My mixed feelings about getting a new PC

Today, I have got myself a new PC to use at office. It’s a Dell OptiPlex GX520.

Wow. It really fast with Pentium 4 2.8GHz processor with Hyper-Threading, 512MB RAM and fast 7200rpm SATA 80GB harddisk, and with my 21 inches monitor and my self-bought Logitech Bluetooth wireless mouse, working is heaven.

This is my old bulky Dell Dimension 8100 PC in memories, running only with Pentium 4 1.8Ghz processor, who have been my loyal companion in my 4 years life here, through good times (downloading mp3, downloading softwares, surfing, online game) and bad times (hard disk crashed, dead LAN port, dead motherboard – and Dell has to replace the whole motherboard with a new one).

I was suppose to get a new PC like 6 months ago, but I was too busy with work at that time, where switching to a new PC meaning I have to stop doing work for a while. And then, that PC was given to someone else, and I have to wait for another round of new PC ordering did by my IT people.

I’m kinda not sure, should I be happy to get this new PC or not? I kinda like my old PC more, not only to its bulky size and you can use it as a lethal weapon by hitting people with it, everything on that PC has been set up in the way that I do work.

But the thing that I will miss most is having an administrator right on your own PC. Well, I just have a normal user right on this new PC, where you can’t install anything on it. You are stuck to using what have been installed to you, and you have to go through IT to install any new things, even for any freeware things that you can find on the internet (usual things, like MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger for messaging needs, Hello for publishing photo to blog, iTunes and Winamp for MP3 listening needs, Quicktime for viewing apple quicktime movie, Firefox & Opera for alternative option of web browsing – and it is essential too for me to test my website work that it will look OK on all browsers etc). Just hate going through all the fuss of convincing them why I do need to install all those.

I do believe that other people out there have experienced this too. IT people always being fussy about you installing this and that in your own PC. You can’t install this, you can’t install that where they happily able to do it at their own PC (hehehehe. sorry Liaw, Kenneth and Wei Yin if you guys happened to read this). Furthermore, once joined to their domain, you have follow their strict rules, and at anytime, they can enter your PC, and see what you have inside (since the login password is assigned by them), and they can run any asset manager software, and they will get a full report of what you have installed on your computer. My privacy has been breached!!!!

Anyway, I don’t blame them though. This is for the company’s and IT people’s sake also, controlling piracy and virus spread by restricting on what users can install on their computer. Being an international company, my company does have a very stand decision about this.

I just don’t know how many times already I have been compiling the list of softwares that I need to use at work, and I don’t know how many times it has been submitted to group IT in Hong Kong already, but until now, I still hear nothing on when can I get the licensed version of the softwares that I need.

Anyway, for those of you who have been seeing me online for almost all the time during office hour, you won’t be seing me anymore during office hour. I don’t have MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger on my PC. Crap!