O-v-e-r Computing
I’ve played out this script like too many dozen times:
friend: “I need a new computer!”
me: “why…?”
friend: “cause it’s slow.”
me: “have you tried reinstalling windows?”
Actually, even better than reinstalling windows is to switch to an operating system that won’t bog your computer down with unnecessary fancy fades, transparencies, drop shadows and the like. But this requires a little more than a ‘little’ effort. However, as a testament to how much more power can be milked out of a machine than we like to give credit for, check it out:
Running my RSS reader, (and firefox, thunderbird and like 8 copies of vi in the background) that is an OmniBook 900 which I bought for $50 2 years ago. It’s an 8-year-old machine. Count them… 1… 2… 8!
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep ‘\(vendor_id\|model name\|cpu MHz\)’
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
model name : Pentium III (Coppermine)
cpu MHz : 498.469
$ cat /proc/meminfo | grep ‘MemTotal’
MemTotal: 321332 kB
Albeit a little slowly, it’s running all the stuff I normally use a computer for on a day-to-day basis. (I’m blogging on it too! omg ponnies!) And it’s got less power than my phone. Not to say we should all be running 8-year-old laptops, but it is to say that computing is not headed toward more and more power, but rather toward more and more mobility, integration, and ubiquity. Funny how some of the big guys don’t get it.
And it is also to say, next time you’re thinking about replacing your machine cause it’s running a little slow… what you’re really trading off is the time and effort it would take for you to reformat & reinstall your existing machine versus the $2k it’ll cost you for a brand new one. But even that brand new one – depending on who you buy from, they may throw in pre-configured malware for you at no extra asshole-fee… so best practices would be to immediately reformat & reinstall anyway.
Moral of the story? Just don’t pay for extra computing power so that you can run your malware and your drop shadows and your anti-virus (arguably an even better resource hog than the malware itself) all on top of each other. Reinstall your windows one or two times a year – that’ll do more to keep you moving fast on your machine than buying a new one will. And while you’re clicking ‘yes I’m sure’ for the googlith time, think about switching over to the side of the penguin. It burns a little at first… but grows with age.
