Wednesday, January 14, 2009

PC Death Throes

My computer is busily giving up the ghost. It's a massive three years old, so I suppose it's way past it. The main issue is that it's taking 5 minutes to load the internet in the morning which drives me nuts and totally ruins my perusal of The Times online. I've tried cleaning the disc and de-fragmenting it all to no avail.

So I'm going to get one from CDiscount.com - a rather nifty little thing that looks a bit like a toy - the Asus Eee Box. I don't do anything very complicated, like make films or play games. All I need is Office, photo storage space and the internet. What I also like is the teeny price - 227Eur, and it's got Windows XP which suits me just fine.

Has something happened to Vista? I thought that XP couldn't be sold any more and that all new Windows computers had to have Vista. Not that I'm very up with these technological issues, but I was surprised I must say.

Especially as I've heard that there is yet another operating system due out - Windows 7. Reading about it on Wikipedia I was quite taken with all the codenames it's had - Vienna, Blackcomb (no, not Backcomb, that wouldn't be serious now, would it? but I wonder why 'black' and not blue or magenta...) and Longhorn. The final name is quite a disappointment really, although undoubtedly logical.

As I'm such a puny user, I'm very happy with XP however, although of course, with technology, you never know you need it until someone tells you you do. I just can't see myself making movies though or gaming. That's for the boys, and they have the laptop with the right equipment for gaming.

So I keep up by proxy, mostly financial, as I do the shopping and fork out the dosh, natch! On a positive note, Carrouf DID reimburse me for the XBox wifi widget that refused to recognise the Live Box even though it was sitting right next to it. Who would have thought technology could be so cranky. Anyway, I showed it. I took it back and with no fuss, got my money back. I decided not to tempt Fate with another one. Life is too short to spend hours blocked by sulking technology. Out with thee, foul fiend, I say! So I bought some yummy balsamic vinegar to celebrate (no, not 80Eur's worth!).

I felt quite chipper after that.

7 comments:

  1. Three years old, eh? Jurassic, my dear Watson.

    As it happens I have Vista on this machine, and it takes even longer to fire up than last XP computer. I'm not a fan.

    However, one super-important thing which Vista does do very well is to engage with wireless networks, which in my experience it does seemlessly and in seconds.

    Clearly wireless functionality was an afterthought in XP, but Vista was built with this way of working in mind. Since it's impossible to do just about anything useful on your computer without an internet connection, that makes quite a big selling point.

    Let's see what Windows 7 has to offer. My colleague (who would probably still be running Windows95 if he could) tells me it's best to wait for 6 months to a year after a new release so that they can work the bugs out.

    Personally I like to live a little more excitingly. But for all of that, he's got a point.

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  2. Er, that should be 'seamlessly,' I think and not 'seemlessly.' Although that might still be an interesting construction...

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  3. Honey pie, having read your prose, I think I really need something like "defragementations" although, hells bells don"t know how..

    Getting my pc to co'operate in the morning is worse than the northern face de l'Himalya!!! Feel as though I shoudl be putting my feet on the floor to pedal as hard as hell!

    rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

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  4. Wouldn't say it's that old, download and run this:

    http://www.ccleaner.com/download

    First off run the Cleaner option as this will get rid of a load of junk files.

    You should be safe to run the Registry cleaner as well and then in Tools delete some of the software you never use.

    Then again if you just want a cool looking piece of kit like the Eee Box tell me to blog off ;-)

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  5. Thanks Craig. Where's the registry cleaner?

    I won't chuck out the machine, but pass it on, once clean.

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  6. We give all our old tech stuff to Oxfam here in Brussels - they have a special shop where they sell the reconditioned stuff or otherwise they sell all the guts that can be recycled if the machine is beyond repair.

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  7. >> Thanks Craig. Where's the registry cleaner?

    It is the second available option within CCleaner, it runs, lets you see what its found and gives you the option to save change to the registry before tidying things up.

    And if you do want to get rid of the machine and completely obliterate what's on the hard drive take a look at:

    http://www.dban.org/

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