Another One Bites the Dust

Aaron just called to tell me that he was heading home from Best Buy and I said, "What were you doing there?" and he told me that he was working on the computer at home and it froze, so he turned it off and it wouldn't turn back on. The Geek Squad at Best Buy said that our motherboard is toast and that it is probably a result of a power surge. Aaron said that he hadn't noticed any problems with the power or other electronics in the house so I don't know how a surge could have caused the problem, but either way, our computer is dead. They said that they can probably transfer files to a new computer (for $99, yikes) but they won't know for sure until they try. Luckily, I have all but about 15 of my most recent pictures of Mara stored on our back-up hard drive and on an SD card. If it was a power surge though, I don't know if it would have affected our back-up too. I sure hope not! Our computer has been running slow for so long that I thought we might have to invest in a new computer in 2009. I wasn't planning on this expense right now though! I know nothing about computer storage, what amenities we need, etc. so if you have any recommendations please let us know!

I will be putting Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator on the new computer, along with a couple other graphics programs. I know those are big programs.

Any computer suggestions?

I also wanted to add that this is our second computer that has had a crashed motherboard! I have no idea how it keeps happening, but I am not a happy camper!