Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

The New Computer Arrives
We left the K's ski cottage just after lunchtime and got home by about 3pm. Both kids slept much of the way home, making for a relatively peaceful drive home. The only unfortunate incident was that Vanessa was car sick just as we were on the other side of the city. We were right in the middle of the highway when it happened, and there wasn't anywhere to pull over, so we just drove her home while I passed back some paper towels and some water to make her feel better.

So when we got home, Vanessa went straight into the bath, and I set to work cleaning up the truck. I ended up doing the whole truck, figuring I might as well do the whole thing since I had all of the cleaning gear out.

Vanessa was much happier after her bath, and the fact that Maxim, her friend from down the street was dying to play with her.

I had asked Maxim's mother if she'd be able to sign for the new Dell Computer if it arrived while we were away. It did, and she did. So after cleaning up the truck I went over their and picked up two boxes containing the new 'puter and its software.

It's a Dell Dimension 4400. I've gone over it's vital stats before, but it certainly looks cool in its black case, and a real added bonus for me was the fact that it had an additional USB port in the front of the unit -- no more fiddling with the back of the computer struggling to get a USB plug in. So I disconnect my old 900Mhz machine and plugged in the new one.

This is my first hands-on experience with Windows XP. It’s certainly different, though not so much that I couldn't easily make my way around things. I was most impressed with the fact that it was smart enough to know what to do with my Internet connection right away. I was on the verge of calling Rogers with a "I've got a new computer and I need the settings to get it connected to my cable modem" type of call, when I opened a browser window and voila! I'm connected. I didn't have to enter any IP settings or anything. Sweet! This is a feature which I think will help sell the OS to a number of neophyte Internet users in particular.

The new machine is certainly zippy -- double-clicked programs seem to launch with no discernable delay in most cases, though its hard to make a direct comparison because it is all happening on an unfamiliar operating system. It is also very quiet, with little discernable fan noise. The machine is at its noisiest when it is accessing CDs in one of its drive bays.

I started the slow process of installing fresh software on the system, ranging from things I need for work (Excel, PowerPoint, HomeSite, TopStyle etc) to things for fun (Winamp, Kazaa, Quake).

I also have the task of cleaning up my older machine, and making it suitable for Erika's and Vanessa's purposes (I've decided to give them the 900Mhz machine instead of the 600Mhz like I had originally planned -- I figure the 600Mhz system is all I really need for my arcade unit, especially if I get the switch, which contains a print server. I figure, why make them wait for any program to load or run longer than is necessary? It also makes things easier for me in the long run, since this means I don't have to swap out drives and other components between the two slower machines. The 900Mhz system also becomes the dedicated photo print machine, so Erika can print out photos directly to the printer instead of having to go through the process of letting her tired old underpowered Toshiba notebook from chugging away for ages while it processes a set of photo pages to print out.