June 17, 2007

My Brand New Laptop!

I figured that my first post from my brand new laptop should be made from, *gasp*, my brand new laptop! That’s why even though I received my laptop on Monday the 11th I was, unfortunately, unable to post until today (no internet at my house, I had to go on a Wi-Fi hunt).

I’d like to start off by complimenting Dell on their quick build and delivery times! I ordered my laptop the evening of Thursday the 7th, meaning that they built and shipped my laptop by Saturday. Then, through the miracle that is DHL, it was sitting in a big brown cardboard box on my front doorstep on Monday.

This was after my first day at my new job (I’ll blog about that later) and I was exhausted. In fact, as we turned down our driveway, I mentioned to my mom that I was highly considering just going to bed the instant got inside the house (it was 6:15 pm). That was before I saw the box on the front doorstep. I leaped out of the car, ran over to the box, and then just wandered around the house hugging it for a while. I eventually opened it, believe it or not. This is what I saw:




I soon plugged it in, and booted it up. It was quite possibly the best thing I’d ever seen in my life. Here’s what greeted me:



The only problem was that I ordered software and a mouse to come with the laptop and they hadn’t arrived yet. That meant no word processor, spreadsheet, OneNote, or Minesweeper (it’s REALLY hard to play Minesweeper without a mouse). I made due however buy finding an old mouse lying around in my house, allowing me to do some standard “new laptop” things.

I had a bunch of video from graduation that needed editing and compiling, so I started off by doing that. Now, on my old desktop PC, something like this would have been nearly impossible. Adding sound, transitions, and effects to 30+ minutes of video was like a death sentence. New laptop? It took it in stride, even managing to play music for me with Windows Media Player. I copied a bunch of videos and music to my new portable hard drive (I’ll blog about that later too) and soon discovered that through the miracle that is High-Speed USB I can play videos and music straight from the hard drive with no lag at all! Have I mentioned that I absolutely love this computer?! Here’s a quick shot at the specs:



Yesterday I arrived home only to see two more boxes sitting on my front doorstep. SOFTWARE AND MOUSE!!! The boxes were actually quite funny. Here’s what I mean, check out this box:



Big box, right? The Rubik’s cube is there for scale (because honestly, what else would I use to measure all things against?).

Now, look at this mouse:



It’s beautiful, I know. It’s got an aluminum back, four-way scrolling, and four buttons. Did I mention that it’s Bluetooth so there are no wires connecting it to my laptop?

Now, look at the box and the mouse together.



That small mouse came in that huge box, and the mouse was the only thing in it! I laughed. So, I unpacked both the mouse and the software



Here’s the happy trio, doing their part to make my laptop the most amazing bit of electronic gear I’ve had in my entire life. I’m in g33k heaven. Bring it on MIT, even if you do kick my butt, I’ll be the bloggingest kicked butt ever!

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