New Silicon Coming

My primary home desktop computers were top of the line Dell systems at the time they were purchased in June 2016. But nine years is a long, long time in the computer universe, and they’re limping at this point.

I can’t upgrade them to Windows 11 at all, which means as of October 2025 they’ll no longer be supported or getting updates or security fixes. They’re also getting slow and glitchy.

In addition, the trusty and hard working Lexmark color printer that I’ve had for about six years suddenly won’t feed paper to save its life. That’s bad.

I use this equipment all day long, 365 days a year, and it’s the only reason that I can work from home instead of being in the office every day. That was critical during the worst of COVID. But COVID is still out there, and now we’re getting bird flu and regular flu and RSV and norovirus, and probably White Mask as well (fantastic book, read it!), so good home office equipment is a necessity, not a luxury.

So the replacement printer will be here tomorrow. It ships fast.

The top of the line Dell replacement computer needs to be assembled, so it won’t be here until mid-March. Given some of the rebooting and glitchiness in the old system, let’s hope I didn’t wait too long.

Yes, I could do all of this on my two-year old laptop, but it wouldn’t be fun.