Our home computer, you know, the one for the family in the kitchen-nook-cranny area, has served us well for a long time.  However, for the last, oh…. six months or so, it’s been annoying to most of the family.

It doesn’t annoy me directly, because I have a kick-butt laptop that is almost always awesome-like in its sheer coolness.  On the contrary – it annoys me indirectly.  I say “indirectly” because it annoys everyone else in the family, who then come to me because I’m Mr IT Director and “fixing computers at work is what Daddy does.”  

Yeah right.  I “fix computers” kind of like how a a skilled surgeon “kisses booboos.”  

Still, just as the cobbler’s children have no shoes, the performance and effectiveness of our family computer at home leaves a lot to be desired.  Sure, I do some decent basics, like each family member has a “Limited” XP account so as to cut down on spyware and viruses.  I have a personal firewall installed.  I have antivirus installed and updated.  I use products like CCleaner, HijackThis, Adaware, Spybot Search & Destroy, Microsoft Defender and a few others to keep the system running smoothly.  I do the immunizations, checks and prayer vigils that I believe I’m supposed to do.

But over time, the computer gets bloated.  Slower.  Buggy.  I frequently get inconvenient notices, usually in the form of an across-the-house yell, like “DAD! THE COMPUTER’S BROKEN!”  This commonly comes when Jaden is trying to watch iCarly or something off of Nick’s site.  I sometimes work on the issue, but I just get fed up, reboot and the problem goes away.

What do I do at work?  I work on computers, networks, servers, SANs, firewalls, gateways, web sites, databases, printers, laptops, desktops, blackberries, switches, phone systems, call centers, badge readers, camera systems, IP phones, wireless access points, IP KVM, monitoring sytems, terminal servers, ssl certificates, VPN concentrators, UPS systems, generators, server cabinets and that’s just my main job.  I intimately know TCP/IP, UDP, UNIX, Win, MOSS, DHCP, ATM, DHCP, LAN, MPLS, FTP, DNS, NIS, AD, RPC, SMTP, SNMP, DNIS, NTP, MIB, SSH, VOIP, H.323, RDP, X11, IOS, SIP, HTTP, VDN, ESX, OSI, VPN, SMS, HBA, SPS, WAN, PBX, UTM, PRI, DSL, Frame, and 8xx.

But do I want to do anything remotely related to those things at home?

In a word – NO.

So imagine my joy at getting an upgraded computer.  Well, let me clarify. Our previous computer was about 8 years old.  Our “upgraded computer” is only 3.5 years old.  In computer years, that’s like a 75yr old marathon runner getting a new 30yr old body.  It ain’t perfect, but boy is it nice!  A brand new computer, on the other hand, would be akin to a 21yr old body pumped up on amphetamines.

Kind of like this guy, but if he was 21yr old, had a good body and did drugs:

Now my family has a screamingly fast computer (compared to the old one) and everyone’s happy.  In technical terms, it’s has a 2Ghz CPU, 2GB ram, 2×1.5TB SATA drives running in a RAID1 plus another 500GB extra non-RAID drive, and it’s running XP Media Center.  It has a CD/DVD burner with Lightscribe, and it has one of those built-in multi-media card reader thingies, where I can directly put in SD ram, MicroSD, sony memory sticks, CF cards, etc.

Life is good.

Let’s hope it lasts.