No, I'm not talking about that sort of writing equipment. With a heavy heart at the prospect of a lighter wallet, I trudge to this blog post knowing it is time to upgrade the machine.
Cloud computing doesn't mean what you think it means.
Writers upgrade computers by purchasing new computers when old computers crawl to the computer graveyard to die in a cloud of fizzy sparks.
Cloud computing doesn't mean what you think it means. Bzzzt.
But hold! What is this?! My old computer isn't dead? No. I'm writing this blog post on the old machine, in treacle.
How often should a writer upgrade to a new machine? When the moon is blue and close to the horizon, filling the void.
*
Once in a Blue Moon? Twice?
Quentin Crisp refused to do the dishes until he'd eaten fish off them. Once you reach the fish stage, you must tackle the problem of explaining your piscine plates to wary visitors, otherwise.
In computing terms, I'd reached the fish stage.
Upgrade to a new machine if your old machine dies. That's about it. As an author, I only really need basic typing files on a computer. And so...
There's never been a crushing need to replace machines, season by season. As long as I could type, and save what I typed, I was okay.
I'm not talking about laptops. There are people who replace those fragile constructions annually. Really? In the time it takes me to replace one personal computer, you've roasted through eight impersonal laptops? More?
(Insert silent scream here.)
*
This machine served me pretty well for almost five years. And it'll keep serving as an extra archive. But plans in motion altered my electronic requirements.
If I am to do more than type in files, and I aim to, then I require a machine that isn't sloth-powered, treacle-fired, and built using the earliest chips cast in solid Lethargium.
So. Buy a new machine when your old machine dies a death or is on the way out. And that means the clockwork is failing, the energy lies fading, and the steampunkery of old not-so-fiercely hisses its digital age - which is measured in Geologic Time and rhymes with Mesozoic.
If you need a faster machine, hop on a bicycle.
That was my attitude. But requirements change. I'm upgrading, not replacing. There's just enough room for both machines to sit on the floor, all cabled up and ready to compute.
The switch from machine to shinier machine brings the silver lining nearer...see attached gloomy cloud for details. I know I'll have to fuck around with settings, applications, lubricant, and. Wait. Maybe not that middle category.
It's possible to run a computer for close to a decade. Been there. Done that. And they say it's barely possible to do that for a laptop as well as a PC. Wouldn't know.
Hardware wears well, though it also wears out.
Patience wears out, too.
I type this part of the blog from under the sheltering cogwheelery of the new machine, with its new regime. First, I had to donate a kidney, a small fictional child, and a sample of someone's blood just to purchase the device.
Insecurity checks, apparently.
Then I made sure the machine worked. This involved flicking at least four on-off switches into the right combination called ON. Really on. Actually definitely on, this time.
And then I had my blank machine sitting and waiting to fill up, as if by technology. I waved a not-so-magic wand, and, after five days of wandering in the digital wilderness, I had the new machine set up along the same lines as the old machine...
Archives copied over. Handy software blended in. One dodgy unstable driver killed my machine dead and I had to resurrect the fucker. It isn't a week old, FFS!
But that return to life took care of another annoying problem. So I can't complain overmuch. I know enough about computers to be dangerous, and gave the dying computer a transfusion of information. That's usually all it takes.
What do I know about computers? Enough to know that I know to leave well-alone if I have the option. Yes, oh trembling one, I've slashed my way through the registry and returned to tell of it.
Never slash your way through the registry - with a machete or a cucumber. May you never have to visit the registry. That's all you need to know. Unless you need to know more.
Is that it? Are we done? This machine is faster. It isn't on its last legs. Yes. That's it. But that's what I need, for the next phase. Things are a lot tidier.
Going years between upgrades leaves you feeling that change in computing is change for the sake of change...and it is loose change and small change, at that.
Luckily, the previous machine took the upgrade to Windows 10 without breaking stride. So the last machine wasn't powered by the abacus. I may have given that impression.
What do I like about the new machine? Not the disc eject button. It is woeful. But at least the machine takes a disc - it had to take several, lying around waiting for the transfusion, to turn into the beast that most closely resembles the old machine.
In upgrading, you want to see improvement. But you don't want the office routine thrown out by massive changes. What do you mean I can sign in using a fingerprint? And if I die, and people have to access the computer after I am gone? What then?
Those fingerprint links are heading out of favour anyway. It's going to be brainwaves or slices of kidney in the future. And that's always ten minutes away.
The future that has flying skateboards in it. And rocket-packs. Space cars, with aerodynamic fins straight out of 1955...
I'll be amazed if this machine lasts me five years. It barely made it through the first week. In vehicular terms, I'm the loose nut behind the wheel.
Computers would run so much more efficiently without pesky humans stepping in and screwing the software up. I'll stop here, before I extend that argument to all areas of human endeavour.
*
Patience wears out, too.
I type this part of the blog from under the sheltering cogwheelery of the new machine, with its new regime. First, I had to donate a kidney, a small fictional child, and a sample of someone's blood just to purchase the device.
Insecurity checks, apparently.
Then I made sure the machine worked. This involved flicking at least four on-off switches into the right combination called ON. Really on. Actually definitely on, this time.
And then I had my blank machine sitting and waiting to fill up, as if by technology. I waved a not-so-magic wand, and, after five days of wandering in the digital wilderness, I had the new machine set up along the same lines as the old machine...
Archives copied over. Handy software blended in. One dodgy unstable driver killed my machine dead and I had to resurrect the fucker. It isn't a week old, FFS!
But that return to life took care of another annoying problem. So I can't complain overmuch. I know enough about computers to be dangerous, and gave the dying computer a transfusion of information. That's usually all it takes.
