OK, so I have used
garbagepicked computers at home for at least ten years now. I don’t need high powered shit to surf, write, and ebay, and the used crap they throw out is always superior to the task.
The last one, a dual processor Xeon, went tits up last weekend. Ed Hering had come out to look at it, he pronounced it virus free, and it turns out that it was running slow because it’s geriatric electrons were just tired. So it sits by the back door, awaiting stripping and ejection in the morning.
Meanwhile, Ed hooked me up with one of his used boxes, which is FUCKING AWESOME!!! I had forgotten just how much the old one had sucked, and now having a fresh box with a fresh install of win7.64 and no bloatware is a dream come true. I have a couple things to load onto it (Corel, draftsight, and of course all the Adobe crapola) but I think it’s going to be gorgeous, and I feel privileged to have a decent box assembled by a professional. Now let me see if I can crash it.
10 comments Og | Uncategorized
Yeah, ‘updating’ is like Christmas… :-)
I need to snag a toss out like that to use as the media center at my Church.
Currently when we need to show a video or PowerPoint I bring in my or my wife’s laptop.
We had one before and the hard drive died a couple years back and I’ve just not gotten around to fixing it or getting another.
Your week is looking better and better.
All right!
Jenny
I have the opposite problem. Too many useful parts gathering dust because I am loathe to throw it away and don’t know anyone who can use it.
I used to be like that. And then I got smart and threw it all away.
Heh. You really should build something with a solid state hard drive. They’re getting cheap enough for everyone. I know I’ll never own a platter drive again if I can help it.
An SSD would make that system fly, it’s true. I’d wait another six months to make that move, though, because word has it that one company or another is planning to introduce some consumer-grade SSDs which will be price comparable to spinning metal.
Yes, I may get a solid state and use the other disks I have for storage. but for now, this is GREAT!
Familiar blankets always seem warmest, Og. Break the bonds and set yourself up a Linux box. You won’t be sorry. The reason of course is data protection. Until any form of Windoze stops relying on perimeter protection and begins relying on kernel protection, no form of Windoze should be used, especially to conduct any form of secure money transaction.
Not a Unix Jedi yet, I have mastered basics Linux ops, and have cobbled up boxes running Fedora, Ubuntu and Porteus.
Porteus, BTW, runs quite well on really old boxes. My Porteus box is a ten year old laptop running a Pentium chip with only 512 mb RAM and a 40gb spinner. It’s just as quick as it ever was with de-kludged XP on it.
My everyday box runs Ubuntu, and the windows-familiarity is close enough that I believe any windoze user can cross over into Ubuntu, use it, and learn the fiddly details of BASH on the fly, at leisure.
Five pieces of software I must use will only run under windows. I had a Ubuntu server. It worked fine.