Bought new DVD drive: Pioneer DVR-110D-BK and CPU upgrade: PowerLogix dual-G4 1.6 GHz 7447A

I think my computer’s optical drive (the same one from when I got the compuer in 2001, a MATSHITA CD-RW CW-8571 Apple-certified “Combo” drive) finally bit the dust. As far as I know it still reads CDs okay, but has a hell of a time trying to read DVDs. It just sits there and spins, but the disc never seems to mount. It’s been exhibiting some form of this behaviour for at least a year, but it wasn’t until last night that I tried successive DVDs and they all didn’t work.
As I regularly do, I checked out Other World Computing‘s newsletter (if you’re a Mac user and aren’t subscribed to it, you really should — they’ve got some great deals and they know their stuff) to see if they had any CD/DVD drives worth checking out. I’ve already watched their video on how to upgrade a CPU, and it was great, and I know they’ve got a similar one on how to upgrade your optical drive. About half a year ago I was pretty close to buying one, but at that time, drive prices were about $100 for something that could burn DVDs at 8x. So, you can probably understand how happy I was to see a drive that could burn a DVD at 16x, for $52. That’s a big price drop; and it’s also twice as fast as my current drive can burn CDs! So, I plunked down the cash. Now it’s just a waiting game. *thumb twiddle*
Oh yeah, I don’t think I mentioned it here yet, since my blog was down at the time: in December, I upgraded my Power Mac’s single processor PowerPC G4 733MHz to a Dual G4 1.6 GHz via the PowerLogix PowerForce G4 7447A CPU upgrade card (see reviews at the always-excellent xlr8yourmac.com) — and I cannot put into words how happy I am. My machine boots faster, browses faster, rips music faster, boots my email program faster, shuts down quicker, sleeps faster, and is STABLE (not that it wasn’t before). So excited about that. The only downside is that it’s a little bit noiser due to now having an extra fan, but I’m making up for that by putting my machine to sleep at night (yes, it’s within earshot of my bed).
Anyway, that’s all the tech-geekery from me for now 🙂