Refreshing the silicon and electrons

It seemed like a good idea, since the Land of Færie has to be closed anyway (we’re supposed to be getting the parking lot repaved, although they must be using Invisible Paving Machines ’cos I’ve yet to see any so far), to spend today configuring and rolling out the new computers we bought earlier this month.  I convinced the baleboosteh we ought to life-cycle our current computers now, even though they’re still running quite nicely, because their warranty contracts will run out in January, and I really didn’t want to get stuck having to buy computers running Vista.  (At the time, MS was saying “OK, no fooling now, we’re really REALLY gonna stop selling XP to ANYone on January 30, 2008.”  Then about ten days ago, in the face of massive customer DO NOT WANT push-back on Vista, Mr. Bill changed the rules.  NOW he’s gonna stop selling XP Home to consumer-segment customers on January 30, 2008, but corporate clients will be allowed to go on buying computers with OEM versions of XP Professional pre-loaded until January 30, 2009, and the OS itself won’t go End-of-Life—i.e., MS quits supporting and updating it altogether—until 2014.)

However, since I didn’t know Mr. Bill was going to change the rules at the last minute, I advocated getting newer computers that still had XP loaded while we still could.  So I have these two shiny new CityBest 745 mini-towers almost ready to come on line, and the old 280s, which have both run almost without a burp since the beginning of 2005, will go do something else.  In network terms, this means that Ériu and Cernunnos will be retired, and replaced by Gráinne and Diarmaid.  (I’m writing this entry on Diarmaid, as I wait for an new application to finish updating.)

Thermal labels will disconnect some deal tables in the Victorian étagere.  Fnord.