slowly struggling back up the curve
My main computer at home has fallen far, far behind the curve: A P-III 700MHz box with a ATA-66 card that's not actually supported by Windows , a sound card that stopped being supported before Windows 2000 was released (hurray for fans slamming together some drivers from old code), and a collection of bits and pieces of everything else.
So, some months ago, I received two DOA machines from my mother-in-law's office to do with as I please. Both are P-4 1.6GHz machines. The first one I looked at only had a dead 80GB WD drive (past warrenty) and so I set about making it my new computer. I figured I could use it, re-build the other one for a family member, and keep the 700MHz box as backup storage (it's already loaded with HD's so, why not?).
Well, as I'm a slacker in continual training, it's taken me a while to get all the software and hardware installed on this new box. I did end up settling on new HD's and will probably get a new video card at some point (the Nvidia TN2 that came with it is a bit weak, even for my non-gaming needs) but I should be set for a while. Photoshop runs faster, OpenOffice runs a lot better, and the machine doesn't bog down (as much) when I have ten Firefox tabs open.
But one thing I did notice was how slow the machine has become as more and more software has been installed, especially after Norton AntiVirus was transfered over. Frustrating, but inevitable I guess.