The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 21.0039 Friday, 22 January 2010
From: Hardy M. Cook <
Date: Friday, January 22, 2010
Subject: Explanation
Unbelievable!
The saga of the PC I built that was supposed to be as powerful as a Mac is approaching its close. This supposedly nearly perfect machine has been nothing but trouble, crashing, and crashing, and crashing. Before New Year's I had a new roof put on, and I suffered the second or third PC crash of my desktop in the past six months. A few days ago, before I had even recovered from the last crash, my desktop crashed again, and this time appears as if it needs to be taken to a shop since I am unable to revive it myself and don't think I want to anyway.
So I woke up yesterday morning and was cold. I could not get the PC to boot and could not get my furnace to turn on. Today, I am having my furnace replaced and my hot water heater replaced. After I signed the contact for these yesterday, I went to the nearest Apple Store. After working with PC computers since 1982 and various Microsoft operating systems from DOS to Windows 7 Ultimate, I purchased my first Apple computer -- a Macbook Air -- last week. Two days later, the other events happened and there I was yesterday in the Apple Store. I had priced a few different configurations of Mac Pros, planning to use one with my new 25" HD monitor. After talking with the salesperson, I realized that I was not interested in any of the Mac Pro configured machines at the Apple Store and not willing to wait a week or more to have a Mac Pro configured to my specifications built in Shanghai and delivered, so I looked at the new iMacs. The top-end 27" with a few extra external drives and some more memory actually was a close match for the Mac Pro I was interested in, except for the expandability, which after all was perhaps at the root of my hubristic adding this and that to get the world's one of a kind super machine or super problem as it turned out to be.
Well, after 28 years of PCs and Microsoft, I am now the owner of two Macs, the Air and a 27" iMac.
I have to continue transfer my files, install my new software, spend some time on the learning curve as I figure out how to do what I need to do to edit SHAKSPER digests, and then adjust my computing rhythms to these new machines before I will be able to get to the backlog in the SHAKSPER inbox.
As I think about it, one of my most serious problems with my PCs is that I KNOW TOO MUCH ABOUT THEM and subsequently was constantly striving to tweak my machines to get every ounce of performance, only to have them crash as a result of my tinkering. With my new iMac there is really not much more than I can do after I install the memory I just ordered and plug-in my external devices.
Now, I can concentrate on the tasks, not the computer performing those tasks. I am looking forward this life. Actually, I am quite excited about this new computing life.
Best wishes,
Hardy M. Cook
Editor of SHAKSPER
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