, decluttered, and added some accessories. A lot of rooms have everything you need to make them look really great with minimal work. It’s just a matter of decluttering and finding potential in the items you already have.

-Paint for bookcase: $9
-Mirror: $24
-Flowers: $12

Dining Room: $198

Before

After

The dining room was one of the most dramatic before and afters. It was also one of the more challenging rooms because of the house’s open floor plan. There really is nothing that separates it from the rest of the house beside the wall between it and the kitchen. I really wanted to make it stand out, so I added  chair rail, crown moulding, and the tan paint from the half bath. I also  picked out a new chandelier, but due to the ceiling height, we weren’t able to install it ourselves.

- Crown Moulding: $39
-Chair Rail Moulding: $23
-Paint: $23
-Chandelier: $89,  (coming soon)
-Flowers and vase: $24

Living Room: $24

Before

After

The living room was one of the easiest rooms to update. I painted the fireplace to make it pop, rearranged the furniture to make it feel bigger, and added accessories they already had. That’s about it.

-Paint: $4
-Flowers and container: $20

Cost of Supplies: $80

Total Cost: $426

Now that’s a deal!

While driving down I-285 today, I found myself intrigued by a small leaf floating through the air. It wasn’t until the leaf floated down into my front windshield that I realized it was in fact a large rock that had been launched into the air from some car in front of me.

(WREK product placement FTW)

I immediately pulled over to (have a hissy fit and) make a few calls to Amanda and the insurance company trying to figure out what the best thing to do was. Our insurance company gave me a few glass companies that they recommend since our deductible is much higher than the cost of fixing it.

First call: Marietta Toyota
In shop repair for $850 + labor + tax.
HAHAHAAHAHAH AHAHHAHAHAAH *click* #toyotasucks

Second call: All American Auto Glass
Mobile repair Wednesday for $230 (includes labor) + tax.
WAYYYY better, but I still have more calls to make.

Third call: Safelite Auto Glass
Mobile repair tomorrow for $226 (includes labor) + tax + free lifetime warranty.
They came down to that from 236 after I mentioned my previous quote. Better, but let’s keep going.

Fourth call: Executive Auto Glass
Mobile repair tomorrow for $207 (includes labor and tax) + life of the vehicle warranty.
Hooray!

Fifth call: Safelite already came down once, so I gave them the chance to do it again.
In shop repair tomorrow for $190 + tax.
I also double-checked that they were using OEM glass and asked them what their warranty covered exactly.

Sixth call: Why not give Executive Auto Glass a chance to price match?
Mobile repair tomorrow for $196.30.
Not only does Executive Auto Glass offer a warranty for the life of the vehicle (follows the VIN number in case we ever sell the car), they use OEM glass.

I guess if we have to spend money, I feel like I got a really good deal.