Recently I have been tempted more than once to purchase a new computer. I see deals on new ones in my mailbox on a daily basis. Everything is faster and better than what I have. But in the end I always talk myself out of buying one, because I don’t need it.

I usually am looking for a new laptop because my desktop does all it needs to do and then some. My laptop is my work computer. I do all of my programming on it and I write my papers on it away from home. However, my laptop has become more of a mobile desktop because the battery barely holds a charge these days(about enough time to put it into hibernation if the power were to go out). It also is about three and a half years old. In terms of a computer, this one is beginning to look for burial plots.

I have friends who bought computers at roughly the same time as me because we all purchased laptops before we moved into the dorms freshman year. I have used their computers. They are sluggish, tattered, cluttered and showing a great deal of wear. This could be, however, because I am used to my own. Both my desktop and laptop run smoothly.

For a while this made me wonder. My computers have never been top of the line, so they shouldn’t act like it after so many years. But then I came to a realization; my computers run so well because I know how to use them, and I am the only person to use them.

It is true, I am quite anal about people touching my computers. I have flipped irrationally when I see an unwanted finger upon a keyboard or mouse. Hell, I might have even ruined a few friendships because of it. But in the end, I feel as though my actions are justified. You see, I know everything that is done to my computer. I know what sites it has seen on the internet, what programs have been run and when, and I know all that has been downloaded through its link to the internet. I know all of this because I am the only person who touches it.

Now you might be asking what significance this has in keeping a computer running smoothly over time. My response, it has everything to do with it. If a virus shows up, its because I put it there. I then am able to remove it because I know how it made it to my hard drive.

Other people are not as careful with their computers. They install crap they don’t need and do not care to remember when they did it. They fill their hard drives with random files, taking up space. Their computers are the hosts of various trojans and malware and viruses. Programs are set to run on startup which in the long run increase the startup time exponentially.

Not me.

My computer is old and power hungry. But goddammit if it isn’t the smoothest running hunk of junk this side of the outer-rim. I intend to keep it that way.