Ready to change
With the proof that a long weekend is at hand (gas just jumped to $1.37/litre) I’m moving one step closer to trading in my first real laptop for another. Son #2 is ready, and I purchased a new mouse, so that the transfer would be useful. Poor Dell One has a touchpad button that is stubbornly stiff, in spite of tabletop surgery, a lot of compressed air and wishful thinking.
Dell Two has been in learning mode for the last week. Dressed in the harlequin robes of Vista, with a foundation of Linux to keep the fat parts contained, it’s been drinking from the deep well of accumulated software served up by Dell One each evening. It’s a little scary how hundreds of intertwined utility packages take time to reinstall when it comes time to change machines.
I wonder what it would be like to return to simpler times. My Kaypro is still around the house, and I could probably remember how to start Wordstar or Kermit. There would be no reliance on the ‘Net, and my eyes would have to adjust to a two-tone world (green and darker green), but I’d have a boot time that was about the same, a fan to keep things cool, and a keyboard that had none of those fancy names like Alt and Del. Ctrl would do one thing, but it would do it well. No mouse, either. In those earlier times, we actually typed everything, and a cut and paste was possible only if you mastered special codes known to the masters: Ctrl-K-B and Ctrl-K-K, followed by Ctrl-K-X and Ctrl-K-V.
But things must progress. Maybe by the time the weekend is over I’ll have handed off the Inspiron of my life, and gone into Studio mode.
