I bought myself a Dell Inspiron E1505. A laptop I've lusted after for a long
time. Upgraded to a Core2Duo @ 2GHz, 4GB of memory, 1TB HDD, new Lightscribe
DVD-/+RW drive, and a fresh copy of Windows Vista Ultimate. I'm writing this on
it right now, actually.
Yeah, Windows Vista. I'm still a fan of this OS, and have been since I
first used it early on in its lifespan. It looks nice, as the Flair design
language isn't as grating as the pure white of the Windows LIVE design language
that Windows 7 uses. It's also been a bit more stable than Windows 7 on the
same hardware (and even Win7 on my Dell XPS 410 isn't all that stable). Plus,
a majority of my favorite applications work on it, so I'm more than happy with
using this thing.
I've also been keeping it mostly offline. The Conexant modem card (remember
those?) is sitting in my desk drawer, the Wifi card is turned off, and the
ethernet cable I keep for laptops and testing hardware is sitting in its usual
spot. And the peacefulness of being offline isn't lost on me, that's for sure.
In the days of being "always online", having time away from the hate machine of
the social web, and the distractions-a-second of constant notifications, it
feels nice to get away from all of that and breathe easy.
Of course, it slightly inconviences my spouses since it becomes harder to get
my attention without disturbing me, but they've been nice about it. They've
seen how much it's been improving my mood, I'm sure. I'm far less negative when
I keep myself away from the sheer torrent of negativity on Discord and social
media. I don't get angry at stupid things, and I'm not inclined to become
"offended" by small issues that otherwise wouldn't even draw my attention.
It's amazing what you can accomplish by giving yourself a way to get out of
the hellscape and into something that can make you feel positive in general.
I've begun writing again (albeit slowly), started to feel like reading books
and short stories again... Just feeling so much better in general.
And that's part of why I bought the laptop. I wanted to use it to get myself
away from the internet and all the negativity that came with it. So that I
could give myself something to go to where I don't feel the need to check on
various websites and RSS feeds every time I'm bored. So that I could drop all
of the really bad habits I'd gained while using Twitter and the like.
It's one of those things where you really don't understand the problem until
you're on the other side of it.