*
What do I know about computers? Enough to know that I know to leave well-alone if I have the option. Yes, oh trembling one, I've slashed my way through the registry and returned to tell of it.
Never slash your way through the registry - with a machete or a cucumber. May you never have to visit the registry. That's all you need to know. Unless you need to know more.
Is that it? Are we done? This machine is faster. It isn't on its last legs. Yes. That's it. But that's what I need, for the next phase. Things are a lot tidier.
Going years between upgrades leaves you feeling that change in computing is change for the sake of change...and it is loose change and small change, at that.
Luckily, the previous machine took the upgrade to Windows 10 without breaking stride. So the last machine wasn't powered by the abacus. I may have given that impression.
What do I like about the new machine? Not the disc eject button. It is woeful. But at least the machine takes a disc - it had to take several, lying around waiting for the transfusion, to turn into the beast that most closely resembles the old machine.
In upgrading, you want to see improvement. But you don't want the office routine thrown out by massive changes. What do you mean I can sign in using a fingerprint? And if I die, and people have to access the computer after I am gone? What then?
Those fingerprint links are heading out of favour anyway. It's going to be brainwaves or slices of kidney in the future. And that's always ten minutes away.
The future that has flying skateboards in it. And rocket-packs. Space cars, with aerodynamic fins straight out of 1955...
I'll be amazed if this machine lasts me five years. It barely made it through the first week. In vehicular terms, I'm the loose nut behind the wheel.
Computers would run so much more efficiently without pesky humans stepping in and screwing the software up. I'll stop here, before I extend that argument to all areas of human endeavour.
*
And then I decided to watch a film.
In the Oldentime, afore the Apocalypse, when humansies were mighty with the Teknahladjee, computers came bundled with software allowing you to work the fucking hardware.
Not any longer.
This machine has a DVD player. Does it play you a movie, right out of the cardboard box? Of course it fucking doesn't. (Playing movies is incidental, next to its main task of reading and burning discs.)
I downloaded free software and didn't quite care for the experience. Now this I have to blame on the TV, which isn't farm-fresh. The TV is a little older than my ancient five-year-old computer...
And that makes the TV as old as time itself, even if it does come with the fabled USB port and HDMI and a device for downloading electricity from the wall.
My solution wasn't to stream movies. I have a large wooden structure off to the back of the room, filled with round streaming devices called discs. And I don't see the point in binning them if I can still find a device on which to play them.
So.
I went halfway into the room and plucked a DVD player off a shelf. Hell, I'd just plug that back in, right?
Hadn't used the DVD player in an age. My old computer opened its mouth and swallowed discs whole, turning them into televisual experiences. The official DVD player just got in the way, after a time.
Did I face a bigger problem? Yes. If the DVD player stood in my way with one computer, what about the lack of space caused by two computers?
Fuck.
I could squeeze the player back in there, IF...I moved the old computer to the left. But that meant I'd be forced to move the internet box four feet to the right.
And all the power cables had to move, to accommodate this epic shift.
Reaching for BIBLICAL language, I said to myself...
Fuck it.
And there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth.
*
I spent the fag-end of one night and all the next morning unplugging things. That took me into the dangerous realm of moving the printer out so I could shift a few doors. (Don't ask.)
Then I'd rip the internet cable out of its comfy home. I laboured harder than Herakles to work that cable around behind the bookshelves without having to move them and without toppling them.
For this achievement, I earned the Fictional Award for Services to Shelving, First Class.
And there I stood, precariously, ready to undo that which had been done. Undo it I did. What a puzzler. I'd crammed a world of stuff around there, over by the printer...
Meaning...
I hadn't a hope in hell of taking any of it out. These doors might just barely slide out past the unit the printer sits on. Where to, though? They can't slide up and out, as the UP exit is blocked by an artificial roof created by the edge of an old computer desk...
Sometimes, you are forced to improvise shelving.
And so it went, from stumble to stumble. But. Ripping the cable out forcefully...turned out to be the easiest option. I'd prepared for a mighty mighty mighty struggle.
Pop. Rattle. Whish. Slither. Done in seconds. The real mighty struggle involved getting the printer back in there...a lot harder than heaving it out.
Any fool can unplug devices. Plugging them back in AND GETTING THEM TO WORK is a different tale. My head went down against the back of a bookcase, and a nail sheared off a chunk of my hair.
What the fuck?! One of those accidents you read about in obituaries.
I began that morning with a look in the mirror as I brushed my teeth. And there, plain as day, sat blood on my face. Bloody freckles. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
Looking around, I found the culprit. A tiny cut on the back of my hand, from the night before. Better watch out.
I couldn't watch out, when it came time to plug everything back in. Forward and down in the depths, sandwiched between two computers, I plugged, unplugged, and replugged by instinct.
Those scenes in STAR TREK, with Montgomery Scott shoved along a tube, fixing spaceship innards...been there, done that.
I had to plug. Then I was forced to unplug and disentangle. The day started in blood and continued...in that vein.
My old computer knew I'd sent it to live down on the farm in retirement. A hidden flange reached out and blew my thumb to bits as I unplugged a cable I couldn't see the end of.
Blood everywheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere.
A dash to the sink followed. Apply pressure. Hose with cold water. Bind the wound with medical fixings.
At a distance of a few days, I wondered how I'd cut myself so strangely. You'd think an alien exploded out from inside my thumb. Thumb blood is RED. No, really. It's as red as red can be.
Yes, I bought a new computer. And yes, I gradually realised I'd have to rearrange the office slightly. Yes, slight office rearrangement means moving ALL the cables.
Does everything work, now?
After resetting my computer twice, to blitz two different glitches, yes. My computer works. So. Is that it? I can type in files I'm able to save?
Yes. And I only had to lose half a pint of blood to achieve so lofty a status. A mild price to pay.
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