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.