It Purrs Like a Kitten
My computer finally came on Thursday. Why didn’t I say something sooner, after a week of updating you after every little change in the order status? Read on to find out.
On Wednesday, I was firmly convinced that the package would come via FedEx on Friday. That was the date estimated by FedEx’s shipment tracker. However, I was surprised on Thursday morning to find that it was already on the truck and would be delivered a day early. Imagine my joy at realizing that I was only a few hours away from getting rid of my old computer forever. However, this joy was short-lived. Late Tuesday night, my Internet access worked fine; I blazed along at speeds over three megabits per second, and was happy. But on Wednesday morning, everything changed. The router was on the fritz, blinking in panic at me about the connection having been lost. I searched for a loose cable, but there were none. Something was wrong with the cable modem, or some setting had been tripped.
So I checked more router settings, restarted it, restored factory settings, etc. The Repair tool in Windows XP did nothing. Turning the cable modem on and off, unplugging it and plugging it back in, nothing worked. At this point I gave up and installed an AOL trial so that I could at least connect to the Internet, albeit at a terribly slow speed. I hunted around Cox’s website for an answer but could find nothing, so I had no choice but to call support. A few minutes of talking to Linda, the support lady that I could barely hear, and I had been redirected to Cox’s “Level 2″ support system. Which I guess meant that my problem was serious. Now this guy with an Indian accent got on the line, and I was told (in poor English) that I was the victim of some kind of terrible super virus and that I would either need to reformat my hard drive and reinstall Windows or figure out some way to get rid of it. Once I proved to Cox that my computer was clean, then they would reactivate my Internet access and I’d be fine.
Of course, this entire thing was a load of crap. Even the most secretive of Trojan viruses don’t escape my watchful eyes, and even if one did slip by, it would be quickly caught by either a) the firewall on my router, b) Windows’ built-in firewall, or c) a virus-scanner or spyware/adware detector. There is about a 0.01% chance that any computer that I use regularly will get a virus, and a 0.001% chance that I won’t be able to remove it. So I knew this wasn’t the case. Obviously someone at Cox noticed irregular activity coming from my IP, perhaps due to my development web server or something. They put my Internet access on hold, without telling me, and then they tried to make it seem like it was my fault that I had this “virus”. Oh, and all three people I talked to sounded like they came from completely different countries, which I don’t have a problem with, except that their accents were so thick that they were barely understandable. I won’t slam Cox even more than I have already for this because they have had such good service in the past, but I’m not going to be happy if it happens again.
So that issue was resolved, but I couldn’t reactivate my Internet access until after my new computer arrived, since it would be certainly fresh and clean. Wednesday and Thursday passed with me somehow dealing with the slowness of dial up and lots of web development work that needed doing. I didn’t do it. I should be doing it now, but I’m not. Anyway, I was feeling more and more excited as the time of delivery drew nearer, which I estimated at about 4:00 PM. It came at 3:30. The FedEx man just looked bemused as I signed his list and hefted the large green box into my house. I didn’t care at this point.
Up the stairs I went with the box on one shoulder, steadying it carefully with every available limb. I set it down on the floor in the office, where the old computer was, and just looked at it for a minute, reveling in my success. Then I attacked it with scissors, carefully cutting the tape on the top edges in all the right places so that I could just open it right up with minimal damage to the packaging. Upon getting it open, I saw the ABS binder, a huge chunky booklet with manuals, install CDs, and extra parts all stuffed into convenient, color-coded plastic envelopes. Next to come out was my free ABS t-shirt and mousepad. Then came a long rectangular box which contained the wireless keyboard and mouse, and another smaller box which the motherboard had come in. I feared for a moment that the system was not fully assembled, but breathed a sigh of relief upon finding that the box contained various cables and CDs, not the motherboard itself.
All of these boxes rested in a cardboard tray with a detailed system map in the bottom of it showing how everything plugged together. And next came the one thing that I had been waiting for for over a year, the large black monstrosity that is my new computer. Its blue lights and LED screen were dark, the fans stuck in free motion without power. But it was beautiful anyway. It could have been pink, for all I cared, but what really mattered was that I finally had it, that it was in my hands (or arms, actually), and that it was all mine. It was like having the best Christmas of my life…in July.
Now I was faced with the task of unpacking the computer itself from the foam that surrounded it. I found that the best method was to wrap my arms around it and pick the whole unit up, foam padding and all, so that it would at least be out of the box. I did this, and then I took off the form-fitted foam bricks one by one and set them aside. The unpacking was done, but the night was far from over. I now had to get everything off my old computer and get it ready to be transferred to the new one. My crappy CD burner could only burn the two backup CDs in about an hour, so I spent that time uninstalling programs and cleaning up my old system to make it ready for use later on, whenever my little brother ends up needing it.
