Rejoicing and Whining

Yep, I can do both at once. Mainly because I’m ba-a-a-a-ack. My dead computer was not resurrected. I bought a new one, which arrived today. A bigger, better, faster one. Hence the rejoicing. Mistakes I made with the last computer (not whining, yet, though): 1) I opted for middle-of-the-road in what was available two years and one month ago, and learned just how fast obsolescence can set in. So, long before The Crash, I was hating how long some things took, and was plotting upgrading memory, processor, etc. 2) Because of my middle-of-the-road approach (to save money, of course), I had a less than satisfactory back-up procedure. Which means I was anything but diligent. The only thing I backed up religiously was my Quicken data (financial clarity and ease are essential for me). Oh, does the back-up lapse of everything else hurt now. 3) Knowing what I know now, I would have handled differently the initial problem that led to The Crash, and possibly could have squeaked by with some sort of save. So (still with the rejoicing), I’ve taken steps to avoid repeating mistakes. Let me make some new ones! As it so happens, my computer at work was replaced two weeks ago, without the trauma of crash and subsequent loss. I really like the new one, so when I realized I had to get a new home computer, I ordered my work computer’s twin. Hey, my buddies in the computer department did good spade-and-shovel work in writing the specs, so I simply “leveraged” their know-how. (Uh-oh—if I suddenly use the word “metrics” you’ll know I’ve been sucked into the latest business jargon—yuck!) The upshot is that my beautiful new beast at home has almost as much memory as God. Which may last me, oh, three years if I’m lucky. Now for the whining. Having just gone through installing a lot of software on my work computer, I was anything but thrilled at having to do it at home. I load my software at work because it’s specialized and I make sure all the parameters fit the work I do (graphic design, layout, print and online publishing). Adobe Indesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Professional, Quark Express. Besides Microsoft Office XP and Project. And then there are the specs for the high-end print vendors, so it’s not mindless magic-button-pushing. I’m never a big fan of upgrades, etc., at work, because they inevitably require trouble-shooting (no software ever works perfectly out of the box, despite all the hype). So I do the trouble-shooting and tweaking, and I do it well, but my brain does rebel at times. When it isn’t leaking. Leak-tweaking. Or tweak-leaking. I don’t want to come home and do it here too, but as I have yet to acquire my own personal IT department (I am my own IT department), there’s no escaping it. And needless to say, I’d acquire a housekeeper/cook and/or a personal secretary first. Well, I’m partly done with the software installation here—I also have the Adobe software at home, as well as Finale and the afore-mentioned Quicken to do yet. Whine, whine, whine. I guess it’s just that I want to use the tools, not create/adapt/modify them. But I do love them when they work. And the withdrawal I went through last weekend was quite amazing. I can’t recall the last time I went even 24 hours without touching a computer. Some people have house blessings. Could I have a computer blessing?