My IBM Thinkpad died over the course of the past week and the helpful help desk folks got me a new Lenovo-branded version. Here’s how the rest of my day played out:
- New PC weighs enough to knock my vertibrae out of line. Extended life battery=pain while traveling
- Am I a racist if my immediately feel like the Chinese-made laptop is of lower quality than the US-made one?
- But didn’t they make old IBM Thinkpads in China anyway? So yes, I am a racist. 🙂
- Does a smiley face offset an accusation of racism?
- Screen resolution is 1400×1050, making my head hurt badly. Try lower resolution and screen gets blurry making head hurt worse.
- Launch IE since its the only browser. I was not aware my security settings were unsafe. I was not aware the IE would be blocking certain sites. No, I would not like IE to block anything, I am an adult. I would, in fact, like to download this file even though it may be hazardous.
- Install Firefox.
- Install Screenhunter
- Install Delicious plugin for Firefox. Doesn’t work. Can’t login to site, forced to uninstall
- Install old version of AIM since current version is intensely slow.
- Nonsense message about encryption: Don’t tell me about this again.
- Nonsense message about certificates: Don’t tell me about this again.
- Nonsense message about Java needing updates: When was the last time I ran a Java program?
- Adobe needs updates? Why exactly?
- “Your system is about to shut down. Please save your work.” Whoh! How the hell did that almost happen.
- Asked the Help desk for CS3, got Adobe Acrobat. Uggh.
- Install Google Desktop. No, I don’t want news alerts or widgets. I want search.
- LookOut for Outlook is no longer available. Clearly Microsoft doesn’t want any useful programs available under their brand name.
- How to remove the useless Adobe toolbar in all my applications…Google has the answer!
- Move shortcut from desktop. “Are you sure?” That’s like asking if you’re sure you don’t want ketchup on your fries. Who cares?
- Explore the NVIDIA control panel. Seems useful. Makes my windows transparent when moving them. 5 minutes later settings no longer have any effect.
- Install Flash
- Will install Silverlight as soon as a website asks me to
- Will install AIR as soon as I need it
- Back to work, not the most productive day I can remember.
Also, I was on a panel with the CMO of ThinkPad a while back. He said that he and his team monitor blogs and message boards intensely for discussion of the products. Interested to see if this one comes up.