Once the CDs were burnt, around 5:00, I was finally ready for the arduous setup process. I took apart the old system carefully and put the parts that I would no longer use (keyboard, mouse, and computer) in a corner where I wouldn’t have to look at them any more. Then I dusted off the computer desk, cleaned out all the drawers, generally put things away. Finally, around 6:00, it was time. I heaved the new computer onto the desk next to my old monitor and hooked them together. A whirlwind of cables and batteries, I set up the rest of the system in about five minutes. I’m sort of a record-holder in my family for computer set up, ever since I was eleven when I set up my aunt and uncle’s computer in about three minutes and made it ready to use after it had been collecting dust in a corner for several months. If I didn’t have to worry about damaging anything, I might be able to pull it off in two minutes, depending on desk configuration, number of peripherals, etc.
Anyway, I soon had everything hooked up and put together the way it needed to be. However, one thing was missing: the all-important master power cable. This cable plugs into the power strip as well as the back of the computer case, and it provides all electricity for components inside the PC as well as some outside it if they are connected via USB. Panic set in. I looked everywhere, high and low, in the packaging, in the large binder, in various cardboard bits that littered the floor, but it was not to be found. I had heard of the power cable being left out of the box before, so I called ABS to see if that was the case, and if so, whether they would ship it to me. To my extreme annoyance, it was 5:45, and their phone technical support hours were 9:00 to 5:30. I would have to wait perhaps two more days before I could use my system, all because a single cable was missing. My anger and frustration was almost unbearable.
I resigned myself to sullenly watching a movie with my dad and brother, pretending to stare at the TV while my mind was on other things. I kept thinking of places where it might be, but everytime I knew that it couldn’t possibly be there. My mom came home around 6:45 and asked if the computer had come yet; I told her that it had and what the problem was. For a moment she looked about as unhappy as I was, if that were possible. She suggested that we search the office again. We did; I checked every box, under furniture, and even at the back of the computer to see if it might have some how miraculously appeared and plugged itself in. I was looking around behind the computer desk when my mom bent down behind me and asked, “Is this it?”
I looked around, and there it was, wriggling in her hand, seeming to want to get away before it got electrocuted. The happiness was back, and a small bit of embarrassment; the cable was in such a spot on the floor that it was likely that I was standing on it for quite some time as I had searched for it earlier. And I had blown an entire hour and a half just because I hadn’t seen it there. But at this point all I cared about was getting the system up and running, so I jammed it into the back of the case and plugged the other end into the strip. I pressed the power button. Nothing happened. Uh-oh. I tried it another five times, to no avail. I was near to despair when my mom, who was still in the room, suggested that I check the setup manual which I, in my overconfidence, had neglected to read. My hands trembled slightly as I thumbed to the section about the first boot, but I found nothing. I checked some more sections, and came upon a small note at one side of the page: “The power supply switch may need to be flipped for the computer to function properly.”
That should be reworded to: “…for the computer to function at all.” More frustration for a moment at this stupid procedure, but I got over it, flipped the switch, and pressed the power button. I knew it was on when I was blinded by a bright blue light, six of them, actually, positioned down the sides of the case. The LED screen on the front panel flipped on, displaying a core temperature of a cool 75 degrees. The fans whirred, turned blue as well, and I could see the components working through the clear plexiglass side panel. This was the moment. This was the time when I sat down in front of my new wireless keyboard and mouse and my shiny new computer with a plexiglass-fronted case, side window, three blue fans, six blue lights, an LED screen, and two gigahertz of pumped up processing power (equivalent to 3.2 gigahertz by Intel standards), and thought to myself, This is really mine. I’ve finally got it.
The first booting went straight to Windows activation and setup. I had to enter my name, create some accounts, reactivate my Cox Internet access, etc. And in a short time, it was done. The computer booted on through to a login screen in 800×600 resolution. But I was so happy I barely even noticed that the screen looked small. I clicked on my username, entered a password, and BAM! Literally half a second later I was looking at my desktop, fully loaded and booted. I was floored. I could not have expected such speed in my wildest dreams. I had to see if this was truly how fast it performed. I began copying my backup files, installing programs, drivers, applications, uninstalling a few things, tweaking the registry, partitioning the hard drive, installing Firefox and Thunderbird, copying over some user profile data, adding my iTunes music to my hard drive, installing iTunes, etc, etc. There was so much to do, and it was done in so little time, I was amazed. Programs actually took less than fifteen minutes to install, my web browser came up immediately up on clicking the icon. Even my Internet connection seemed faster, which was probably true as this tends to be the case in the first hour or so of use on a new system.
I had expected to spend the better part of a day getting the computer up and running to my specifications, but it only took four hours. One of the first things I installed was Far Cry, a first-person shooter video game that comes free with systems with the processor that I have. The graphics were amazing. In the opening sequence, for instance, the effects and video are awesome. And once I was actually in the game and playing it, it was perfect. After so many year of having to contend with downgraded graphics, glitchy, buggy, laggy, screen movement…this was heaven. I had achieved nirvana.
That was that. It was finished, done. My computer had come, I had it, my money was gone. Time to start saving for something else, like college.
Here are some pictures:
It rocks.