Out with the old, in with the new...

Things which have broken down and/or have needed to be fixed or replaced:

Item	Date	Comments
Robomower battery	Late winter 2007	Even after replacing the battery the previous year, this one also needed to be replaced. We decided to get the quick charge device so that we could charge the battery inside. Even though I was following the instructions previously to leave the battery charging all winter long, the instructions on the quick charger say to charge once a month during the winter.
Lawn	Summer 2007	I had pretty much been struggling with having a nice lawn ever since we got our house. While for the most part, I was able to have the broadleaf weeds under control, the crabgrass and other grass weeds were a pain. Then, this past winter, even broadleaf weeeds were taking over, especially the backyard. However, I found a great product which kills everything except bermuda grass and it works wonders. The lawn looks great. Unfortunately with work being busy, I have not had time to do anything with the lawn in the fall and the weeds have come back, but I am not as concerned anymore about having a nice lawn. When I do have time, I try to give my lawn a regular feeding of corn gluten and molasses and avoid using chemicals when not necessary.
AC	Late summer 2007	Second time within new house that we've needed repairs on our AC
Blood pressure machine	October 2007	I had been using one which my mom left at our house but I was wondering about its accuracy, so we got a Panasonic one at Sharper Image. It's a large one not intended for taking on trips and is pretty much completely automated.
Garage door opener	October 2007	Actually our garage door opener has not been working properly for years! But it finally actually broke and would not work anymore, so perhaps it was a blessing in disguise. We feel amazed now that we can open the garage door with a touch of a button!
External drive	November 2007	Replaced old one with Buffalo 4TB TeraStation Pro NAS.  Unfortunately, DVArchive program seems to have problems with NAS, so I'll need to come up with another solution.
Mobile phone	December 2007	Old one did not break but needed upgrade. Settled on the Sony Ericsson w580i.
Domains managed at Namecheap.com	December 2007	Was getting tired of risk of undelivered mail. Customer service would not respond to my inquiries. Mail forwarding service on GoDaddy.com seems too limiting. I ended up going with PlusRegister.com
Whirlpool Refrigerator (starter for the compressor)	December 2007
Hitachi TV	December 2007	Coincidentally enough, the plan was to replace the Hitachi TV with the 42" Panasonic plasma TV currently in the family room, and to get a new HDTV in the family room. Originally, I was going to get a rear projection TV because those are almost 1/2 the price of plasma/LCD. However, I was told this purchase would have to last 10 years. After a stop at the nearby electronics store, although the picture from the rear projection TV was good, it was no comparison with the plasma/LCD. Checking for employee prices, I found I could save 33% off the price of a big plasma TV. Our alcove for the entertainment center is only 52" wide, but coincidentally enough, I had started to think of what can be done with a rear-projection TV which fits exactly in the alcove... And for the ability to slide it out so it can be rotated. Then the idea was that the rear-projection TVs these days are not so deep that it could potentially sit outside of the alcove... but this idea is better with a plasma TV and an articulating arm mount. We ended up with a 58" plasma. I now have to get the mount ordered and find an installer. (Update: I ordered the arm but they changed the design a little bit. I was able to keep the wall piece in place (it fit both old and new mount) but then switched out everything else. The new mount is holding the new TV and the old mount was placed in the bedroom. The installer I used was the same guy who installed my original mount: Eddie Galan. He did a very thorough job and I would not hesitate to use him again. His website is http://www.dallassurround.com
Internet service provider	December 2007	Questionable whether Comcast broke but we have now gone with Verizon FIOS. Cannot argue with 15Mb download / 2Mb upload. This ought to help with VoIP and streaming videos. As a consequence, we are also getting FIOS TV which replaces both Comcast and Dish (for TV Japan). On occasion, we would get reception problems on digital cable where certain channels would basically not be viewable. No fun discovering months later that something you recorded cannot be watched and the show is no longer available.  Not a great start to Verizon FIOS though. On the day following installation, we were having sporadic interruptions in the Internet service. I called the support phone number, ended up getting disconnected a few times and rerouted to the wrong place due to their automated voice system. Finally got through to the right number but was on hold for about 45 minutes. (The guy said they were just busier than usual.) After trying some things, service went down when we were on the phone and he suggested sending a technician out. He thinks it has to do with the box outside of our house. Actually, since then, service has been ok.
Linksys wireless router	December 2007	The good news with Verizon is that they also provided a wireless router/modem. I was planning on replacing my Linksys wireless router because of limitations to its software. For example, it had no way of setting a fixed IP address based on MAC address... So even though my ReplayTVs had fixed addresses, it would assign a new IP address every 6-7 days and then eventually fix itself... but this caused problems with ReplayTVs having consistent IP addresses for reference and I would often have to reboot a ReplayTV in order to see a TV show on it from another ReplayTV. Also, the Linksys router had some limitations to the number of forwarding ports it provided. Both of these limitations are addressed with the Verizon router, so I don't need to go out and buy one myself. Yay. However, it took quite a while to configure the new router and all the devices.
Copper phone line	December 2007	When I ordered Verizon FIOS, I also ordered that the phone line should be connected to their fiber optical cable, but somehow the guy who installed the Internet and TV did not have that on his work order. Anyway, after a few hours (literally) on hold with Verizon, I finally got the work order for the new phone line... There are those of you who know the problems I've had with my home phone system... For conference calls taken from home, I've tried everything from Skype to running up a $300 monthly bill on my mobile phone. From initial indications, it looks like the new phone line solves all that.
Seagate hard drive	December 2007	While trying to set up an interim solution for our media archive (for all the recorded shows we have not watched yet), I was setting up one of the 400GB Seagate hard drives when it made an awful noise. Then suddenly, it wouldn't work anymore. Fortunately Seagate has a 5-year warranty for their hard drives and this one was only one and a half years old. They have strict rules about shipping the hard drives back, though, and unfortunately, I still had one of their boxes from a recent purchase. I've received word that they are shipping the replacement. Yay! (Update: They sent a 500GB drive to replace my 400GB drive. Yay! But they sent a SATA drive instead of a PATA drive. Boo! Oh well, I was planning on getting some SATA drive adapters anyway.)