100 DAYS OF LJ -- DAY 10
Something is rotten in the town of Stony Brook. At the very least, something stinks.
A couple of weeks ago my godson mentioned to me in a phone call that his laptop computer was running very slow. Keep in mind that I purchased that computer for him a few years back when he first went away to SUNY Stony Brook, and while the machine was "refurbished" it was still a high-end laptop -- Core i7 processor, NVidia Graphics chip, 1 Terabyte HD. I mentioned that the most likely cause of the slowdown was "bloatware" -- unecessary programs running in the background. He said that he understood what I was referring to and would look into shutting down and removing such software from the machine, but he also asked if it was possible to upgrade the machine with a Solid State Drive. When I told him that I bought a 1 Terabyte SSD last year for $400, he balked at the price and decided that he would work on removing the "bloatware" first.
I haven't heard from my godson since then, but last night he called his mother to tell her that his current laptop will no longer run some critical software and that he absolutely needs a "new" laptop. Because I'm far more knowledgable about these things than she is, his mother told my godson to call me and discuss the particulars, regarding the minimum specifications for new laptop... but I still haven't heard from the young man. I left a voice mail, but I'm still waiting for a reply.
One other thing -- when my godson's mother told him that she would have to cancel an upcoming trip with him in order to save the money for the new laptop, my godson became rather upset at the idea. This could be just a simple case of "delayed puberty", as the young man is now 20 years old... but as he's not speaking to me at all right now I'm beginning to suspect that we don't have the full picture of what's going on with him. I'm not saying that he's done anything wrong or bad... but he's at the age where he wants to assert his independence but doesn't yet have all the resources to truly strike out on his own, and I'm sure he feels frustrated over that. Still, in the past he always came to me when he wanted to talk about his troubles, so the fact that he isn't speaking to me right now is a little disconcerting...
A couple of weeks ago my godson mentioned to me in a phone call that his laptop computer was running very slow. Keep in mind that I purchased that computer for him a few years back when he first went away to SUNY Stony Brook, and while the machine was "refurbished" it was still a high-end laptop -- Core i7 processor, NVidia Graphics chip, 1 Terabyte HD. I mentioned that the most likely cause of the slowdown was "bloatware" -- unecessary programs running in the background. He said that he understood what I was referring to and would look into shutting down and removing such software from the machine, but he also asked if it was possible to upgrade the machine with a Solid State Drive. When I told him that I bought a 1 Terabyte SSD last year for $400, he balked at the price and decided that he would work on removing the "bloatware" first.
I haven't heard from my godson since then, but last night he called his mother to tell her that his current laptop will no longer run some critical software and that he absolutely needs a "new" laptop. Because I'm far more knowledgable about these things than she is, his mother told my godson to call me and discuss the particulars, regarding the minimum specifications for new laptop... but I still haven't heard from the young man. I left a voice mail, but I'm still waiting for a reply.
One other thing -- when my godson's mother told him that she would have to cancel an upcoming trip with him in order to save the money for the new laptop, my godson became rather upset at the idea. This could be just a simple case of "delayed puberty", as the young man is now 20 years old... but as he's not speaking to me at all right now I'm beginning to suspect that we don't have the full picture of what's going on with him. I'm not saying that he's done anything wrong or bad... but he's at the age where he wants to assert his independence but doesn't yet have all the resources to truly strike out on his own, and I'm sure he feels frustrated over that. Still, in the past he always came to me when he wanted to talk about his troubles, so the fact that he isn't speaking to me right now is a little disconcerting...