The way all computing should be?

A few days ago I was bemoaning that I had to get a new computer this half term. My XP desktop is nearly 8 years old and had started being a bit temperamental. Very bloody temperamental.

So it was off to get a new desktop yesterday, with me fully expecting to have to spend the next few days tweaking it all and getting it just right. Except it didn't work out that way at all. In fact, by 9 tonight I was finished. Everything worked quickly, installed smoothly, files transferred like a dream. Hell, even iTunes picked up all my music and artwork and didn't mess them up at all.

Unbelievable. Windows 7 seems pretty nice so far - in the barely notice it's there sense, like any operating system should do. Even better than that - practically silent, almost eerily so. I find myself noticing the quiet, more for the absence of noise than anything else. The old machine could occasionally manage to find some sort of frequency of fan whirring noise that would play havoc with my tinnitus. But every so often with this one I find myself turning down the music just to try to make out the noise.

So I was wrong. Yes, if I would have had a £1000 spare I'd probably have gone for a Mac. But I didn't, so Windows 7 will just have to do. And so far, it's doing rather well.

A little computer history....

Probably of very little interest to anyone but me, but what the hell....

I think I got my first computer around autumn 1995 - over a £1000 from a local PC company in Dudley. A Windows 95 machine with no internet. Relatively high spec as I recall, but not certain of the exact specs. I also paid out full price for a copy of Office 95 Professional. I must have been mad, but for some reason I decided I needed Access to learn databases.

I spent hours pouring through the Windows manual and the Office 95 manual working out how to use it. Learnt how to use Access by making a huge database of my comic collection at the time, all beautifully cross referenced and organised. Now I don't have comics, and I dont have Access. But back then it was a real big deal.

Second computer was a Windows 98 machine, and again I have no real idea when I bought it, but it had Internet which puts it at sometime before Molly was born in 1999 - only because we remember using the Internet to search for what to do about colic!

Again the machine cost over £1000 for a relatively high spec, and again I paid out for Office 97 Pro. Oh, how things have changed. You wont find me doing that anymore. Either a copy of Office 2003 or go Open Office. Even at school we still use or licensed version of Office 2000. There's very little chance of us upgrading to MS Office 2007 - cost mostly but also because both I and the ICT co-ordinator like the idea of teaching our children how to do things with computers, not how to become slaves to Microsoft applications.

And the third computer came along in January 2003. Again fairly pricey, but the spec was pretty good for those days: Windows XP, 2.9Ghz, 120GB hard disk, 512MB RAM upgraded to 2GB after 6 years. I shocked me when I looked back just how long I'd had the machine. It's no wonder it's on it's last legs really.

After that came the idea of mini computers. I'd been thinking about them for a long time and was obviously way, way ahead of my time. Got myself a Palm m550 and foldaway keyboard in 2003, long, long before the era of smartphones. It was used as an organiser and a way to write when out and about. Not really ideal for either to be honest, but the best of what was around at the time.

But what I really wanted was something small and with a full, fixed keyboard to carry round with me and write on. Ironically, I was still ahead of the game, as the only really small mini-laptops at that time (2006/7) we're highly specialised and bloody expensive. Even more ironically, the eventual solution was something I first saw when working in a secondary in Birmingham around 1997.

Enter the Toshiba Libretto:

Bought in 2007 from ebay, costing about £100. It's still upstairs, the battery's shot, but it's still working, this beautiful little machine (about size of a hardback book). Perfect for carrying around with me, doing writing for the FPI blog, and this blog - granted the keyboard is tiny and too fiddly, but it was a lovely thing.

But I could have just waited a few months and the first wave of netbooks would have come along. My timing wasn't great, but at least I got to play with the Libretto, very probably my favourite piece of computing kit I've ever had.

November 2008: Along comes the Asus EeeePC, which is what I'm writing this on right now.

A perfect little machine, allowing me to write anywhere, not too heavy, wi-fi enabled to surf in front of the TV. It's so much better than the Libretto ever was, running Windows XP, pretty fast, not much memory, but I like to run it stripped down anyway. Only really needs a text editor and the Internet to get everything done.

And now we're onto the fourth desktop machine in my series of computers. that makes six computers, four operating systems, probably the best part of £5000. No doubt I'll be on here sometime soon with pictures and moaning about the fuss of Windows 7.

Computers, computers, computers - why I really don't want to get a new one

My lovely Windows XP desktop is on it's last legs. Back in June it developed this annoying intermittent fault that means every few weeks I have to do a system restore to a good point, then spend a couple of hours adding things and changing settings so that it all works how I want it to. But looking back at the receipt I'm amazed to find that I bought the thing in January 2003. It's nearly 8 years old for god's sake.

Now I could keep doing that for a while longer, but there's always that feeling in the back of my mind that some day, probably some day quite soon, it's just not going to bloody work any more. And it's always going to happen at exactly the worst time.

Which means I've decided to get a new computer now, when it suits me. The downside of all this is that it means my obsessive compulsive behaviour kicks in and I have to learn a new operating system and get the new computer doing exactly what I want it to. But at least I've managed to survive on XP long enough to skip over Vista and get Windows 7.

