Not as geeky as I used to be (yeah, right...)
- wadE
After reading Wade's Gambit from
yesterday
I realized that I have no idea what the stats are on my computer, and I had no idea whether or not
I should truly be impressed by his new PC. As little as 5 years ago, I was fairly informed on these
things.
My work computer is an IBM ThinkPad (or StinkPad as we used to call them back in the CSC days).
I'm not even sure what model it is... R40? Is that the model number? I assume the old 600s
are pretty much relics of the past.
Let's see here... Pentium M... M? WTF? Last I remembered there was Pentiums...
Ok, A pentium is really a 586, which were really 80586, but that's a
discussion for another time. Anyway, they were the next step after the 486, which came after
the 386, and most people didn't even know what an X86 was before that.
So, going forward, after the Pentium we had the Pentium II, III, and we had also had something
called the Celeron in the market.
Wait...Celeron, what's that?
Ok, it's like a Pentium, but the Celeron
kinda sorta doesn't have the same horsepower as the Pentium (something to do with a cache... don't
ask), but unless you're using your computer
as a server or are executing the same set, um, doing the same thing over and over again, you really
won't notice a difference...
...ok...
Anyway, there's also the Athlon...
What?
Nevermind, forget I said any of that... So after the Pentium III, Intel got tired of the Roman
numeral thing
because they saw how messy it got with the SuperBowl (seriously, XXXVIII?), so they went with
the Pentium 4, which more or less is the top right now.
So what's with this Pentium M on my computer?
Well, that's a Pentium 4 designed for laptops...sorry, I should call them "notebook" computers.
"Laptop" is so 20th century... anyway, it's a processor that runs on less power for notebook
computers.
Ok... I think I understand. Anyway, so I've got a Pentium M, 1.29 GHz, 512 MB of RAM, and a
8.59 Gig Hard Drive.
Which is really 10 GB... but we won't get into explaining why it only shows
up as 8.59 in your C Drive properties right now...
Whatever... So, do I have a good computer?
In a word... kinda. As far as a work computer, it's better than most.
IBM doesn't make that exact model anymore, but it's the most recent of the ones they no longer make!
If that makes you feel better.
I guess so...
Ahhh cheer up buckaroo. You've got an above average computer for the
workplace that can do just about anything your job requires. I'd be more concerned with the fact
that your evil administrators won't let you save anything to the root of the C drive...
Yeah, that totally sucks!
...and don't forget that email you just got about implementing secure
passwords in the near future... changing
every 90 days, previous password history so you can't reuse any passwords, must have letters, numbers,
and special characters (@, #, $, %, &, etc.) in it too. You've got bigger fish to fry than worrying
about the stats on your computer.
:-\
What do you think? Drop us a line at webmaster@simpleprop.com and give us some
feedback. Maybe we'll even run your letters in future Gambits. 'The Daily Gambit' is updated every weekday.
