After a busy and overfed Holiday Season, I am now back to my pursuits. My desktop fountain is filled and trickling, paint is flowing, (or rather, oozing) and I have new paper on my mathematics clipboard. However, I am also having what they now call "issues" with my main computer, so both my e-mail and my blogability have been somewhat compromised, not to mention my digital art action. I am going to have this 2003-vintage system overhauled by my computer friends, and that should take care of the Issues. But it will also take about a week, so I may be unusually silent for that time. I can probably toss off a couple of entries from one of my laptops, but only if I have something worth talking about.

Having a computer overhauled is like being born again. As my Computer Friend explained, a computer over a couple of years old gets filled not only with files, data, and memories, but with spyware, extra programs, used-up old files, and what computer professionals generally call "cruft." "Cruft," which sounds like something you would have to use a special shampoo to remove, is the detritus of computer use over the years: old temporary files, web leavings, mini-programs that were once useful but now outmoded, and all sorts of other leftover code that slows down your machine. To get rid of it, the whole machine must be emptied and then filled afresh. I am not enough of a computer expert to do this, so I am handing it over to the professionals. They will also install more memory chips.

When it returns to me, my computer will be innocent again. He won't even remember his name, let alone what it was he did for me over the last three years. I am currently frantically backing up any files that I want to keep, which is most of them. I have filled three DVD's and a number of CD's as well. My files go all the way from Zoroastrian essays to the sounds of the seventeen-year cicadas in 2004. I'll have to re-load all my programs, too, and download the proper drivers for my printer and scanner as well. It will take some time. So when you read my next Weblog entry, it will probably be coming from either Fravashi, my angelic Dell laptop, or SoyMac, my nutritious white Macintosh. I think I'll re-name the desktop. I now have confirmation from many sources that even the most abstract-minded of mathematicians and physicists name their computers. Let's go with something very familiar. As I no longer drive the blue Electron Car, I will transfer the name to my other vehicle of choice. Therefore I hope to re-name my re-born desktop computer "Electron Blue," or simply, the "Electron."

Posted at 2:37 am | link