Blogs Gone Wild!

My main PC was starting to act up on me last week which forced me to finally realize that a new replacement was in order. I build my own PC’s, having started doing it nearly ten years ago. I find that building my own is a very satisfying project, it’s always fun for me and I love being able to custom pick and choose the components that go into a new build. Unfortunately they don’t always go very smooth.

My old machine was one that I assembled about 6 years ago and a lot has changed since then so I had a bit of a learning curve with the new technologies available. The old one was pretty much state of the art back then which in computer years means it is now a dinosaur and can barely keep up with today’s programs. Again, I decided to build one that was as fast and powerful as possible with currently available hardware.

I opted for another AMD processor, this one running at an amazing 6000+ mhz with 2 gigs of memory, dual processors and a large, very fast SATA 2 hard drive on an ASUS motherboard. My old machine was taking almost half a minute to open Photoshop CS2, this new machine opens that same program in about 2 seconds flat! Needless to say I’m very impressed! And I have over triple the storage space.

As I said though, things don’t always go smoothly. I ordered all the components online and had to wait several days for them to arrive. As it turns out the first motherboard was dead on arrival, and after spending a couple of hours assembling it into the case it would not boot up! At first I didn’t know it was the motherboard, it took a couple more hours of troubleshooting to pinpoint the cause. I ended up having to RMA the dead board back to the supplier but I couldn’t wait two weeks for them to send another.

So, I bit the bullet and bought another one from a local store. It cost more money but it works! So I’m happy, but now I’m having fun transferring everything over from the old machine to the new one. Not really, I find that part tedious and painstaking but I’m back up and running at nearly full speed again.

As many of you know I’m somewhat backlogged in orders right now and I’ve fallen behind with a few of my customers. I’m trying to get caught up and I appreciate your understanding! I would like to thank everyone for their patience while I get back in the groove with the new PC!

Have a great weekend!!

Unfortunately, I’ve been forced to change my policy on deposits thanks to a few people that have taken advantage of my good nature. From now on, no work will begin without a minimum of a 50% deposit in advance. I regret having to do this but I can’t afford to allow people to waste my time doing work that they either have no intention of following thru with purchasing or suddenly no longer can afford it or weren’t serious in the first place. The exception will be if you’re a return or repeat customer, in those cases no deposit will be required.

Actually, I know it’s the industry norm to require money in advance so it’s not out of the ordinary to require it. But, I hate having to ask my customers to do two separate payments for their order when one should suffice. If you have any questions please read over the FAQ’s page and for any questions not answered there, feel free to email me using the link in the sidebar.

I appreciate your understanding in this matter and as always, I want to thank all my great customers!

Believe it or not, I still have a few boxes left to unpack after moving in to the new home, I just haven’t had the time for the most part! The past month has been extremely busy for BGW! and I’m hard pressed to keep up. I’ve finished at least 10 new designs since my move-in, you can check them all out in the portfolio section. There’s a few others that are finshed that aren’t in the portfolio yet, I have to withold them from the listing until the owners “officially” open their new sites so I don’t give away the new look for their grand opening.

I’m loving the new house though, it’s turned out to be a great place to work and it’s very comfortable and quiet. I’ve known for some time now that I’ve not been getting enough exercise so I joined a local fitness center to fix that. It’s really very nice and it has an indoor pool and every kind of exercise machine you can think of. I started out with a three month membership and after one week I’m starting to think I should have just popped for a full year. If you pay the full yearly fee upfront, you get a nice discount. I’m enjoying the workouts, I know I already feel better after getting some decent exercise for a change! Sitting at a desk, writing code and editing images all day long, every day is bad for your health! Before you know it your weight has creeped up, out of control and you start feeling lazy!

One of my tasks coming up is a new theme for this site, I’m not very satisfied with the current blue and white. I’ve started on a couple of new layouts for it and ended up scrapping them because they just weren’t “right”. Oh well, I’ll just keep playing with it until I like it!

That’s all I’ve got for today. Thanks for stopping by and many thanks to all my cool customers!

I’m in the middle of moving to a new house and that means I’m moving my office as well. Of course that means that things have been very disorganized around here lately! I hope to have everything in and squared away before the end of this month. For my customers that have felt any inconvenience from my short delays in completing their orders, I would like to apologize now. Thank you for being so patient and understanding.

I look forward to further serving your needs and those of future clients as well. I’m planning on this being a positive move for Blogs Gone Wild in general because I’ll have more space in a more private location where I’ll be free from most daily interruptions.

Thanks again!