New Writing Computer

Friday I moved my 2013 CPU and installed a new one on my writing desk, a consequential decision for a writer.

On the one hand, things go bad with old hardware and I don’t want to crash and lose files. On the other, there is a lot to learn about using the new computer even though for most applications the transition has been reasonably smooth. I have a lot of files to deal with.

The most consequential decision was to convert from my 2006 version of Microsoft Office to Microsoft 365. The concern is I haven’t been through all of the email files going back to 1999 and that remains on the to do list for my autobiography. I don’t really want to import all those files to the new hardware or put it in the cloud. Luckily the new version of Outlook can synchronize with the web version of Gmail, or so it seems I’ll have access to that part of the archive. Is it worth a three-hour tutorial video to learn the functionality? Probably.

The other decision pertains to photos. I used Google Picasa since close to its inception. I have files from the earliest days of my conversion from film photography to digital, including a photo of Barack Obama taken on my flip phone at the Harkin Steak Fry in 2006. I began curating all the photos yet I hadn’t planned to convert software while I did. Google stopped supporting Picasa in 2016, which shows how closely I follow that segment of the internet. I don’t remember a notice from Google. I’m looking at newer photo managing software like Fotor and GIMP, but I may finish the curation project on my old CPU with Picasa and use the new software going forward.

Saturday morning I looked up a lot of passwords. I kept the old monitor, Made in China in October 2003, according to the sticker. I should likely upgrade to a new one when the budget gets a bit ahead of where it is now. A new monitor is not as critical as a new CPU. Other old peripherals bought long ago continue to function so they won’t be replaced until they die.

Sometimes I think we’d all be better off with a text-based command line interface to the internet. But for IBM, Apple and Microsoft, that could have been our future. It would have been a different digital world.

I needed this change. As I approach my seventieth birthday there is an urge to discard stuff not worth passing along to those who succeed me. Old computer files may be one of the least important legacies to leave behind. Curation work is full of memories and I appreciate that aspect of it. Curating files keeps me busy without spending money, which is also something a pensioner needs.

I welcome the new Dell CPU. Hopefully I won’t have to buy many more.