Well, I caved this week and went out and finally bought my replacement computer. I don’t know why I was/am so apprehensive about this purchase this time. Normally I’m super excited to pick out a new one and then get it all set up. This time everything just seems like a huge pain and waste of time. I just really wanted my (now) old one to work.
And, it doesn’t help that I still don’t know what is wrong with the old one. Just that every so often it decides to start flashing odd horizontal lines followed by the mouse freezing and being unable to work. Sometimes it comes out of it, but usually it needs a restart before it seems to start functioning normally again.
The plus side of having a new computer, is that I’m able to “start fresh” with my organization and what I have installed. So, while I’ve already installed a lot of new stuff, I’m being more careful about what I put on here. And, I haven’t transferred over everything from my old one. As the old one still works (mostly), and I haven’t noticed any obvious problems with the hard drive on it, and I have it also backed up, I’ve decided that I can follow my supervisors model of moving to a new computer – only transfer over what you need as you need it. I like this plan, as it means I’ll probably be able to keep this computer more organized without the huge influx of files.
The downside, is that it’s turning out to be a huge pain to transfer all my mail (old folders, mail settings, etc) over from the old one. There does not appear to be a simple method that allows me to only transfer mail settings. Most of the methods require you to transfer your entire user directory, which, as I’ve stated above, I don’t want to do. This has been frustrating, because I really need this time to work, not to be messing around with settings. (Another reason to only transfer the bare minimum, so I can get to work sooner.)
As it is, I now have enough over that I can work on my current project and check my mail. This coming weekend I’ll take some more time and move a few more things over – like music and photos. And search out a new etsy decal for the top. Which means I can focus on trying to get enough things crossed off my list that my demo to my supervisor this week actually shows all the work I’ve been putting into it. The list is actually shrinking, so I may manage to get this to come true. 🙂
Surviving Grad School 