My iMac
While typing up a post just now where I mentioned how much I love my iMac, I accidently hit the num luck/clear button on the number pad, which in a horrible design flaw with the early iMac keyboards was placed dangerously close to the delete button. I deleted my post.

Anyways, I posted that we've had the iMac for over three years now, and have minimal problems with it. It's generally been a great computer. Over the last year it has had a whining sound that has been getting progressively worse. At first I thought that I was just hearing the normal sounds and being hyper-sensitive because the house was quiet when I heard it but these days its gotten so loud that I hear from other rooms in the house and it annoys me the whole time I use the computer.

So, I decided to try and find the source of the sound tonight and its definately the hard drive. Bad news- A noisy hard drive means the hard drive is dying and should be replaced soon. Good news- I priced the hard drive. The nice thing about a three year old computer is that parts come cheap....and also can count as an upgrade. My computer had a 10GB hard drive and when we bought it, that was more than enough (this was pre-MP3s) . Even today, we do fine with our 10GB drive. Pricing replacements, the cheapest ATA drives are 20GB and run about $60. For $60 bucks, I'll repair my computer AND get double the hard-drive space.

I'm almost seeing the hard drive going bad as a blessing. It's forcing me to upgrade something that I'd like to upgrade anyways.