Finally got off my chassis and worked to get our computer backlog installed.
A month or two ago, we bought a new “house” notebook — immediately to give a machine to Katherine (to replace the 5/120 that was unable to run any newer games she got), and also to provide us with a non-work laptop to do things with. We finally unboxed it, registered it, got it hooked to the network, and set it up for Kitten to use.
She was, initially, reluctant to give up her own computer. Until she actually started using it, at which time she spent the rest of the weekend doing so, finding that her games loaded with blazing speed and the screen was large and bright and so on and so forth.
No TV. Just computer games. Fun.
Meanwhile, I was working on the machine I’d picked up for Margie. For a variety of reasons, I ended up with a Compaq Presario SR1475CL, a very nice deal via Costco’s “refurb” shop. It had the advantage of being inexpensive and of having an AGP slot that I could drop Margie’s existing graphics card into.
Getting it set up was a bit more lengthy of a process, esp. since the first step was burning system replacement CDs (could have been DVDs, but we had no blanks around the house). Ten disc later, I was actually ready to work on it.
Actually, didn’t do all that much work (various curses and grunts and scowls and grumps notwithstanding), but we got City of Heroes loaded on it, and then I got it hooked up to the keyboard, etc. via the KVM switch over at Margie’s desk.
Margie was ecstatic over the performance — between 1.5Gb of RAM and a 802.11g WiFi NIC, plus her video card, CoH was running like a champ. No more 3-5 minute zones, and much less rubber-banding and jerkiness. I think I scored major brownie points just for that.
Still have to do serious migration from the old Vaio to the new Compaq (applications, browser, e-mail). In the meantime, the Vaio is also hooked to the KVM switch, so Margie can toggle back and forth between them, using her wireless keyboard and monitor for both, as well as her …
Oh, yeah, the Compaq came with a very nice 17″ flatscreen monitor with integrated speakers. So she also has much better (or, at least, larger) graphics, plus two fewer things (speakers) to clutter her desktop.
All in all, a job pretty well done — or, at least, well-started.