Computers

I work with computers. As a result, I have a couple that my office did not issue to me. Being the cheap SOB that I am, I never buy anything new - most of the desktop computers around our house are things I have assembled from parts (including the media server in my basement that is currently waiting on parts) at one time or another, many of which have been upgraded to the point that I no longer know just what I originally built into them.

I have a (work-supplied) Compaq NX-9600 laptop/kneecooker. Nice machine, a bit out of date, big screen, weighs a little more than a case of beer. It also runs hot (apparently early P4's were like that) but it has been reliable and does most of the development duty at work, since it is stronger than any desktop that they've seen fit to issue to me thus far.

My lovely wife is a bit of a Luddite, and will touch no keyboard that looks like anything other than a piano, so she doesn't do computer things. I had hoped to get a Midi setup hooked to the keyboard that she has learned to love, but it hasn't happened yet, and the things she would need to use it for involve a really long learning curve. In order to try to get her interested (and to learn something myself) I picked up a Toshiba tablet PC, thinking it might appeal to her, with its ability to accept handwriting and such. It still might, but meanwhile I used it for a GPS machine in my car, and apparently it took a thumping that was more than the drive would like, and it quit booting one day. It tries, but gets nowhere.

Meanwhile, I picked up a Panasonic CF-T2 Toughbook that worked well - nice and fast, weighs next to nothing, good battery life. I had various USB CD drives and floppy drives laying around the house, so I wasn't concerned that it did not have either, for that ws part of how it got so light. Well, I fell asleep in front of the TeeVee one night with it on my lap, and apparently it spent too much time in contact with me - the fanless design demands air space underneath, and there had been none for a while, so it no longer boots quite up to XP - instead it ges so far, says "CRAP!" and starts the boot again. Of course, I did not get it with recover disks.

Then I got another Toughbook, this one really hardened - heavy, but nice and fast and it even came with a good battery (unheard-of!) so it now sits where the HP 6100 I had from work had sat, and that 6100 is going to be returned.

I got recovery disks for the tablet Toshiba, and spent about half a day discovering that even though it would 'see' a USB CD drive, it would not boot from one. So I googled a few things, and found that there is a utility to write a boot image (and probably all the recovery CD's) onto an SD chip, which I do have - but I can't find the utility anywhere, dammit, and the workarounds all involve a boot floppy, so I know where part of the weekend will be spent.

Meanwhile, the tiny wonder languishes, and I read somewhere hat it can be reloaded from an XP master set, then have the special drivers added back for the touch screen - so I have to get a pristine XP build, and then find all the drivers. More of the weekend gone, I guess - but with any luck at all I'll have them all back to functional next week.

I'm trying to get to the point that I can leave the big Compaq at work, and use one of the smaller machines as a Remote Desktop gateway to it, and then carry only the smaller machines. First I have to get them all healthy again.

I remember when computers would simplify our lives, or so they said. Then again, I'm old enough to have worked on computers that had tubes (and not the CRT variety) in them. We sure have come a long way, I guess - but life isn't all that much simpler, and as for paperless, which dates back to the halcyon days of the mainframe - well, I have yet to see anything computerized produce less paper than before.

I ought to retire and go to work selling the Police Department paper, I suppose.

I guess the point of all this is that life just gets more complex, and computers will be hated by even folks like myself that love them. If I were to bury in the back yard all the hardware I have accumulated over the years of working on and with computers, I'd run out of back yard long before I ran out of stuff to bury there. If I didn't know better, I'd say it reproduced by parthenogenesis (the thought of computers having sex has far too high a squick factor for even this old reprobate.)

I'd be inclined to get rid of them, but I still enjoy writing some software now and then, and when I can';t sleep or the TeeVee bores me, sometimes I get my best code just sitting there in my chair with the laptop on my knees. I am also addicted to the variety of music and video available through binary newsgroups, and am building a couple of collections just for me, of things I like to see and hear. Whether I'll ever get the chance to listen and watch what I collect is anyone's guess, but I've heard the best part of any journey is the getting there, so this collecting is fun - and at least big drives are cheap and fit inside the case - it the music were on LP's and the videos on tape, I'd've needed a bigger house just to warehouse the recordings.

Well, lunch time is over and the boss wants something from me, so I have to go pretend to work so they can pretend to pay me. Odd how that works....

Tonight is Choir Rehearsal, one of my favorite days of the week. Y'all have a good day, y'hear?