The Big Upgrade Well, the time has come. It can’t be avoided if I want to stay relevant. I am talking about a computer upgrade. When you run a website you need a fast computer. This is not so much for writing articles and such, because almost anything would work for that. Where the speed is needed is for making backups of the website every day in case something happens. One can never be too careful and you should have at least one of the backups off line and handy. I have a very good computer I use which runs on an AMD Thread Ripper CPU 1st generation, and I would have kept using it even though it was starting to show its age, but since it could not be updated to Windows 11 and Windows 10 was going to lose support next year I decided it was time for an upgrade. First I looked at the new Thread Rippers, but the prices were incredibly high. Then I thought about things and spoke to my son and he suggested an AMD CPU Ryzen 7950 which even though it was not a Thread Ripper was much faster than the Thread Ripper I was using now and had the same amount of computer cores. I am waiting for it to arrive and it should be here in a few days. I am expecting an increase in copy speed of somewhere between 20 to 40 percent, but I will have to wait and see. When it comes the hard part starts. This is the part I don’t like and that is moving files. I have many software programs which require more than just moving them. I have to follow uninstall and reinstall instructions. It is my past experience that shows me something always goes wrong and it usually takes a lot longer to do than it should. I purchased some hardware I needed for the switch. I used to always build my own computers, but lately the last two desktops were custom made. It turned out the price to buy the ones I wanted weren’t much more, or even the same if I purchased the parts individually. It just made no sense to do a build myself. Also, I am getting old and my hand is not as study as it once was. I just happened to hit an incredible sale and when I saw it, I jumped on it. The special software which has to be moved is my web building software, my Microsoft Office software, my text to speech software, my special voice software, my astronomy software, my professional drawing software and a few other things. If things would all go correctly, I could do this job in about a day, if they go badly, who knows. I still use Adobe Dream Weaver. I created my website with it and swear by it. I have the latest copy of the software which was made by Adobe, a great company. Many others have switched to an easier to use site builder but they are more restrictive in some ways and you can’t do exactly what you want and may have to make some compromises. One of my sons created a site using a program where you didn’t need any knowledge of html, one of the popular web building languages and he found he was limited in the colors he wanted to use. His was a very simple site and I am sure if he wanted to do anything fancy he would have run into more trouble. It is amazing to me how time flies and some of the software I bought at the time was cutting edge but now some people think it is archaic. The drawing program I bought was cutting edge at the time and was every bit as good, if not better than even Photoshop. It is Xara Design Pro. I found myself not using it much anymore and it had so many amazing things it could do I loved it. As years went by I used it less and less and now I have forgotten how to do a lot of things with it. I no longer update it since it is at the point where it did more things than I would ever need. It was one of the first to fix photographs and bring them back to the way they should look. It took out the streaks and creases in old photos I have in an album and made then like new. Today this is no big deal since I think you can do this with software on your cell phone, but at the time it was like a miracle. The astronomy program I have is one of the finest. It is a holdover from the days when I was an amateur astronomer. Yes I even had a small observatory in the back yard equipped with a professionally made 12.5 inch reflecting telescope. For many years I enjoyed using it even on those bitter cold nights in the winter. The observatory had a roof that opened so I could aim the telescope anywhere in the sky and stand out of the wind. There is a story attached to that little observatory. One night I went out and went into it and there was a teenage girl hiding out in it. She turned out to be my daughter’s friend, and had an argument with her parents and was hiding out. I told her she couldn’t stay in there. For one thing she could have frozen to death. I told her to come into the house and she begged me to let her stay. I called her parents and told them what happened and she was alright and wanted to stay with my daughter for the night and it was okay with me. They let her stay and the next day she went home. There is another problem with a new setup. I have a room with my computers in it. I have two desktops and a laptop. The other desktop which is a backup from many years ago will be replaced with the Thread Ripper. There are wires everywhere. I wanted to change the setup and hope all the wires reach where I want them to go. I am not a big believer in wireless printing and even have my printer set up with a wire to the computer. Before I did that hookup I would often have connection problems. I also use wired internet on the desktops but wireless on the laptop. I find I don’t use the laptop very much but it is only 2 years old and has 8 cores and a good CPU. I could use it in an emergency also as a backup. If I miss a day on the site in the next few days it would be because I am having a hard time moving all the software.
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