Breaking in a New Computer

Getting a new computer is kind of a bitter-sweet experience. I mean, your old computer may be slow and half of the programs you need don't work very well, but it's familiar and you know exactly where everything is. Your settings are the way you like them and you don't ever have to type a web address because your browser knows them all. I, for one, find myself resisting getting a new computer - or doing what is needed to fix the old - just because it's so much work getting everything back to normal and tweaking all the setting to be just how I like them.

Well, I got my comeuppance for that attitude this week with a vengeance. My work computer has been slow and buggy for months now. It's about two years old and wasn't that great of a machine to begin with; it was just a basic laptop that could do the types of things I needed. Last week, though, it quit doing some of the crucial things I need to do my job, so I finally had to call IT in to fix the problem.

First, they did a whole system reset (I think that's what they called it) which erased all my settings, icons, favorite, bookmarks, etc. After that, I spent all day putting things back the way I like them. I tweaked settings and tried to remember all my bookmarks. I even did Google searches to remember how to do the obscure changes I had discovered ages ago and never thought of since.

Actually, I wasn't working on it quite all day. A couple of hours before quitting time, one of the IT guys came in and said that they were going to have to re-image the machine - it just wasn't going to work otherwise. Basically, everything I'd done that day to make my computer work the way I wanted it was all going away and I'd have to do it all again.

At this point, I'm more than happy to have them do what they have to do to make sure I can use my computer. After all, they already deleted the favorites and such, and there is no getting them back. I just wish that they had told me they I would have to do it all again before I spent the time fixing things in the first place.

I guess I'll just have to console myself by doing my job on a computer that doesn't randomly freeze up, crash, and generally works smoothly. I think I'll be fine.