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I've discovered an embarrassing resemblance to a commercial.
There's this Windows commercial where some British lady says she doesn't want a new computer because hers is as good as anything out there, so they go through a whole song and dance to show her the latest stuff.
Lenovo is having a sale on Thinkpads. And there's an additional coupon. It's like half what the same thing cost 6 months ago. (Obviously technology declines in price, et cetera, but the double sale and free shipping really helps.)
I need a new computer. My current computer is 5 years old and it was a stopgap el cheapo computer. It's a Dell that didn't even have the free printer offer back when they gave you a free printer for visiting their website practically. It wasn't meant to last this long. And it certainly wasn't meant to last this long without having its innards swapped for quieted ones... like hanging the harddrives from elastic instead of screwing them into the rails, like using an especially quiet replacement fan, and so on.
Simon wants to get me a laptop this time because he feels sorry for me being trapped at my desk. He's not wrong about this being kind of lame. In theory we could stop having a room devoted to being an office. We could use that room as a doing stuff room. It also means that we could choose a different arrangement of apartment. Because the same square footage as a 1 bedroom is less expensive. Not that we wouldn't prefer to have a third room, but if I had a laptop, I could use my computer while sitting on a squashy chair in the bedroom and then put it away when we wanted to sleep. Or maybe if electronics were quieter, I wouldn't be so hard nosed about not having them in the bedroom.
But I admit that I dread having a laptop.
I have hideous luck with laptops causing flail. I touch it and the networking goes out to the point that it requires a hard boot. (The kind that takes like 7 minutes to completely wake up from when a normal "boot" takes like 45 seconds.) I'm convinced that they don't really work right.
Laptops, just because they are that portable also require more security. You have to have your own firewall software. You should probably have easy to use tunneling set up so if you take it to Starbucks or the library, you don't have to worry about sniffing and nefarious wifi. And you absolutely need to have antivirus and anti-malware actively running and scanning your system. And. sadly. the free versions of these things do not generally get along. It's not hugely expensive, maybe a couple hundred bucks a year and that would cover all my household machines. (Most licenses are good for 3 computers, weirdly. I guess they assume you're going to share with your family anyway and they might as well not be dickish about it since you actually paid them.)
I'm going to need a new external monitor, and I really want a wireless keyboard and mouse.
If I get a new computer, there are so many things that will get better... I could play the new Bart Bonte game... it's a Unity game and I can't run that on my computer. (Well, I don't even dare try.) I can't stream Netflix to my current computer.... (well, again, I don't dare try. But the newer versions of Windows already have the Silverlight pre-installed.) I could move everything around and get rid of a lot of stored material in my office. I would have room for a big squashy armchair.
But everything would be different and that's scary.
There's this Windows commercial where some British lady says she doesn't want a new computer because hers is as good as anything out there, so they go through a whole song and dance to show her the latest stuff.
Lenovo is having a sale on Thinkpads. And there's an additional coupon. It's like half what the same thing cost 6 months ago. (Obviously technology declines in price, et cetera, but the double sale and free shipping really helps.)
I need a new computer. My current computer is 5 years old and it was a stopgap el cheapo computer. It's a Dell that didn't even have the free printer offer back when they gave you a free printer for visiting their website practically. It wasn't meant to last this long. And it certainly wasn't meant to last this long without having its innards swapped for quieted ones... like hanging the harddrives from elastic instead of screwing them into the rails, like using an especially quiet replacement fan, and so on.
Simon wants to get me a laptop this time because he feels sorry for me being trapped at my desk. He's not wrong about this being kind of lame. In theory we could stop having a room devoted to being an office. We could use that room as a doing stuff room. It also means that we could choose a different arrangement of apartment. Because the same square footage as a 1 bedroom is less expensive. Not that we wouldn't prefer to have a third room, but if I had a laptop, I could use my computer while sitting on a squashy chair in the bedroom and then put it away when we wanted to sleep. Or maybe if electronics were quieter, I wouldn't be so hard nosed about not having them in the bedroom.
But I admit that I dread having a laptop.
I have hideous luck with laptops causing flail. I touch it and the networking goes out to the point that it requires a hard boot. (The kind that takes like 7 minutes to completely wake up from when a normal "boot" takes like 45 seconds.) I'm convinced that they don't really work right.
Laptops, just because they are that portable also require more security. You have to have your own firewall software. You should probably have easy to use tunneling set up so if you take it to Starbucks or the library, you don't have to worry about sniffing and nefarious wifi. And you absolutely need to have antivirus and anti-malware actively running and scanning your system. And. sadly. the free versions of these things do not generally get along. It's not hugely expensive, maybe a couple hundred bucks a year and that would cover all my household machines. (Most licenses are good for 3 computers, weirdly. I guess they assume you're going to share with your family anyway and they might as well not be dickish about it since you actually paid them.)
I'm going to need a new external monitor, and I really want a wireless keyboard and mouse.
If I get a new computer, there are so many things that will get better... I could play the new Bart Bonte game... it's a Unity game and I can't run that on my computer. (Well, I don't even dare try.) I can't stream Netflix to my current computer.... (well, again, I don't dare try. But the newer versions of Windows already have the Silverlight pre-installed.) I could move everything around and get rid of a lot of stored material in my office. I would have room for a big squashy armchair.
But everything would be different and that's scary.
