All hail me! (And Computerhope.com)

OK, so I got a great deal on a desktop computer that used to belong to the fabulous internet company that I work for ($45 for something that's almost as good as the new desktop I bought for many times that last year).

The plan was to give the new 'puter to the boys, who have become disenchanted with the performance of our late-'90s vintage HP Pavilion (I don't see how). And the plan was going great: I installed Windows XP, took the wireless card and the firewire card out of the old computer, moved them to the new computer (which requires opening up and not screwing it up). All was well until I fired up the monitor, and it looked like an impressionist's nightmare: All blotchy and odd but still recognizable.

Thus began the painful troubleshooting process, made much less painful by Computerhope.com, an extremely helpful site. I won't trouble you with the step-by-step details, but suffice to to say that I ended up ruling out a ton of potential issues, reopening the computer, digging up the specs for a Compaq Evo D510, and re-installing the graphics media accelerator driver for my Intel 845G (that number was important, trust me). Somehow the process of wiping sensitive company data off my bargain brainbox left the "integrated graphics controller of Intel chipsets" without some vital piece of software. But I found it. And, for a little while at least, I feel smart.

But just wait until I try add the old computer to my home network .....