The New Computer

I think I've written before about how difficult I find it to part with a large sum of money; in fact I think it was in reference to the new computer I desperately needed.

Depending on how you define desperately.

And that was part of the problem: the computer worked, just slowly.

After much agonizing and way too many hours comparing things like bus speeds and pci slots, I bit the bullet before Thanksgiving and the parts started trickling in. Devoted partner spared me the effort of assembling the computer (though I did install my own dvd drive and OS which makes me not at all badass) and the disparate parts and their gigaherzes cohered into something that looks like your average Dell.

Then it was time to boot up and dive in.

First impressions: I do not love Windows 7, purely from a UI perspective. I don't like icons and shading and a computer telling me how I want things displayed. I want to tell it how to display things. Now we're early on in our relationship and I might be able to achieve the level of customization I'm looking for as time goes on, but as it stands, there's some work to be done.

The same cannot be said for the speed issue. I knew my old computer was slow. After all, it was a 5-year old motherboard maxed out on ram and a petrie dish of various active and removed virii, malware, and the like (now since eradicated with a wipe of everything so that Julie, its inheritor, need only experience slowness, not disease). The new computer is fast. Really fast.

The greatest example I can give is of the Adobe Lightroom functionality. Lightroom is a photo manipulation software package that LITERALLY took 1 minute per photo on the old machine just to import. Think about that when you think about the 300 pictures you took of your nephew's birthday party. As a result I didn't work on my photos much because I just didn't have the requisite 3 days I would need to get through them. New computer loads a folder full of photos in under 60 seconds. As a result, should you be so interested in the evidence of our least successful vacation ever, the Nicaragua pictures are now up. Amy says I should take down the one of myself at the end, but I think it's important that people realize just how sick I was on vacation. But it is not a pretty picture. At all.

Black plague photos aside, I now have a machine that works for what I need. I'm doing some things differently, though. I'm a great devotee of google docs and, as such, have not installed my MS Office (hopelessly outdated I'm sure). I'm also going to attempt to live without photoshop (but I know in my deepest of hearts that this will not last and I will be asking my soon-to-be sister-in-law to get me an educational copy ere long). I also didn't bother reinstalling many of my games. In fact I only installed one to test the graphics capabilities of my bangin' new graphics card. Instead, I'm merely reveling in the next 6 months of non-obsolescence and hoping that I don't have to buy another computer for another 7 years.

iDone

Once upon a time I was a loyal Apple user. The school was chock full of them and when it came time for your family to buy one for home, it was the obvious choice. Ed was the only person I knew who had a PC and DOS was frankly frightening. We started with the ridiculous Apple 2GS which became immediately obsolete due to the introduction and adoption of the Mac, rendering all Apple models about as useful to home computing as a toaster. College arrived, and with it, a Mac whose name I don't remember. This computer was fine until I started noticing devoted partner's PC. There was something, well, strange about it.

It was really really fast. It didn't need to allocate virtual memory to programs to keep them running at anything approximating reasonable levels. And while it was confusing to learn at first, I soon go the hang of it - what with the confusing start menu and such.

Then after college when my Performa (I just remembered) was more useful as a heating element than a computer, it was time to buy my own computer. Using my own money. And here's where things got interesting. For $1500 I could get a bottom-of-the-line Mac. Double that amount would get me a usable one. For $800 I could get a faster-than-the-usable-3k-mac Dell. Start taking guesses what arrived at the house!

That Dell lasted a good 5 years or so before it was time for an upgrade. This time, under the expert tutelage of devoted partner, I built my new computer. And continued to upgrade it with orphan parts until the present.

In the meantime, though, the folks at Apple had found a way to re-ingratiate themselves with me via the indispensable iPod. Sure, I was a late adopter because I couldn't countenance a $300 walkman, but the price came down, I had a birthday, and devoted partner swooped in the fill the MpVoid in my life. That was around 2005.

By 2008, the iPod was behaving very strangely. As in not working all the time. And then not working at all. But I really didn't want to buy another. When the nanos came out in all those pretty colors, I debated one, until I saw them in person. The colors were icky and shiny and not at all as lovely as they looked on TV or in print ads. Eff it, I said, I don't NEED an iPod, it's just nice to have.

When the DuYos moved out west, they had a sale of their old crap, including their first generation iPhones. I swooped one up thinking I could just use it as a replacement Mp3 player. That was a mistaken assumption. You see, without the AT&T contract, the iPhone is merely an ineffectual paperweight. Devoted partner again came to the rescue and spent the better part of the weekend hacking the iPhone so that I could use it to listen to music without paying AT&T for the privilege.

