After spending over a week troubleshooting my work laptop, mostly waiting for troubleshooting, it was decided to send me a new one, possibly because I kept annoying them by wanting a functional computer. They don't like that.
The laptop that was sent Friday failed to appear, but I did get a call the following Tuesday, asking me some questions about it. It turns out it wasn't sent Friday. So it was going out First Thing Tuesday. If you believe that First Thing Tuesday means literally First Thing Tuesday, you're a fool. Like me. First Thing Tuesday is not a point in time, but a range of potential points in time, once again exploiting quantum theory. Depending on where you work, First Thing Tuesday can mean anywhere from First Thing Wednesday all the way to First Thing Tuesday in any year ending in a vowel.
It arrived Last Thing Friday.
It arrived so quickly(!) because they really wanted me to have it. They really wanted me to have it because I couldn't get anything done. Period. Strangely enough, not getting anything done is not sufficient reason to rush any task at all. The old machine is chugging along, running fine, provided I don't close it (or go under 60mph). OOPS - what is that strange icon? Hmmm.... software was added to your machine and it will have to be rebooted. But.. but.. if it's rebooted, I'll never be able to work on it at all. This is why they're working at TOP SPEED on my new laptop.
I skipped the mandatory step of setting up the 35mm film cameras to make an unboxing video and got straight to unboxing. Hmmm... very light. Looks smaller. Uh-oh.. smaller is NOT better... a lot thinner. Uh-oh, Macs are thinner. HEY - it powers up! Normal people aren't this excited when a device turns on. This is because normal people aren't me and I'm not normal people. Plugging something in and having it behave as advertised is a Minor Miracle.
This smaller thing is worrisome. My personal laptop is what you would call Somewhat Larger than most (all) laptops. It is referred to as a Desktop Replacement, due to size and horsepower. Weight was not high on the list of design goals. Yes, it's larger and weighs more than a Volkswagen, but dammit, it's powerful, has a huge screen, and it's portable (provided we rent the flatbed car carrier in advance).
So there I sit, with a functional laptop. As if the joy from it powering up wasn't enough, it let me sign in! I thought I had died and gone to heaven, and was hanging around with Marshall again. And then I saw it... apparently size was the first consideration for this laptop, as they HOME and END keys now require the FUNCTION KEY to operate. What kind of blithering idiot makes a basic navigation key a function of FUNCTION? Dell, that's who. And the keys are at the bottom, while DELETE is up top. I'd have gladly sacrifice the INSERT key, which serves only to get in my way and screw up my already disastrous typing.
A month ago, my coworker was out of his mind because he got a new machine with Office 2016 on it. I laughed, but only politely. I was howling inside. He said to just wait - it was coming for me too. It was all I could do to not cry.
And here we are, a new laptop with.... you guessed it... Office 2016. The 'glass is half full' people would tell me to be thankful it had Win 7 on it and not Win 10. When I worked at the Twilight Zone<tm>, Manglement was deciding on what kind of mandatory training would be required when we 'upgraded' from one version of Office to another. Training? It was the same )$&@ing program. I don't mean to say I require training on Office 2016,... just that it's a flaming piece of excrement, made worse by calling it an 'upgrade'. 'Upgrade' doesn't actually mean upgrade.... 'Upgrade' means 'you better pay a lot to use this new version because we're not going to support the old version that you finally got set up and used to using.'
The only reason Humanity has not risen up and does something really horrible to Microsoft or just the designers of the RIBBON, is that they're stupid, lazy, and love blinky things. It causes violent urges in me if I even see it. I have everything optimized to take up as little screen space as possible, and now it's been cut way down because of some hideous menu that must drop down on me instead of letting me work. Android uses something horrible called Material Design. Everything I install uses this hideous video bloat, so I have to learn to hide it. It pains me to say this, but it looks like Google's been sleeping with Microsoft. The work you do with their programs has come in second to the design of their programs. I learned to hide the little hemorrhoid. But then I had no menus. I figured out how to put tiny little icons on the top left of every program with just the amount needed to do actual work.
