After a short (depending upon one's perspective) hiatus, I'm back online. I went to Wal-Mart, today (along with Best Buy, Sam's Club, Toys 'R Us, and even Big Lots), and bought the cheapest computer I could find. I knew before I bought it that it didn't come with a monitor, that it had 2GB of RAM, a 320 GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Home Premium. What I didn't realize until I'd been messing with it for a few hours is that it has a 64-bit processor. All I really know about that is that my best friend's boyfriend thinks it's a good thing, and that I hope my Wacom Bamboo will work with it.
So far, I've gotten rid of Norton, and replaced it with Avast; installed Firefox, NoScript, AdBlock, InFormEnter, Flash and Chrome; installed CCleaner and Google Notifier; uninstalled the e-Bay thing, Google Toolbar for IE, and Adobe Reader; and gotten Amazon Unbox up and running. I still have a lot to install and/or uninstall, and I still don't have a solid opinion on Windows 7, yet. It has some nice features, but I'm still adjusting to the look and feel, now pining away over both XP and OS 9.
The truth is that, after spending 5 or 6 years getting a computer the way you want it, it's a bit disquieting to have to start all over again, but I digress. And to digress further, the low point of my day came at Best Buy, when the guy trying to sell me a computer asked if I wanted anti-virus installed or if I planned to not go online. I hope that's not how Best Buy programs their sales force, 'cause seriously, dude, that's insulting. Bad false dilemma! No, no!!
Anyway, the good points about the new PC, thus far: Lots and lots more memory. Even with heavier system requirements, the performance difference between 2GB and the 512MB I was running on my old system is pretty damned obvious. I can carry the tower around with one hand, which is useful when I need to fiddle with the back of it. MP4s will play in Windows Media Player. Jump lists are handy, and I like the preview windows in the taskbar. Also, sticky notes! I haven't used them, yet, but I'm just ridiculously happy to have them!
Thanks to the folks who commented in my absence, and please, forgive the rambling. It's been a hard seven days. Take a bit of being cut off from the whole damned world, add in a bit of brand new temporary job (one that involves showing up twice each day, including once around 5:30 in the morning); learning to give insulin shots to a kitteh; several trips to the library; lots of stress; my first desperate yet sober trip to a local straight bar (which, it turns out, isn't completely straight); a sick dog; a sick mother; and hours spent at my desk smoking cigarettes and pressing buttons that don't do anything, and -- well, Hell -- I'll forgive myself, whether you forgive me or not.
More on lots of stuff, later (including all of the wild things that lurk in the woods just outside of town; things I didn't know about until just a week ago), once I've figured out the next several steps in whipping this shiny new system into shape.
P.S.
One *good* thing that came out of my unexpected disconnection: I took some time to read. You know, like books. The kind that fit in one's hands and smell really awesome. I read Joyce Carol Oates Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, and loved this quote:
"...you don't feel extremes of temperature when you're on a mission and your very life's at stake, those hateful bastards wanting to put their hands on you wanting to impose their plans on you, you'd rather die than surrender."
God, to be 14 again!
Scratch that. 14 sucked. But to feel 14 again, I'd willingly convert to an Apple IIe!
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