Thinking
Senior Member
Joined: Jul 2015
Posts: 3,627
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From: Michigan
Alaskan winters have become almost half of what they used to be, at least here in Anchorage and the Valley areas. In 2000, not once did the temp go below Zero for the whole winter. It rained most of the time. The snow was ice more than it was snow. The Snowmobile dealers have been closing right and left. The bigger ones are still around, but they now sell more Side by Sides than snow machines. It's changed.
We don't use salt in our sand, we have a liquid that is cheaper and easier to spread. No more rusted out auto bodies.
So other than the possibility of an accident, it's no different than summer driving anymore. We just have to watch out for new residents who don't know how to drive on snow or black ice. Hell, even the most experienced have first-day oopses, lol. In 2010, I was able to drive my Mustang the whole winter. Just not a lot of snow, and lots of clear highways and city roads.
It's not your daddy's Oldsmobile anymore. LOL
We don't use salt in our sand, we have a liquid that is cheaper and easier to spread. No more rusted out auto bodies.
So other than the possibility of an accident, it's no different than summer driving anymore. We just have to watch out for new residents who don't know how to drive on snow or black ice. Hell, even the most experienced have first-day oopses, lol. In 2010, I was able to drive my Mustang the whole winter. Just not a lot of snow, and lots of clear highways and city roads.
It's not your daddy's Oldsmobile anymore. LOL
Also heard that sometime recently it was the first winter on record where the artic didn't fully freeze over and shipping went on all winter long. Seems to be more than dad's Olds' that isn't the same anymore. It would be nice to see the salt use disappear around here too. Might as well get something useful from all these changes from what we're use to enjoying about the changing seasons.
In the mid-80's I spent a couple of years in Jacksonville, FL and on Christmas Eve one of the years there we got a freezing rain that shut the city down for Christmas. The locals had no experience with driving on ice. If it hadn't been for it being the holiday it would have been funny. The kids were bummed.
Trouble with snowmobile sales in Alaska sounds sacrilegious.
Senior Member
Joined: Dec 2015
Posts: 23,191
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From: Utah
My kid has been using my old laptop (1525) w/Vista for the last 3 weeks. No complaints... yet lol. Her machine needs a keyboard...haven't got around to it yet. Guess I'm waiting for more pressure with getting hers back up to snuff. Have to say, that 1525 has always been a good little LT.
Yep, we still have some. Working on getting them swapped out for Win10s. I usually have the client buy a few new PCs, then move the higher end users to those. I then take their PCs and re-load them with Win 10 and recycle them to the next tier of user etc. That way everyone gets an upgrade for minimal money spent. This only works if the PCs are new enough to hand down of course. For opening Word, Outlook etc. anything 4th gen or newer Core I-x will get re-used. For the ditch diggers that only open one app to update their timesheet, I may even go 2nd or 3rd gen if I don't have enough newer PCs.
I'm not a big fan of i3's - The oldest iX I've bought is an i5 7th Gen. These are just from the NUC's I've put into service.... not tower PC's.
Senior Member
Joined: Aug 2018
Posts: 343
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From: MntLk Ter Wa
I agree with no I3s. I usually buy from the Dell Outlet. It is more of a pain since I have to get the client credit card ready instead of just sending them a link. You only have 15 minutes from the time you put the item into your cart until they release it back to the public, but I'm buying I7 PCs cheaper than retail I5s. I usually go I7 for desktop and I5 for laptops since less cores = less power consumption.
Now an XLT in Colorado
Joined: Aug 2016
Posts: 5,977
Likes: 3,171
From: Colorado
I've been thinking about upgrading my desktop and wife's laptop and getting 10 in the process. She's on a T420, and my Dell Optiplex 990 is getting a little long in the tooth. I still want a SFF for my office PC, though. Outlet and.or refurb stuff is usually my preference since neither of us needs the latest and greatest power/features/etc.
Last edited by OhioLariat; Oct 23, 2019 at 06:47 PM.
Senior Member
Joined: Aug 2018
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From: MntLk Ter Wa
Outlet.dell.com usually has current model lines as well as some older stuff. It just depends on the day. Sometimes they have anything you could ever want, other times it's a barren wasteland. They often times have sales but selection is generally pretty poor around black Friday/cyber Monday and any other BIG SALE type holidays.
98 F150 5.4L E40D/4R100
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 28,520
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From: MI
Senior Member
Joined: Dec 2015
Posts: 23,191
Likes: 8,622
From: Utah
A guy in one of the departments brought me a PC that he deemed as "possible junk". I fired it up... it has an i7, 16GB DDR4 RAM, Intel MoBo, three 250GB hybrid drives, 3 HDMI outs, and it has Win 7 Enterprise. It has become my coding/testing PC, and I also use it to do HDD cloning.
EDIT: It has taken me a long time to arrive at this, but Windows 10.... although it has its quirks, it is a much better OS than I've given it credit for. It's got some things I don't care for, but overall - it's pretty solid.
EDIT: It has taken me a long time to arrive at this, but Windows 10.... although it has its quirks, it is a much better OS than I've given it credit for. It's got some things I don't care for, but overall - it's pretty solid.
Last edited by white89gt; Oct 23, 2019 at 08:02 PM.
