(Planet Me)
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
 
Home Computer.


Today I have been the living dead.

I have a new laptop. And... it's not that great yes. What I am trying to do is rebuild the newest model platform (Windows Vista Home premium), and recreate my old desktop.Now, why have I bought a laptop? Well, the desktop - a hybrid Frankenstein machine with 3 Hard Drives, 370Gb, and almost 4 years old, has finally started to reach the end of its useful lifespan.

Unfortunately, the Ps/2 Pin sockets on the desktop appear to have died. About a week ago, my mouse started to 'die'. It would stick, no respond for second, then minutes, then disappear. I couldn't move the mouse. The machine was fully functional, but...no mouse. Eventually, when the mouse did respond it either crawled at about a centimetre a minute (and barely at that, as it often dropped out unexpectedly), or jumped around hyperactively. In the end, I tried a battery powered USB mouse, but that wasn't much help. Even though the drivers were fully installed (I had thought it was a memory failure), the mouse was still as much use as a stubborn errant child.

Next up to die on the PIN sockets was the keyboard. One USB Keyboard later, and it was apparent that really I need to do a desktop rebuild, reinstall the existant hard drives into a new desktop and start again.

All of which is kind of academic, as I was just about the buy a laptop and then convert the existing desktop into a legacy machine, which is probably what is about to happen.

Thrilling stuff, eh?

Here's my new laptop. The past few nights I have been trying to set it up so it looks, feels, and acts just like my old desktop which was a finely honed machine designed for sufing the net, blogging, listening to MP3's, and doing so in as quiet an unobtrusive manner possible. It also had that 'classic' Windows chunky feel : no bulky, laggy programmes running underneath it, AVG Free's Virus protection, no 'grey space' in Internet Explorer that ate up the visual field, no extraenous toolbars. Just a lean, mean, no bullshit machine. Frankly, it's a right pain in the arse to have to deal with an 'enhanced' machine. I'd rather they have the ability to switch to a Genuinely classic look : small icons, tiles, all the icons stuffed round the sides in concentric squares so as to leave the centre free, that type of thing. When I can get the hang of the new look 'Windows Explorer' I might post up a picture of my old desktop. (Have a look at this..)

Incidentally, where is the History function in IE7? Where is the 'move' toolbars function? (oh, it's been deleted... what a lot of cunt that is, thanks Bill). I have two rows on the top here that are 90% grey screen with no buttons : I'd like to make these one row, but it seems not allow me. Cheers Microshit. I also have to reinstall all my programs, inc.the um... PayWare ones I didn't pay for. Also, rather bizarrely, it takes about 20 minutes to install any program. No, I don't want Google Toolbar. I don't want to be on your email list. I don't want a 'free trail' of obscure functions I don't use. I don't want to have to remember 10,000 'product codes'. I just want something that works just like my old machine. As a result I was up until 2.47am last night.

Up at 8.17 thanks to a gorgeous little boy.Very tired. I was wired on caffeine. Had an interview. I jury rigged a quick presentation in about 40 minutes. They said I'd obviously given it a lot of thought and effort. (More accurately, I just have a quick brain). More caffeine. Junk food. The kind of... unstoppable gnawing hunger that is only ever caused by exhaustion. No matter what I ate, and no matter how much caffeine I had I was perpetually ravenous and on the verge of going to collapse. For having had a few days off, I have spent 4 days out of the last 5 of 'unemployment' commuting to London for interviews and events. From today, the next definite date I have to be anywhere to do anything is 13 days away. I can have a short holiday of sorts. Grow a beard. Become a recluse.

"A recluse is a man who doesn't talk to reporters" - Thomas Pynchon.


Comments:
Nice new laptop, I'm envious
 
not wanting to shit on the IT parade, but have you flashed the BIOS for your old mother board. I've had the same problem and it was a corrupt bios stopping everything working, once i flashed it was all sweetness and light again
 
At this point i confess ignorance and look confused and go ... WHAAA? How does that work. Email to Hotmail please - virgin.net isn't working at the moment.
 
Who cares what's happened to IE. Use firefox, dude...
 
Stef if things like windows update worked in firefox i'd happily use it all the time but like life it doesn't you need to use many tools to do different jobs not just one.

Mark: I would use your hotmail address if i had it???
 
Beginners Guides: Flashing A Motherboard BIOS
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1605
 
Join me (and the rest of the world) in my hate for Vista! What a load of crap. Not stable and all the "extra's" compared to XP don't really offer anything substantially extra.

I've had my new desktop computer 3 months now and so far it's already BSOD'd 3 times on me.
 
i find that most BSOD are hardware related and not the OS. Badly written drivers from your hardware manufacter. If you see which .sys file its BSOD on and then checking if the driver has been rev'd. I had one BSOD with my freeview turner and then check and they had rev'd the driver and Vista has been sweetness and light. Love the new media centre.
 
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