If you had told me five years ago that I would be cuddling with my computer on a regular basis I probably would’ve dismissed you as crazy. Sure, I was already making a full-time living off of web writing which meant that I used my computer all of the time but I considered it a tool of the job. I certainly didn’t think of it as something to cuddle up with.

These days I cuddle up with my computer all of the time. What changed? A lot:

• Laptops are more cozy to cuddle up with. The biggest difference between then and now is probably that I use a laptop more often than I use my desktop. Sure, I have a LTR with my desktop computer which is where I save and store everything. But I can pull my laptop into bed with me, take it on vacations, have it there at all times. It’s much easier to cuddle up with it.
• Social media. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on social networking sites five years ago. Sure I was active on a few but not like I am today. These days, social media makes it so that my computer is a friend. Or rather it gives me access to friends which makes it appealing to cuddle up with it. At the start of a new day or the end of a long one, it’s nice to pull my computer into my lap and reach out to the world beyond its screen.
• It’s my main source of entertainment. Five years ago I had a television set and preferred going to the arcade to play video games. These days my computer is my main source of entertainment. I love Internet TV and streaming movies. It’s no longer just a work tool; it’s my companion for an at-home movie date. And it’s not bad for playing video games with either.
• My personal blogging has grown. I used to only blog for clients. These days I blog for myself as well. I certainly prefer to journal in a notebook but I do have to admit that the confessional style of blogs is appealing as well. It gives me more of a connection with my computer than I had years ago.

Tags: change, computers, society, Technology, web 2.0

My desktop computer recently decided to act crazy. It got really slow. It stopped being able to find my printer. It had strange pop-ups coming up that I’d never seen before. I called the guy who always fixes my computer for me and he came to have a look at it. It didn’t take more than a minute or two for him to tell me that the problem was that I had a million temporary files on my computer. Maybe that’s a slight exaggeration but not much.

I felt ridiculous.

I used to be really good about keeping my computer cleaned up. Once a week or so, I would delete all of my temporary files. I would use the disk cleanup and defrag functions on the computer to make sure that it was going to run as good as it possibly could. And every month or so I’d run not one but two free spyware blocker programs (Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy were my picks).

So what happened? Well, I stopped using my desktop computer so much when I got a laptop. Now I focus on keeping my laptop clean and kind of ignore my desktop computer.

But the bigger reason is that I found my computer guy. He fixes things a million times faster and better than I ever could so I’ve gotten lazy. I let problems on my computer build up and then i give him a call to take care of it for me. When I realized that every single thing he’d done to repair my computer was something I knew how to do myself, I realized that this situation had gotten out of control. My new commitment is to keep my computer cleaned up and to deal with what I can myself before asking him to help me out!

Tags: clean computer, computers, defrag., disk cleanup, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, spyware blockers