Yesterday, while looking for a particular book on my crowded shelves, I ran across my old Acer Aspire One netbook. I promptly forgot about the book I was looking for and plugged in the netbook to see if it still ticked at all. It did, but as I dabbled with it off and on over the course of the day, it was obvious it needed a new battery and a bunch of other work to be usable for anything, and even if I did all the things, it still wouldn’t really be usable for much of anything. It was barely usable when it was new! So back on the shelf it went. Was fun messing around with it though, and I did find some long forgotten files on it that I may some day remember to get onto some other device. Or not. Maybe they’re best forgotten!

When the husband came home from work, I told him about messing around with my netbook, and naturally, he thought I was trying to solve my problem of not having a desktop computer with the old netbook. Yes and no. A little bit of me had hoped it would at least work well enough to work on the backend of my websites with, and if it could have done only that, I’d have been very pleased, but no way no how does a netbook replace a desktop. Never did. I do though need some sort of actual computer. Using an iPad for everything is wearing me down. My iPad is great, I love it, and it blows the pants off the old netbook (even when it was brand spanking new), but iPads are also not appropriate for every activity.

This morning I’ve once again explore keyboard cases for the iPad. I’ve regularly checked in on them since my very first iPad. I’ve never bought one. The reviews have always been so mixed, so it’s hard to tell if they are all crap or not. The ones that look like they might be best aren’t cheap, and at the point where I’m spending half the cost of a laptop on a keyboard case, I pause. Not having a physical keyboard is not the only irritation my iPad workflow causes me. Lot of money to solve one problem, you know?

So I continue to get all my computer related work done on my iPad, as I wait impatiently for Apple to come out with the next greatest iMac. I miss my iMac. Not enough to spend money getting a 17 year old computer looked at by someone who could fix it, but I miss having a desktop computer. All the things I need to do are so much easier to do on one. But I want the very newest possible iteration of the iMac, and so I wait on Apple to present one to the public. It’s been a long wait. Too long.

Likely because he’s tired of listening to me complain, the husband has offered to fix up his old laptop for me to use. It really just needs new heat gel put on the processor, irritating to do but not terrible to get done. I’m probably going to pester him about it this weekend, because I’d like to get back to actual computing ASAP. It’ll be the first time I’ve used a Windows PC since 2006, and while generally I’d say I’m not going to enjoy it that much, I don’t know. I’m sure things have changed. It’s possible I adapt, and then I don’t even need a new iMac.

Who am I kidding? Of course I need a new iMac. I’m a member of the Cult of Apple. There is no way I can possibly be deprogrammed. I fell I love with the Apple IIe a million years ago, and then came the Macintosh. I may have been stuck using Windows boxes for ages, but in 2006 I finally got my own Apple computer, and I knew I’d never go back. Until now, because I have to, and I’m going insane trying to get things done on this iPad.