Bluebird of Happiness, kinda ...

As I mentioned the other day, my desktop is toast. Fortunately, I had a backup in the new laptop, but it's not sufficient for day-to-day blogging so I ordered a new desktop.

It was completed Friday, I picked it up from the local Puter Hospital Friday about 5:30. Big cardboard box, heavy, with keyboard (I already have 2), mouse (I already have 4) and speaker set (I already have 3) to go with my existing monitor (I have 2 ... both old, fat and small). But I didn't do anything with it because this was my weekend to spend with SWMBO who is recovering from minor surgery.

Well, the "weekend with SWMBO" ended this afternoon about 2pm, when I got so antsy with Puter Withdrawel that she kindly sent me packing home to unpack, install and configure the new puter.

SWMBO is a marvel, she is, and very understanding about how cranky I get without puter time.

Witness my curmudgeonly and unfair rant about 'no club match this month', for which I was soundly, if gently, put into my proper place by my friends. Sorry, folks. Even though I admitted that I was being unfair to the hard-working people who spend HOURS of their personal time volunteering to put on matches, that shit don't work around here. Mea Maxima Culpa, and I'll try to keep the whining down to a dull roar for THIS complaining-type session.

I'm working with 2GB memory, as opposed to 512MB in my previous incarnation, and I have 250GB hard-drive to store my videos. This is good, because my 150GB drive was getting full (down to about 30GB storage left) so I have room to store several years more besides the CD backups, and editing videos should go a lot faster than before. Plus, we were able to salvage the old hard-drive, so I can use that data.

Unfortunately, the applications on the old hard-drive aren't available, because the registry entries aren't available to support them. I've been digging through my application CDs, and got Norton Anti-Virus and Norton Go-Back installed ... only took me an hour, including a half-dozen restarts to install the updates available online. Consider this a blatant plug for Norton, as my annual subscription is good until October, 2007 and the re-install was trouble free.

Not so good for anciliary programs, such as WS_FTP because I can't find the install disks. Looks like I'll have to buy that one again, which will be worth it because a good FTP package is worth it.

In searching for software install disks, I found a lot of stuff that I could never use again. DOS 5.0 is a good start, as is MS Publisher and MS FrontPage ... both of which were ill-advised purchases. Also, AOL 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 and 7.0. I thought I had already trashed those losers, but down there in the Geek Software Archive Cellar you can find almost anything except what you still need.

The good news is that some of my favorite tools, such as ImageShack, was entirely online and I still have the emails which point me to the registration page(s). This allows me to load multiple images, etc. and size them appropriately. I merely upload the file (using the browser option) directly from my PC, and it returns the HTML code needed to include the photo in an article.

YouTube was easy, since I had recorded the URL for My Account on my flashdrive (I have in excess of 100 URLs, with matching User ID and Password there) and BlogSpot was similarly easy and for the same reason.

The biggest disappointment is that I can't find the install disks for Microsoft Office, so my Outlook, MS_Word and Excel files are a total loss until I either find the disks or buy MS Office again.

The bottom line is: even though my old computer is toasted, I'm able to install 90% of the stuff I really need without losing more than a few hours installation time. The other stuff I'll pick up in the following weeks, as needed.

If I had known that the desktop was going to fry, I wouldn't have invested in a new laptop when I did. But I've been wanting to get one for many reasons, and while my bank account took a serious hit after buying two computers in two weeks, the only major problem I have is dealing with the consequences of a temporary lapse of civilized behavior, and eating macaroni and cheese for the next six months.

The Geek Computer Room is all warm and fuzzy again.