I’m sitting in front of two machines, both belong to work. My laptop belongs to work. The other computers in the house – and there are a few – do not have my name on. So if I want to just browse the net, or do non-work stuff I have to do this on a work machine. And work is work, I can’t help but see that xchat is open, adium is showing incoming, twitter searches are in the dock as are 3 browsers and any other programs I might be using that day. There is no getting away from the fact that these two are Work. They are almost identical too so that should this one fail the other is there to rely on. Anyway, no computer, no personal web stuff. I couldn’t compartmentalise any online activity. That works as an excuse for a new shiny but it’s actually real.

Don’t need a desktop or a SFF machine because I don’t need what it can do. I don’t need a laptop because what I want to use it for does not warrant the size, weight or ability. So – that leaves a notebook. Checking several sites in the end I opted for a Compaq CQ10. It’s running Windows XP (and it arrived with no activated crapware) so I’m quite happy there. All the programs I want are now installed, I have a few gb of music and when the extra gb of RAM arrives (it runs well but as it’ll take 2 it can have 2) it’ll be all the smoother. OS is tweaked a little, custom theme installed. And no work programs. Pidgin will be Live and ICQ only, no Skype, irc is there but not for work. It’s a work-free machine, one I can use and see just what I have created. I do have a couple of plans for some non-work work which I can move to it which will be better. And if I am out and it is lost / stolen then unlike my laptop I don’t need to worry about work passwords/data. So all is good.