Geriatic computers

Apple has just launched their newest operating system, Leopard. It looks absolutely amazing. I watched the guided tour and drooled all over my keyboard. So am I going to buy it? The primary problem is that my Mac is over 3 years old. For most things, that wouldn't matter at all. In the world of computers, it's retirement age.

I've read the system requirements and I could install Leopard if I can open enough room on my hard drive. That's one of my biggest problems right now. My hard drive is almost maxed out. Whenever you buy a new computer the space available seems outrageously huge. "I'll never fill that up, yay!" But reality is that applications keep getting bigger and bigger, gobbling up gigabytes like a hippo in a hay field. Enormous applications often make gigantic files, too. I love the program Garageband (it's what I use to record my music) but the song files are so big it eats up a huge amount of space. Photos are another byte muncher, as are videos and games.

I have a back-up drive and that's where I store the files I don't need to access immediately. But the process of dumping files is a tedious one. Still, it's not impossible so I probably could find the room to install the new system software.

But the problems of having an old computer multiply. It's slow compared to the newer models, holds a max of 1 gig of RAM (yes, I've already maxed out on that) and now RAM requirements keep rising. I'm out of warranty, with a full hard drive, maxed out RAM, and a slow processor. I'm in a position where I have to watch the world surpass me as I type on my dinosaur.

On a positive note, it still works, so I'm very grateful for that. I can't afford a new computer so I'll continue to nurse this one along, trying to stay up to date. When you live on your computer as I do, this is all serious stuff. Without it, I can't earn a living. Geriatric or not, as long as I get that happy Mac face every day, I can keep on keeping on.