Oct 09
12
Farewell, Fozzie
Life has been busy recently, and as such, I’ve been lax in updating this site. But here’s a recap of the last couple months:
My wife and I bought a house (hence life busy)! Which has resulted in several computer changes. Most importantly, we decided that instead of each having a separate computer, we’d consolidate onto just one computer, in order to make the office more manageable. Since Clementine, my wife’s computer, was overall newer than my computer, Fozzie, we decided to consolidate on Clementine.
This lead the significant event of Fozzie being decommissioned, after a lineage going back almost 10 years. Of course, nothing remains of the Fozzie that existed 10 years ago, but along the way it’s just been incremental upgrades, and so I still view it as the same computer. This was a big deal to me, as Fozzie was the first computer that I really did significant upgrades to and built myself. But, the decision to move towards Clementine makes sense. And Clementine holds a special place in my heart as well — it’s the first computer I built entirely from the ground up, rather than upgrading an existing computer. So I bid a sad farewell to Fozzie, but not too sad, as I look forward to the future with Clementine.
However, consolidating also meant taking components out of Fozzie and installing them in Clementine if they’re better than what was already in the computer. This lead to several upgrades to Clementine. Her existing 80GB data drive just didn’t cut it anymore for two people, so I replaced it (temporarily) with Fozzie’s 120GB data drive. Even that is tight; I intend on upgrading soon. Fozzie just recently got a new Altec Lansing speaker set, so I used that to replace Clementine’s existing speakers, which were the oldest componet in Clementine. Clementine also gained Fozzie’s Canon printer, Epson scanner, and Logitech gamepad, as she lacked those components. And lastly (and coolest), I now found myself with two identical, great, monitors. So I added Fozzie’s 19-inch Samsung to Clementine, resulting in an amazing dual-monitor setup at home. I’ve gotten used to this sort of setup at work — it’s hard to explain why two monitors are so great, but once you experience it, you’ll never go back to just one.
With the two computers merged, now I plan on doing some specific upgrades to Clementine to make her better suited to serving the needs of both me and my wife. Look for those soon.
Also, my trusty D-Link wireless router was replaced in favor of an Actiontec router provided to me as part of my new Verizon FiOS service. It wasn’t necessarily by choice, but the new router actually seems quite good — better than the wireless router Verizon provided me as part of DSL, which I ended up not using. And it’s necessary for some FiOS features, such as On Demand, so I might as well use it.
Overall, a busy few months, both in terms of computer upgrades and general life events.