She's been moved, bumped around, upgraded, downgraded, sidegraded...For the last 3 years she's been on almost constantly. And she has always performed gracefully.
In the last 6 months, Gort's age began to show. She just couldn't handle some streaming video...I had to upgrade with a video card that she could barely handle just to get Second Life to run relatively well. And she needed to be rebooted often.
Then a couple of weeks ago she contracted a small virus. Odd in that it came from a site that was deemed safe, and commonly visited by many, nonetheless. There it was. It was handled well enough after a couple of days...But the next day, clicking on a charity link posted by my twitter friend @nandoism she got another one...and this one was big.
Now before I continue, this was a legitimate site apparently. @nandoism put it out there as a way to help gay teenagers who are on the verge of suicide. Many have visited it, so I'm not suggesting that @nandoism put a bad link out there. Clearly, Gort was just too susceptible and something along the way hit her...the link just...I don't know...brought it out?
At any rate, the decline was fast. The virus targeted the only anti virus and anti malware software I have, disabling its .exe file quickly.
I downloaded AVG and it only made matters worse. AVG did nothing to prevent further infection and did nothing against the current one. In fact I got more malware than ever in 24 hours than I had in 7 years after installing the piece of shit.
Further, AVG ran so hard in the background that booting up took 30 minutes and opening any application took about 15.
After two days of continual working on her, Gort finally seemed to be getting better. But when I came home from work at 1:45 am, the HD was back to spinning wildly, malware pop ups were all over the screen and I couldn't get anything done.
So I shut Gor down, waiting for the replacement OS disk to revive her after a reformat. But I have to face facts. She's very old for her kind. She's worked very hard for me. I may just have to let her go.
I've done a lot through Gort. I've role played many stories. Made very good and meaningful friends through her. I started this blog with her.
It's silly I know. But 7 years is a long time. And I will miss her.
She's been powered down for 10 hours now...the longest she's gone being down in a long time. It feels weird.
I have a spare...one of slightly less power and ability that I got through a friend's client for free a couple of years ago, so my ability is fine enough. And soon I hope to have a new laptop.
It's not like I didn't know this day would come. Still, it feels weird. Funny how one can get attached to things, even when approaching half a century in age.
Goodnight Gort, sleep well. Maybe I can get you back up and running or maybe I'll just let you rest in peace.
Either way, thanks for your hard work.
2 comments:
Gort sounds like she has been a good and faithful servant. It's hard to let them go when it is there time. I hope you are able to get her up and running well enough to say a proper good-bye, whatever that may be.
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