Wednesday, September 19, 2012

BzzAgent Glade Expressions Collection Campaign

I was lucky enough to be chosen for a BzzAgent Glade Expressions Collection Campaign.  They sent me tons of coupons to hand out to my friends and family and two free coupons to use for myself.  Unfortunately, none of the stores around me seem to carry this particular line of Glade products.  Not a single Glade Expressions Oil Diffuser or Glade Expressions Fragrance Mist Starter kit in sight.  I looked high and low, none were to be found across the lands.  But fear not, I had some of the products already in my house so I can at least tell you about them.

The Glade Expressions Collection has four scents: Pineapple & Mangosteen (I have no idea what a Mangosteen is suppose to be), Cotton & Italian Mandarin, Fuji Apple & Cardamom Spice, and Lavender & Juniper Berry.

I've had the please of trying all four scents in the past and I must say that I enjoy the Fuji Apple scent best in the kitchen and the Cotton scent best in the bathroom.  The lavender scent is also decent. I did not like the Pineapple product. The smell gave me a headache.    The oil diffuser has a stylish holder so it looks great sitting on the table or shelf. The mist holder is also refillable and doesn't look too bad sitting out either.  While I don't think these are the best products Glade has ever produced, they aren't bad. I would like to see a wider variety of scent and of course more availability in the store.


Sunday, September 2, 2012

The journey to an upgraded computer.

The only computer I like to play is World of Warcraft (begin with the eye rolling).  Last week their newest patch 5.0.4 went live. And my frame rate died. I got a whopping 9 fps with my character out in the middle of nowhere and every setting turned to low.  I have the picture to prove it.

Now I would love to blame Blizzard for "breaking my fps" but I know quite well that my computer isn't the best. I've got an eMachine ET1331G, which comes with a 300w power supply and a Nvidia GeForce 6150SE nForce 430.  And yes I know with a computer like that I most likely deserve that 9 fps for trying to play an online game like World of Warcraft.

So started the journey to an upgrade. I've never installed or bought a graphics card before. I didn't know where to start.  I looked at graphic cards on Amazon but I couldn't figure out what to buy. What did I need? I knew the computer had a PCI Express port but didn't fully know what that was. I ended up at tomshardware.com. That site has a great forum full of people willing to help answer the questions of the clueless.

They gave me the names of a few cards that "might" work in my computer and told me to buy a new power supply.  By "might" I guess we are talking about the fact that you have to have room inside the case to put the graphics card. I have no idea why any company would build a computer and assemble it in a manner in which it can not be upgraded properly. Built in obsolescence most likely.  With the names of cards and power supplies in hand, I found myself back at Amazon.com.

I ordered a Radeon 6670 graphics card and Corsair 500w power supply. My order is set to arrive on Wednesday.  The next part of this journey will continue then, when I find out if these parts will fit and if I can install them properly.