I have written about the emotional attachment I have to some of my computers in previous posts. I do understand that these machines are just machines, but some machines also represent part of my personal history. I have used some of these machines to write the stories of my life.
Cindy gave me a MacBook Pro for Christmas and now I must decide what to do with my old iBook. By the way, this is the first “high-end” laptop I have owned. Typically, I have purchased the same type of laptop that would be used in K-12 classrooms, but not this time. Selling the G4 didn’t seem right and it also seemed pointless to add another laptop to the collection that lives under my desk. Cindy came up with a great solution – donate the computer to the hospital were our daughter works. Lynn is a physical therapist who specializes in maintaining the physical capabilities of children who are involved in long-term chemotherapy. She seems to have inherited her mother’s creative bent and comes up with unique and motivating ideas for these children. Her most recent brainstorm resulted in the production of individualized exercise CDs for her clients. She called up mom and Cindy talked her through the use of Garageband to generate her creations complete with her narrations. She has been using her own machine, but colleagues have become interested and want to generate their own. This seems like a productive new use for the G4. The only concern is whether the hospital IT folks will approve the use of a “nonstandard” product.
Apple makes it easy to transfer the files and programs from an old machine to a new machine. It is part of the startup process. What doesn’t seem to make the transition that well are some of the registration codes. I have spent most of the morning figuring out how to deauthorize and then authorize iTunes, etc. Most software products I download and I save the registration codes in GMail. A quick search and I can usually locate anything I have added in the last year or so. The one product that has me stumped is Microsoft Office. I am guessing the process assumes I will hunt up the install disk and either get the code from the box or reinstall. What a hassle – I am out of town for another week. Instead I have downloaded OpenOffice. Between OpenOffice and Writely, I can write and read any document required in my work. I have been in this position before and it was the capacity of the spreadsheet application rather than the writing tool that proved to be the barrier.
It is a little early for resolutions, but today swearing off Office would seem like a good choice. It will probably come down to getting along without Office or trying to lose weight again. Losing weight would be good, but messing with Office is also a threat to my blood pressure and perhaps a more significant risk to my health ….
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