New Machine

A couple of weeks ago, our 6 years old computer started to freeze randomly. It was still bearable at first but then it happened more and more frequently to the point of being annoying. (Gotta love me for still blogging during that painful period!) Well, it annoyed Troy more than it did me, to be honest. And I was the one who was using the computer most of the time. But then again, I’m used to using quirky computers. I had one for years back in Indonesia. Anyway, we tried everything we could (or could be bothered to try) to fix the problem but to no avail. That was when we decided to bite the bullet and buy a new one.

The first computer we considered cost as much as a Canon Digital Rebel XT with two kit lenses. It was way out of our budget. The second one cost as much as a Nikon D50 body, which isn’t too cheap, but not too expensive either, and that’s the one we decided to get. (And yes, I do compare any prices with digital SLR camera prices whenever possible) Once we brought the new computer home, we began the process of preparing stuff to be moved from the old hard drive to the new one. Fun. Not really, though. But it had to be done. Of course I forgot to bring along my precious collection of Mac fonts for PC (anyone have some that they wouldn’t mind sharing?) but that’s to be expected.

Then comes to funnest part (once again, not really): connecting the old hard drive to the new computer for the transfer. Everything went relatively smoothly, but only after Troy told the computer that he was getting really, really pissed. While everything was being transferred, we did some cleaning around the apartment and Troy built a couple of bookshelves to store some of our books. We have WAY too many books in this place that sometimes I’m worried that the apartment foundation will collapse from the weight of it.

Once everything’s transferred and Troy installed one of our old hard drives on the new computer, I realised that the monitor didn’t display the colour correctly. One night, many hours, and three monitor calibration software later, we figured out how to fix the problem. I really hope that we won’t have to get another new computer in many, many years, just because the whole transition is a big pain in the butt. I’m loving our new computer, though. It’s so fast compared to our old one. And I love how it has a built-in memory card reader. It makes it so much easier to transfer photos from my digital cameras to the computer.

The picture above, of course, is of our shiny, new computer. We haven’t even peeled off all the labels. And we didn’t buy that IKEA mouse pad from IKEA. We got it from Salvation Army in North Bay, of all places. Troy isn’t too convinced that it’s a mouse pad, though. He thinks it belongs to the kitchen, probably because it looks like Wonderbread plastic wrapper. But it IS a mousepad!

The weekend went by so quickly because we were so busy. Too quickly, even. I’m missing Troy already.