Laptop

I got my new laptop this week. It came into work monday, after I tracked every few hours from production to shipping over the week. After my previous laptop, a 14", I was a little worried that my new laptop at 15.4" would be really big and cumbersome. I was impressed. Its a little thicker than my last laptop, but the depth is very manageable, and the width is really not bad either. Reasonably light, about the same as my previous machine.



My old laptop was a graduation gift, a dell inspirion with upgraded graphics, software, etc, really a top of the line machine. It lasted 4 years handily with very few problems: I had to replace a keyboard after spilling lemonade in it, and the disc drive pod had to be replaced. After awhile, the power system began to get worn out, and the machine slowly taught me how to turn it on, making it more difficult and complex with each passing month. At first, it was that I had to hold it at a certain angle to turn it on, then I had to phyiscally jog the machine to catch. At the end, I became very proficiant at flexing the casing in just a certain way to get some lights and THEN striking the secret spot. Finally, the touchpad became screwy and the pointer would fly around the screen clicking randomly. It was time to get a new laptop, especially since it would not be making the ardorous journey through graduate school.



I was sufficantly impressed with Dell to get another one, a Dell Precision M4300, a fairly new series to the Dell line for businesess. Actually this one really caught my eye as the series is specifically marketed to professionals who use especially demanding programs like CAD, 3D modeling, and graphics-intensive work. I wanted a powerhouse, and with my tax rebate, I got one. This machine is really fast, less than a minute to start surfing the net from pushing the on button. With the draft-N wireless card, I'm flying on the net. It's really exciting. I even went out and got a new backpack to carry it around last night.



Work goes on as usual. Some days faster, some days slower. The project I'm working on finally got a sign-off from the client regarding the program of spaces, so now I'm back on the main line of work, picking up redlines and updating our revit model from CAD. (Picking up redlines- the way most firms work is that workers draft a drawing, then they print it out and give it a supervisor who checks over the work, marking it up with a red pencil or pen, and hand it back to the drafters. They "pick up" the redlines, correcting the drawing.)



There has been a lot of shifting around the office lately. When I first started working, the first floor had about six people, younger, and more design oriented, while the upstairs had all the drawing production, principals, older drafters, code people, etc. Now its all mixed up, and there's about a dozen people downstairs now.



Today was a busy day. Half day at work, filled the car up with Sam's Club gas, ran to the bank, took Suki to the vet for a follow up checkup (vet said she was fine, not showing any clinical signs of infection), and played Kingdom Hearts for a few hours on PS2. After our old controller died a few weeks ago, we picked up a wireless controller made by Nerf. Its actually pretty cool since the body is made of the nerf football stuff. Light, resiliant foam, with the controls built in. Designed to be dropped, tossed between players, etc. and cheaper than the Sony.