Wow. I didn't really buy Bill Gates a boat, but it sure feels like it. I could probably buy myself a boat if I didn't have to put all my discretionary income to updating this computer. And it's not the income, it's the TIME it takes. Last week, I decided to upgrade my home network to Vista. But then, I had to upgrade each machine to Office 2007. And then my WSFTP needed to be upgraded. And then, the upgrades cascaded. It's been a long week. To top it off, my new Belkin N1 router is a piece of junk - that's $119 down the drain. I'm typing now on a Linksys N1 router that I've only owned for a few hours, and acquired for a lot more than the Belkin cost.
I know I had it easy - I've been using Office XP and running XP for many many years, so I really didn't mind shelling out the $1600 it cost to upgrade. But I really did mind having to spend so much time on it. Because one Vista key code didn't work right out of the package, I had to call Microsoft Support. To their credit, there was no hold time, the person on the other end of the line was very friendly, and my problem was fixed forthwith. So they did get something right. Still, though, you'd think they could come up with a product that would install nicely, quickly and painlessly. These are dual-core machines, not even a year old, with no weird peripherals. Should have been a straight-up install. With as much as I had to lay out for this, it's time to call my insurance agent to up my homeowner's insurance and call my home security guys to add more alarms.
Hopefully, I won't have to spend any more time (or money) on this. It finally seems to be working (knock on wood). Maybe now I can save up enough money to buy MYSELF a boat.
