Well old boy, it's been a good run. You were my first laptop. We wrote a lot of good papers together, stole a lot of music, and processed a lot of fun pictures. Your faux wood paneled handrest got a lot of looks, and your Inspiron 4100 moniker was...inspirational.But let's be honest, you haven't been keeping up lately, man. You've only got one USB port. It takes you 20 minutes to turn on, and even then I can barely run Firefox and Acrobat Reader without you hyperventilating. Your 20 gig hard drive, once an enormity, just isn't enough for me anymore. Worst of all, your power cord is so barely attached that sometimes when a butterfly flaps its wings in Central Park, you threaten turning off. And for god's sake, you don't even have wireless capabilities without eating up that USB port.
Don't get me wrong, I'm going to miss you. I think the MacBook's silvery finish is a little much, and I prefer your smaller size, but Jesus, man, you let yourself go. I'll never forget you, but I've got to tighten up and have a machine that will tack where I tack.
Semper Fi old friend--you've served well. But I'll never buy another Dell as long as I live.
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5 comments:
A touching story, Pepper, but then you go and throw a broad, sweeping generalization about computer manufacturers in at the end. Jarring. I must report that my Dell laptops have served me well, right up until the end. In fact, I purchased a new one recently, with both a serial port (1969 technology) and an ExpressCard slot (circa 2003). From where I'm typing, that's pretty tight, because I rely on both for my work. USB may be "Universal", but serial will never die.
I don't mean that Dells are bad machines--I've owned two, and other family have too, and they've all been well built and relatively problem-free. It's just that I don't think I'll ever buy another.
In Pepper's defense, Apple computers are kind of like the Japanese in that even when they break down they still function at a higher level than all the other machines.
Pepper, I'd like to say it'll get easier, but the truth is, it won't. I still remember the gittery facade of every tech warrior lost under my command. They come right off the assembly line, fresh faced and ready to take on the world, most of them hardly look like they have processed a megabite yet, but when that first virus goes whizzing by their CPUs, they are never ready. Such a waste. It's twice as hard when you lose one of your go-to guys. By the sound of it, your man had been with you in the shit; running black ops into the local exchange server; snatch and grab jobs on countles mp3s. A trooper like that can never be replaced.
Huzzah! Glad you made the purchase. I'm thinking about getting a new machine and MacBook is high on my list. You mentioned Acrobat sucking on the Dell, and while I think Acrobat is ideally a great program, it is sometimes monstrous and clunky. I've been using Skim, a pretty great, free app for OS X, which allows you to do a little more with PDFs than what's available in Preview. Oh, and save that receipt so you'll only have to pay $10 for the Leopard upgrade after Friday.
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