supercomputer

I've become computer spoiled.

A few months ago, within a week of being offered the Colby job, my old laptop starting going on the fritz. It was old. From 2004, I believe. It was actually Josh's old computer that he gave me when he upgraded. Needless to say, though it treated me well, a 6 year-old computer is not the most reliable. Time for a new one.

I got my new laptop, a Toshiba Satellite. Love it. I quickly got spoiled by the fast processing speed and got used to Windows 7. All was right in the computer world.

Fast forward to last week when I got into my office. There was a PC desktop all ready to go. I don't know what year it was... new enough to have a flat screen, but old enough that it was square. Initial assessment... it was bad. Slow. Things that would make it freeze or even crash: printing, working on more than one thing at the same time (e.g., 2documents), looking at it for too long, thinking about looking at it. I was extremely frustrated. And worried. All I was doing now was basic email and word processing. What would happen once I began programming experiments? Running analyses? Using more complicated programs, in general. Looking into my future I saw many frustrating afternoons coupled with a desire to throw the computer out the window. *head desk*

Yesterday morning, however, everything changed. I came in to the office, and on the floor was this glorious, brand new machine. It's this all-in-one contraption where the (huge, widescreen) monitor is connected to the (tiny, cute even) CPU. And there's even a convenient little handle to lift the whole (very light) system. It was so easy to set up. Plug in power. Plug in internet. Done! And it's fast. And pretty. And has my now-accustomed-to Windows 7. I still need to get all my experimental and statistical software installed, but any delay in that is well worth the speed and convenience of this new machine.

Thank you, Colby. Thank you.