A Writer’s Lament: Fed Up With Computers

Posted by Tom Colvin

September 17, 2008

Over the past few weeks, I’ve faced a bunch of computer issues. Not the little nagging problems that often arise. Rather major issues that strike at the very foundation of why I use a computer at all.

Partly, it’s a result of the fact that I maintain two residences halfway around the world from each other. In the past, I’ve simply kept one laptop, which I hauled back and forth, inconvenient as it was, with backups onto a portable hard drive. The early death of my hard drive back in May set loose a pandora’s box of issues I have yet to fully resolve. And in August, the US government announced that US Customs could seize, with no announced reason, any electronic device capable of transporting data and could impound it for as long as it liked. Suddenly, laptops became, to my mind, machines of the past. Who would ever entrust one’s professional career to a machine that could be seized so randomly?

Consequently, I’m turning to maintaining desktops at both of my residences. The first desktop was easy. I simply upgraded an old one running Windows XP, adding memory, storage capacity and a large LCD screen. The brand new online facility Syncplicity promises to keep that desktop sync’d up with a new desktop in my other residence.

Now, however, I’m at my second residence. And I’m faced with a decision: what kind of desktop computer should I set up here?

Out of nowhere, my evolving dislike for Microsoft and its business practices have bubbled up to the surface. I’m getting really tired of new versions, especially those that can not run programs which have been mainstays to my work for years. I still run Windows XP — no way will I adopt Vista. Yet Microsoft has made it clear that support for XP will soon be discontinued. And now it’s hard at work on yet another version of Windows, currently referred to as Windows 7, though no release date is yet in sight. And, currently, Microsoft offers no reasonable way to run Windows on two computers, without paying double for the privilege.

Consequently, I find myself now considering Apple’s MacIntosh, especially the one that can concurrently run both Apple and Windows operating systems. Alternatively, I’m thinking about Linux, which offers a cost-effective option.

My current circumstance: I’m frozen into non-productivity. And I find that I’m absolutely fed up with computers.

More to come…

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

2-Organizing Your Workspace, 3-Miscellaneous Topics

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.