After we put the Ribbon People's heads on poles around the compound, we're going on an even larger campaign: WHO TF THOUGHT IT SHOULD BE MANDATORY FOR EVERY PROGRAM TO START MAXIMIZED? When I start a program, it shouldn't splay itself over everything on my screen, yet here we are. This is not limited to MS. Office 2016 retains the ribbon and adds screen bloat for design. Big fat borders. They did away with certain things in 2016 and I have to use Skype for Business. MS bought Skype, complete with backdoors, and probably inserted new backdoors of its own. You might be guessing that no one asked me. And if you guessed that, you'd be very correct. Ok, I'm a team player, I'll use Skype. Oops... how do you make this thing smaller? It opened up and took most of my screen, but I used the standard method to make it smaller. Then STOP. I cannot make it smaller than eating 1/4 of my entire laptop screen. It takes up 1/3 of the width. One third of my (*$&@ing screen, eaten up by one program you can't resize. Or maybe we didn't pay enough to get the Secret Sizing Code<tm>. Even my coworker was stunned, although it worked for him. Aha - maybe it feels about me the same was I feel about Microsoft. Nah, it couldn't.
The laptop sure is light, though.
It looks to have higher horsepower and RAM.
And it's light. It's got that going for it.
It has some bizarre resolution.... like 1472x924, which might be why Skype won't get any smaller. My eyes aren't old enough to require this.
But it's light.
It has a hot spot. What is a hot spot - one of those internet thingies? No, a spot where you rest your hand that's hotter than it needs to be. I wonder if the exploding Samsung batteries had this problem before.....
It's also thin, which helps it to be light.
It has no optical drive, which also helps it to be light. It also helps it to be completely useless, as no one was issued an external drive, nor would anybody want to carry it. Good thinkin', guys.
Sure is light, though. And well laid out.
The most exciting and important bit about this new Wonder Laptop is the tiny Dell Blue band around the nipple. No, really.. you know the little pointer stick thingie that sits around the G and H keys? It's black. But they put a tiny little, almost rubberband-like blue 1/16" bit of rubber around it. But it doesn't light up (sad face). Whatever we paid for these, the nipple should light up. Plus with lit nipples, it's much easier to find them in low light situations. THIS is the kind of thing that makes Normal People rise up in anger. You can strip their rights one by one, but don't take away their emojis or they'll find you and do things to you while you sleep. Possibly involving a Kardashian.
Make sure you're sitting down for this part... I insist. I can't afford the liability insurance should you fall and damage any of your organs. The laptop wouldn't let me log in this morning. Gee, a few days ago it let me log in fine. Not today.
Of course not today, it's the second damn day I've had the brand new confounded thing, why would it let me log in? Coworkers, who always come by for the latest bad news and my bright, sunny outlook on life, stop by and wonder why I'm incredibly glum, instead of pissy with hate. There hasn't been a single I FUCKING HATE MICROSOFT in the building all morning. People are concerned. Are those tears coming down your cheeks? Why does that happen?
Logically speaking, if it worked Friday, it should work Monday. Except for me. Perhaps I brought a little Twilight Zone<tm> with me. Good lord, I was going to have to call Support... please don't make me call Support. It will be three days before they bother to call me back and another three to fix the actual issue. Hey, maybe those Glass Half Full people had something after all.. I could make an entire career out of broken equipment. I couldn't get a day's work done in 35 years because I had to call Support and wait a minimum of weeks to get each repair done!
Nah.
So I looked further and discovered a setting might have changed, although it was illogical. And sure enough, the illogic change worked and I was in. Then I hit Outlook and two of them came up. Makes perfect sense, no? Speaking of burning down houses and heads on poles, SOMEBODY changed the color of the Outlook icon to blue from that hideous burnt yellow color, which is how I used to find it. This is NOT an upgrade. They're just screwing with us now. There's an entire back room that quiets whenever someone tries to find Outlook. The backdoor sends them a signal and they all look up at their room display, which is roughly the size of a room, and watch the n00b look for a program. Because some genius set the design meeting for after lunch on a Friday. Ten mojitos later, somebody got up off the floor and said, "Hey guysh... let'sh change the colorsh of the iconsh randomly." Laughter consumed the room, with full agreement from the employees that were conscious and capable of legally giving their consent (and hadn't peed in their own, or somebody else's, pants yet). And that's why the colors are different. Don't let them tell you it's a visual enhancement, designed to help you work better, smarter, and faster. The software should have come with drinks, at which point their design engineering would have made some sense. Maybe not.
Sure is a light laptop, though.
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