Regime Change in My Home Office... A New Computer!

It's time for regime change. Not in Iraq.
In my home office.

I've been working under the Intel Pentium
II 333Mhz regime since 1998. It was time
to upgrade.

In fact, I was rather prideful when it came
to my old Pentium II. I used it to make
the point that technology doesn't always
need to be the most current to do the job
at hand. I was able to surf the web,
download porn, burn CD's and send email
(did I really say "download porn"? I meant
to say "do online research"). There was no
need for the super-fast mega whizbang
computers of today.

Then I got my new digital camera. A 6
megapixel powerhouse, it spits out data
like it's going out of style. Last weekend
alone I created 3 gigabytes of new personal
data (not porn).

But I couldn't use it.

The images took too long to display on the
Pentium II. I tried everything I could to
rationalize the slowness. I held out for
as long as possible, but in the end I knew
it was time to upgrade.

I don't like spending money on computers.
I spend like crazy on the house and car,
but I just don't like spending on computers.

So I charged it to Qlogger.

And I didn't actually buy a computer. I
picked up some parts and assembled them. I
bought a motherboard, a Pentium 4 2.2Ghz
chip, 512Mb of DDR ram and a case with
power supply.

I had initially planned on getting a 1.8Ghz
chip because it's the cheapest P4 you can
find but it was out of stock. Then,
amazingly, they had a 2.2Ghz chip at the
same price... $159. I checked the
credentials and it was a real deal.

I picked the parts up from Monarch Computer
in Tucker. It took me about an hour to get
the hardware put together. Then it took an
hour to move the hard drive, video card, cd-
rom and floppy drive from my Pentium II
machine. After that it was a quick hour to
install Windows XP.

Badda bing. Badda boom.

I spent $436 for a much faster computer.
That's a lot of money, but less than what
many people spend for an equal computer.
I'm happy with it, but still retain a
general bitterness that I had to pay
anything at all for a computer in the first
place.

It's worth it. I was able to preview
images much faster. Of the 1000 or so
pictures that I snapped over the weekend I
was, for the first time, able to find some
real gems.

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