As an early birthday present, today I upgraded my current 15" LCD monitor to a 19" Samsung SyncMaster 940BX monitor. This new monitor is absolutely amazing -- 1000:1 contrast ratio, 5ms response time, no dead pixels, adjustable height, and can be rotated. Those are feature normally found in very high-end monitors.

This replaces a 15" Samsung SyncMaster 570V, which I've had since sophomore year of college. I still remember when I first got that monitor, it was a big deal because at that time not many people had LCD monitors. That monitor was very good for its time, and is still actually a very nice monitor (no dead pixels there either!). My primary reason for wanting to upgrade was because I wanted a little more screen real estate than a 15", 1024x768 monitor can offer. So, that monitor has been moved to my fiance's computer, which is a nice upgrade from her previous CRT monitor.

The monitor was one of the three oldest parts of my computer, upgrading it now puts my >4 year old, 80GB secondary hard drive into that category.

Another series of not-too-interesting computer part swaps amongst my computers.

Waldorf was without a sound card, while Fozzie had two (a Sound Blaster Live as well as the on-board sound on the motherboard, which is actually rather good). So I took the SB Live card from Fozzie and put it in Waldorf, and am currently using the on-board sound with Fozzie. Due to this, a top-priority upgrade for next year will be to buy a new sound card for Fozzie. The removal of the SB Live card from Fozzie is actually rather "historic", in that the SB Live card was one of only 2 components left in Fozzie that date back to when I originally bought that computer in December, 1999. Now the only remaining component from that date is the speakers.

With a sound card, Waldorf also was in need of speakers. So, I pulled an old set of Labtec speakers from my very first computer, an IBM PS/ValuePoint. These speakers are now the oldest component I have in use in any computer. I am not sure of the exact date they were acquired, but it was sometime when I was in middle school I believe (so, mid-90's). Suprisingly, despite their age they still sound great and work fine.

It also has become desirable for Waldorf to have wireless networking (as it did when it was originally built!) due its location. So, a new Linksys WMP54GS was purchased and installed as well. This is the only truly new component in Waldorf, all other parts have been "inherited" from other computers.