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Dec. 23rd, 2006
Dec. 23rd, 2006 10:25 pm
Happy Pill
So, two days ago, I was whining to M that the new Sims 2 xp I picked up was un-fun because I just couldn't do everything I wanted to do because my machine was too slow to run it well.
As of this afternoon, thanks very much to M, who spent the last two days at Fry's and then up to his elbows in puter guts, that problem has been remedied.
I now have a very sleek, tall, quiet monster sitting on my desktop. It is black with blue trim and has purty lights. It is freaking fast. I haven't pulled all my game data down from my other machine yet (hint: Foldershare makes this a far easier proposition than doing it all by hand) but given the paces I've put the thing through so far, it's not going to even blink at just about anything I throw at it for the forseeable future.
It's running all the new bells and whistles (at least in beta versions)--Vista, Office 07, IE7, etc. This is my first go running Vista and I love it. There are a few things that don't feel quite right, and getting Foldershare stuff sorted out was a bit of a pain, but I actually love the sidebar and gadgets and the new taskbar and start menu stuff.
This is not a clone of OSX. Yes, there are vaguely Mac-like things about it--mostly having to do with the shiny graphics--but functionally, this blows OSX out of the water. The 3D desktop alone is freaking awesome. With apologies to M and the rest of the Office geeks I know, I've been gnashing teeth about the UI redesign for it, and don't get me started on the new WMP (which does run better on a faster machine) but Vista? Rocks. I highly recommend upgrading to it when it releases.
I sort of miss my old Big Silver Penis, which M bought me a few years ago to do all the video and graphic work I was doing with BEI, etc. But it was getting time to upgrade. This is a very sophisticated machine with a Duo and a smokin' video card and enough fan power to cool down a Maserati engine. Oh, and a 400gb HD. Heh. I could load every game I own on this thing, plus all my music, all my photos and videos and still have room for moreporn downloads. Yaye.
Technically speaking, we really can't quite afford this. We just dropped a chunk on some new furniture (that was even more overdue, given what the cats had done to what we bought when we moved in seven years ago) and spent a bunch on gifts and such. Plus there's always my schooling and the vet bills and such. But I'll be working by next fall anyway, so that will help reduce our debt. And if the housing market stays up here (as it should; our particular 'burb is very hot right now) we'll still have a healthy enough net worth to start our house and sprog building projects. One or both just may be delayed a bit longer.
Besides--as I was pointing out to M, even though I only use this machine on weekends and term breaks, when I do use it, it's to relax by playing lots of games and fraking around with video and audio stuff. I wasn't able to really do that with how slow everything was running on the old machine. So even though it'll be six months before I can really make use of it on a daily basis, it's still worth it, to help keep my head screwed on straight. I even named the thing Happy Pill on the network, since that's what it's going to serve as. :)
So, yaye. Wonderful and unexpected Solstice gift. Which I shall now dive headfirst into, since my game data is now finished downloading.
*mad cackle*
As of this afternoon, thanks very much to M, who spent the last two days at Fry's and then up to his elbows in puter guts, that problem has been remedied.
I now have a very sleek, tall, quiet monster sitting on my desktop. It is black with blue trim and has purty lights. It is freaking fast. I haven't pulled all my game data down from my other machine yet (hint: Foldershare makes this a far easier proposition than doing it all by hand) but given the paces I've put the thing through so far, it's not going to even blink at just about anything I throw at it for the forseeable future.
It's running all the new bells and whistles (at least in beta versions)--Vista, Office 07, IE7, etc. This is my first go running Vista and I love it. There are a few things that don't feel quite right, and getting Foldershare stuff sorted out was a bit of a pain, but I actually love the sidebar and gadgets and the new taskbar and start menu stuff.
This is not a clone of OSX. Yes, there are vaguely Mac-like things about it--mostly having to do with the shiny graphics--but functionally, this blows OSX out of the water. The 3D desktop alone is freaking awesome. With apologies to M and the rest of the Office geeks I know, I've been gnashing teeth about the UI redesign for it, and don't get me started on the new WMP (which does run better on a faster machine) but Vista? Rocks. I highly recommend upgrading to it when it releases.
I sort of miss my old Big Silver Penis, which M bought me a few years ago to do all the video and graphic work I was doing with BEI, etc. But it was getting time to upgrade. This is a very sophisticated machine with a Duo and a smokin' video card and enough fan power to cool down a Maserati engine. Oh, and a 400gb HD. Heh. I could load every game I own on this thing, plus all my music, all my photos and videos and still have room for more
Technically speaking, we really can't quite afford this. We just dropped a chunk on some new furniture (that was even more overdue, given what the cats had done to what we bought when we moved in seven years ago) and spent a bunch on gifts and such. Plus there's always my schooling and the vet bills and such. But I'll be working by next fall anyway, so that will help reduce our debt. And if the housing market stays up here (as it should; our particular 'burb is very hot right now) we'll still have a healthy enough net worth to start our house and sprog building projects. One or both just may be delayed a bit longer.
Besides--as I was pointing out to M, even though I only use this machine on weekends and term breaks, when I do use it, it's to relax by playing lots of games and fraking around with video and audio stuff. I wasn't able to really do that with how slow everything was running on the old machine. So even though it'll be six months before I can really make use of it on a daily basis, it's still worth it, to help keep my head screwed on straight. I even named the thing Happy Pill on the network, since that's what it's going to serve as. :)
So, yaye. Wonderful and unexpected Solstice gift. Which I shall now dive headfirst into, since my game data is now finished downloading.
*mad cackle*
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