T w e n t y S i d e d

My new computer arrived today. For the curious, I got this machine. Not top-of-the-line by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a good machine for the price, IMO.

Last time I got a computer it was an HP, and the avalanche of popup windows and pre-installed nonsense was so infuriating that I swore I’d never buy a big-brand machine again. This time I ALMOST got a no OS machine and a seperate license of XP as some people suggested. Then I got lazy and just ordered one with XP already installed. Later I got worried: What if this turned into a repeat of last time? I couldn’t bear the thought of going through that again.

Luckily, the annoyware was minimal. I didn’t need to un-install a single thing. No stupid toolbars, no system tray lunacy, no surprises. Only one program was pushy, and it behaved once I put it in its place. Everything else worked perfectly and was sensibly configured.

When I was younger and poorer, I used to hang onto my computers for as long as I could. They hung around for ages, and I upgraded them as needed to keep them useable. I didn’t have nice furniture or a lot of space, so the box usually sat on the floor at my feet, and was moved around frequently. The upshot is that usually when I retired an old computer the thing looked like it had (just barely) survived combat. When I finally moved to a new machine the old one was usually so obsolete and abused that it was rarely fit for any kind of service. However, this most recent computer has only been in service for two years, and I think I’ve only opened the case once. It still looks brand new. It runs fine (well, it runs as well as it did when it was new, which means nothing else has broken since then) and there are only a couple of games out there that it won’t run.

I’d post pictures of the new machine, but who cares? Aside from the pimped-out gaming computers, they all look alike these days. See that computer you’re using? Yeah, mine looks like that only it’s a different shade of grey.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.