Remember the '59 Ford pickup you restored in high school? It was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen.
Or the stereo equipment you cobbled together to create the best sound of 1969?
You look at photographs of them now, and the memories are great. But an objective eye certainly would not see the dream you saw forty years ago.
Well, that is about how I feel about the computer setup that I have lashed together for my move south.
Taken separately. they are technological miracles:
- The little Sony notebook that is light enough to carry everywhere, but is powerful enough to act as a CPU.
- The Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) that will act as a voltage regulator, a surge protector, and a backup power to supply to give me enough time to shut down programs -- in the unlikely event of a power failure.
- The miniature backup drive that will store 465 GB of data.
- A wireless keyboard and mouse to give me the freedom to wander away from the computer -- at least, until my eyes start failing.
- A 22 inch flat screen monitor hat will keep my eyes in focus -- and will be a great movie screen substitute.
- Sony speakers -- not as good as some I looked at, but I already owned them. No live performance sound here. But, even live performances are over-miked these days.
Taken together, it could play the ugly step-sister in a Cinderella pantomime. But, it is my link to our little electronic community.
I want to thank all of you for suggesting fixes for the problems I ran into yesterday. It turns out that I have an ethernet port on the laptop. In fact, I showed it to someone the first day I owned it. Beth reminded me that I knew more than I remembered.
And the monitor was just as easy -- a simple Fn F7 gave me all the flexibility I needed. Several of you reminded me of something else I had forgotten from my PowerPoint training days. One month away from the traces, and I forget the obvious.
So, there it is. It is not a restored pickup or a well-proportioned stereo rack. But it will work quite well for me.
That is -- until the salt breeze starts reducing everything to its component parts.