The Soul of a New Machine

[RWebb]

apologies to Tracy Kidder & the MV-Eclipse...

James red-beard asked how I like my new Phenom based Win 7 computer, which replaced a Dell 8300 Dimension XP machine. So here it is in a new thread so as not to clutter up a previous subdir query...

new machine is noticeably faster in some respects, but none that matter so far

- biggest adv.s [1] having space on the HDD to load all my muzak; [2] bigger, nicer, lower power consumption from hp widescreen LED (rather than fl.) monitor

Win 7 is a hassle to me, partly due to not being able to just run my normal file mgr., PowerDesk (tho I still have it running); the permissions security crap has been a huge time-waster

I do NOT like having all my virtual disks collapsed into a single directory tree - makes it hard to see everything I want in a single window w/o scrolling. Before, I went one place (one disk) for GIS, another for document files, another for Images from my camera, and another for collections of legal cases, etc.
- I suppose I can set up a bunch of "Libraries" for all this, but it will take some study (= time), and a physical (or pseudo-physical) location for objects that mirrors a "conceptual" location always seems best.

All this makes me wonder if I am getting set in my ways with age, or if a lot of it is just an aversion to changing things that work fine already...

The fan on the new cornputer is very noisy also - may be the CPU fan, the GPU fan, or the case fan - I dunno.

[RWebb]

Transferring software is always a hassle. Firefox was the very easiest.

Arc GIS system no biggie - again we stick with the old version so we don't have to learn a buncha new crap.

MS Office was a big hassle - 2000 wouldn't work tried various tricks and always had problems esp. with Outlook so finally bit the used bullet & installed MS Orifice 2003 which had minimal changes to mess with with & no ribbons to tie me down.

I am still looking for the CDs for the Adobe apps suite (which I rarely use).

In all, I am reminded of something a professor on my PhD committee (a soils scientist who was an electronics genius) said to me back in the days when he ran a dozen Radio Shack Trash-80s in his lab: "we spend thousands of hours just messing with these things and I wonder if we are really saving ourselves any effort." - paraphrase tho I used quotes to set it off; my memory is diluted by the intervening few decades since but that was definitely the gist of it