It also ran apps.

Delicious, unnecessary, and yet quite addictive apps. The iPhone and I had a good 6 months or so. And then the screen stopped working. Not entirely, just enough to make typing impossible. Apparently I had dead pixels. That's ok, it still plays music. But those apps were fun. I'm totally missing out on the cultural phenomenon that is foursquare.

So now what?

I could buy the silly new Nano for $179; the midrange touch for $299; the boring, app-free classic for $249; the monopoly-friendly iPhone for 50 bucks a month for the rest of my life; or the shiny and utterly useless, memory-insufficient iPad for $499 and up - unless I want to also give AT&T $50/month, in which case my iPad suddenly costs a minimum of $629.

Now, in a vacuum, some of these are not so much money that I would have to forgo food or rent, but while discussing it with devoted partner, I realized something: since 2002, he has owned 4 separate iDevices. FOUR. IN EIGHT YEARS. He has needed to replace his iThing every two years because the bloody things are totally unreliable. Funny, though, because the extra 60 bucks Apple asks you to shell out for extended warranty protection is good for how long?

2 years.

So I'm putting my foot down. I will not be buying a new iToy. Yes, I will snoop around the internet to see if there's any kind of wild scheme that would enable me to cure my current iToy of its dead pixels but, as cool as they are, I will not ante any more money into the gaping maw that is Apple. I didn't buy an American car because of the horror stories associated with planned obsolescence and my suspicions that Apple, too, employs that savvy strategy are going to prevent me from adding to their coffers either. I had my first digital camera for about 6 years before it stopped working, and I wasn't exactly gentle with it. The nice folks at Canon offered me a new camera for the same cost as the repair. You bust your iToy after 2 years (or 1 if you don't pay the extra 60 bucks) and it's another $300 out of pocket.

Canon will continue (and has continued) to get my business; Apple...we're breaking up.

The Inevitable Approaches

I was all set to talk to you about Cuban food today, honestly I was. Before leaving the house, I set the photos I wanted to use to upload, confident that they would be there when I arrived at work. Which, from the lack of pictures herein, you will know did not happen. And I feel I owe an explanation. After all, from the way I talk about it, you'd think editing and uploading photos was akin to stalking, killing, and prepping my own wild game.

My computer is not so much a Dell or a Sony or an IBM. My computer was (I can't believe I admit this stuff) built by me with some guidance from devoted partner out of parts. The hard drive part, the memory part, the motherboard part, the dvd drive part, etc. This was, at the time, cheaper, and allowed me to add on as needed. Well, I finally can add no more. My motherboard will not support any newer awesomer stuff which leaves me with a computer that struggles both with Adobe Lightroom and 17MP photographs.

And by struggles I mean like the little engine that could.

Now I know this is uninteresting, but I can't post what I wanted to because I have no pictures - they're somewhere in limbo.

I need a new computer. And I hate hate hate needing a new computer. I don't want to spend the money, I don't want to reinstall all my programs, I don't want to do any of it. But as each passing day chokes and splutters to a megabit close, I know the time is long since nigh. And now the only question becomes: laptop or desktop.

Pros to the laptop are portability, cons are I'm not sure I like using them. Devoted partner got himself a shiny new laptop this year (very well deserved) and I kind of hate typing on it. The keys are unsubstantial and don't give good feedback. Now I realize that most of the time, I can have the laptop on my desk, hooked up to my nice big monitor and a real keyboard, which kind of makes the decision seem easier, but then there's another con: with another self-built desktop, I could play the adding-on game for another 5 or so years, whereas with the laptop, not so much.

I know my budget, and it's sufficient for either (though, let's be honest, for about $400, I could build myself a pretty rocking desktop and only come away with one of those mini-laptops that don't accommodate my key-mashing fingers), I just, for some inexplicable reason, resent having to get a new computer. I feel like the computer I have, though completely inappropriate for today's software, works well enough. It's not broken, or virus-ridden, or sad in any way save processing speed. It's just old. Old and slow. But I haven't yet thrown out and replaced my parents, so doesn't it seem callous to do so to my computer? We've had such good times together. And I built him from scratch.

Ok, I don't actually have any sentimental attachment to the damn thing at all. I'm mostly concerned with spending money to replace a still-functioning item and with the endless work it will take to get the stuff I need from old computer to new computer.

Ridiculously boring post: over.