And please, no-one pop up and tell me I should get a Mac. I've seriously thought about this over the last few months. If I'm changing operating systems, I figured at one point I may as well go the whole hog and go Apple. Except for three main things:

1) Money - I just can't afford the £1000 a mac would cost.

2) Fear - it's completely different, I'd have to learn it all again.

3) School - we're on a Microsoft network that I have to look after and I'd like to stay Microsoft at home to keep my hand in.

So sometime this half term I'll be getting myself a new Windows box. With Windows 7. And then I'll start the stressful process of getting it just how I want it. Which for most people would be something that they do gradually. But not for me. I'm far too obsessive about these sort of things. And based on what happened back in June when I had to completely reinstall my current PC, I know it's going to go something like this: 1 day of reinstalling everything (programs, internet connection, restore all my data) and then 2 days of getting the music sorted. Again, most people would just be happy getting iTunes installed, iPod synched and then tinker with tracklistings, artwork and all the fiddly stuff over the next few months. But not me. Oh no, it all has to be done and sorted immediately.

I really am hopeless, aren't I?

Pocklington - 4 years on

(4 years - and some classic issue 4 - Steranko's Nick Fury, Seth's Palookaville and Ellis and Cassaday's Planetary)

Oct 19th 2006. A special day in Bruton family history when we moved the 131 miles up north from Birmingham to York (all detailed here).

It's now been 4 years since we moved, and it's honestly been the best thing we ever did. The house is lovely -even though we're still trying to get the builder to fix the bloody roof properly - yes, still trying - roughly 3 and a half years after reporting it and we're still having problems. All I can say is thank god for the NHBC. The fuss of getting the builder to do anything is incredible, until we get back in touch with the NHBC and within half an hour of them phoning the builder he's on the phone to us arranging a time to come round.

Louise's job is still great, my job in the primary school is still the best thing I've ever done. But best of all, Molly is completely settled into life here in Pocklington. Her primary school was lovely, a perfect place for her to grow up. And then we had the secondary school non-problem. A choice of two, catholic in York or local comprehensive. My heart goes out to any of our friends in Birmingham going through the nightmare of getting schools sorted.

So she's settled into her secondary school - loves being big and grown up, has a great time with her sport and after school clubs (she's on the Netball team already, plays football, hockey and wants to do basketball as well). The only downside is the problem with homework. It's just about settling down but it's been a big shock for her (and us) and we've had no end of arguments about it - the teenage years are going to be fun, I can tell.

So 4 years. 4 great years. Here's to many more.

Boys will be girls ......

You know the rats we got from Pets At Home? Those lovely boys Buzz & Woody?

Well, to cut a long story short, seems they're not males at all. So the boys are actually girls. Thanks Pets At Home for that. The way it happened was this... Woody (the brown and white) had been getting all cage aggressive with us - beautifully behaved out of the cage but if we dared to put hands inside we'd be bitten and attacked. Rather nasty.

Best advice for males aged about 4/5 months is to get them done and talking to the vet they recommended that if we get one boy done we should get both done. Which was fine, they were booked in for the day and I dutifully took them in to be dropped off before work. And that's when the vet looked at them and gave me the news. To be honest I felt a bit of an idiot, because talking to the vet, boys are VERY obviously boys and these VERY obviously weren't, but I ask you - would you know how big a male rats bits were meant to be?

The vets advice was still to get both girls spayed, as this should cut out the cage aggression or at least reduce it so that with training they get used to us as part of their territory inside the cage. The main problem was that it would be both a more complicated op and consequently much more expensive.

Molly was really shocked and upset when she got home and I told her about it. She'd wanted boys because they tend to be less manic and get fat, lazy and cuddly as they get older. There were tears, as she tried to come to terms that her lovely boys were actually girls. But I tried to get over to her that, boy or girl, they were still her Buzz and Woody. And after a little while she calmed down and started to get concerned about the op and how they'd be afterwards.

Off to the vets to pick them up and bless them, they looked terrible; huge shaved patch, massive slash of stitching up their bellies and obviously woozy as hell. The wounds were horrible, and rats being such wonderfully clean animals, don't help themselves by doing their best to clean the stitches away either. But to wrap this up, all was well, Molly's "boys", as we still affectionately call them, are recovered perfectly now and they go to the vets tomorrow for a final check up. Molly has recovered from her shock and now treats them just like she used to.

Meanwhile, Pets At Home have been in touch following an email expressing my annoyance that they got this so wrong. I had a most refreshing conversation with the manager about the problem, and he surprised the life out of me when he started by completely accepting the blame, said it was inexcusable and that the store apologised for all the upset. I know I shouldn't be surprised by someone admitting that the thing that is 100% their fault is actually 100% their fault, but it seems to happen so rarely now. Then, without me even having to mention it, he said the store would cover the vets bills.

Which is why yesterday we were in York on a bit of a shopping expedition, Molly looking for boots, tops and a coat in her new favourite place; New Look. I eventually left them to it and went for a lovely lunch, a read and a bit of a write. Louise and Molly came back a couple of hours later laden with bags and Molly was beaming with the stuff she'd bought. A very good day indeed.

So Molly's lovely "boys" are girls, but she still thinks they're lovely, even if Buzz and Woody have proved to not be the most appropriate of names after all.