Reading Jonathan's blog over the weekend, and stories of wandering around Tottenham Court Road looking for a new laptop, reminded me I've not posted anything about my current work plaything. Which, given the abject frustration it's causing, actually surprised me.
It's a Compaq Evo n610c Notebook PC, a lightweight, P4-based laptop with a nice sized screen (14"), plenty of memory, and plenty powerful enough for all the data crunching and web design. And, up until a few weeks ago, it was reliable too. Well, apart from 3 months last year where it needed rebuild 4 times, having died rather spectacularly 
So, what's wrong with it now, I here you ask. It takes for ever to shut down. The company outsourced IT, CSC, have looked at it. And nothing appears to be wrong. And yet it takes, on average, 10 minutes to shutdown. Logging off and on, no problem. But the act of switching the thing off is getting beyond a joke. True, I can set it off to standby, but then, I'm told, no-one will guarantee the data safety
Good thing is, as the IT buyer for our area, I've got to sit down next week and sort out the budgets for next year. There's already one upgrade in front of me (and that's the boss, so I can't exactly step over that one 
), but hopefully I can get something sorted out And get back that 10 minutes of time each day I sit and wait for it to close down.
Do what every sensible Brit does and make a cup of tea!