Computer Wizardry

I have a computer and at the time I thought it had all the space I would ever need to store my stuff on. I was wrong.  Oh, so very wrong.

One would think that 50G of space would be plenty of workspace for Windows to do its thing and another 50G for me.

Again, so wrong in so many ways.

It seems, even if I install the programs on the 2nd storage area (D drive) the installation process will still load a crapful of dlls and other strange Windows components on the main drive (C drive) thus eating up all that valuable space.  And some programs don't even give you the courtesy of allowing you which drive you will install the programs on - defaulting to the primary (C drive) storage area.

Tonight, with tongue in cheek and grabbing the seat of my pants in an attempt to fly -- I re-partitioned my drives to give the primary drive more space and thus reduce the secondary drive.  And, trust me, it wasn't because there was an extreme amount of unused space on the secondary drive.

Tomorrow I will laboriously work my way through the files and archive what I can to that backup unit which has a very robust Terabyte of space.  I back up my drives to it -- at least the important areas and made a very small dent - more like a scratch - on the space usage there.

So, now I will archive and remove documents, books, short stories, and other trivial things that I feel are too important to lose.  I will relegate them to the Terabyte system.

I've got music - lotsa music.  I'm going to keep some of more heavily used tunes on my secondary drive but many of them will, like the documents, etc - be relegated to the Terabyte backup device.  I figure I can listen to them from that drive just as well as from the D drive.

Of course, a lot of my anguish could be easily remedied with a simple purchase of a new system.  But really, do I need to upgrade just yet?  I mean, I've had this system for going on 7 years and it works just fine.  Okay, it works a lot better since I upgrade the RAM memory and doubled its size.  I listen to music and I write stories - it isn't like I need a super fast processor or Wow-my-pants-off graphics usually needed for all the new games.  I do play a couple of games but they are simplistic - like Pinball which comes with the system and a couple of others that are simple.  I'm not into those heavily graphic programs that make you feel like you're part of a movie.

I'm just getting into graphics - 3D - and do need a little computing power but for now, I'm still an amateur in that field and feel that what I have should be more than sufficient -- at least for another few months.  I attempted a rendering of a sample lesson. I was told it could take upwards of an hour, maybe longer.  Hmm? After 10 mins the progress bar still read a number I'm very familiar with - ZERO... sort of like my banking account.  Yes, 0% completed in 10 mins.  An hour?  More like an overnighter it would seem.  Of course, that was right before I started my project of re-allocating space on the my drives.  Maybe now it would work faster.  I'll check it out later.

I don't know but it sounds like I'm convincing myself that I need a new computer.  Okay, I'm convinced.  Now I just need to convince the banker that we need TWO new computers.  Trust me - if I tell my wife I need a new computer -- I'm sure she is not going to be too pleased.  Her computer is older than mine!  Part of the negotiations will be including her in getting a new computer so I can get my computer.  As I told my buddy -- I only look dumb.  Maybe they'll have a nice laptop available for Memorial Day Sales -- I think I can hang in there until then.

Yeah, just call me the computer wizard.

Until next I ramble on...