Faster, Quieter, Sleeker

So, I finally stopped gazing longingly at the various new computers available for sale these days (dismally and enviously comparing their specs with my desktop's) and bought one. I got a screaming, almost unbelievably good deal on it, and it arrived on my doorstep after I waited, heart in mouth, for a mere two days. I tore open the packaging, whisked the silver box upstairs and plugged the beauty in.

What I sometimes forget about the combination of me and a new computer is that it is an awful lot of work before we really understand each other.

I can admit I'm a little stuck in my ways on some things. Ever since Qualcomm let Eudora go open source and stopped supporting it, I have put some serious effort into finding a new email program so I can make a graceful, self-motivated change rather than undergoing something sudden and catastrophic such as a forced switch to an OS upon which Eudora will no longer run - but I simply cannot find a program to serve as an even adequate replacement. It seems Eudora is the only email client ever made for those us who occupy the murky area between programmer and icon-clicker. I know a fair amount about software and hardware and networks and operating systems, and like to go in and tinker with everything that allows tinkering. But I don't know the first thing about actually writing a program. This is why Eudora is so wonderful. It lets me get in there and mess around with it, but when I just feel like being lazy, it lets me do that, too.

Well, with my new computer came Vista, and although my initial plan was to wipe it and put XP on immediately, I was instantly seduced by some of the flashy new features. I thought, "Well, why not? I can try to change."

To make a long story short, a few hours later found me bleary-eyed, with a tic developing in my right eyebrow, frantically pawing through my software box for my XP install disk.

After a total annihilation of Vista via a thorough reformatting of the hard drive, my new computer is finally nearly functional again. There is one pesky driver I can't find (because I don't know what device it is that's not working) and my beloved Eudora works just like it has for the last ten years. Vista does not do well with Eudora. It won't recognize the program as an email client at all, and so it cannot be made the default mail client. It wasn't the Eudora problem, however, that drove me back to XP. It was a myriad of other finally exhausting incompatibilities I encountered... before I even got to my personal tinkering.

So, after a rejuvenating night's sleep, I sit here with my new computer, which is very fast, very sleek, and very quiet. But none of the software on it is new anymore. This morning I did some more research on more up to date email clients, but I think it might come down to the fact that I can't part with Eudora before I have to. I suppose one day I will give it up, kicking and screaming and pointing out all the ways in which it is just so much better than anything else. But until then I plan to bask in its perfection. Perhaps this merely proves one shouldn't shed off the partnership of a decade without an inescapably good reason.