Wondering about equipment?

[Geoff Hart <Geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

John Posada observed:

<<This message may strike a cord with most contractors,>>

Only with my colleagues who pile wood. But it sure strikes a
chord with me! <gdrlh>

<<OK, I can understand how it is thought that since I'm
only around for a limited amount of time, why "waste"
a perfectly good 300-400 mhz Pentium II with 64 or
128mb RAM when there are several extra 90, 100, or 133
mhz Pentiums with 16 or 32mb.>>

Well, my trusty P166 with 32 Meg is more than keeping up
with me; in fact, I can hear it snoring as we speak while it
waits for me to challenge it. OTOH, if they even pondered
taking away my 17-inch monitor, they'd have a fight on their
hands. <g> To put that in perspective, I'm not compiling any
monolithic help files after completing each topic, and you
generally work on much bigger stuff than I do, so my
experience may not be as relevant.

<<buggy unoptimized alpha version apps, high cost
overhead, etc., does it make sense?>>

That changes things considerably, as you well know. If you're
having problems running the software you're documenting
because the computer can't keep up, then you need to
demonstrate this to your manager. Sit him or her down in
front of the computer, crank up the worst part of the software,
and make your point as follows: "See, boss? I just spent 5
minutes waiting for that window to open and toggling over to
my wordpro so I could start typing. That just cost you $10.
I'm going to open 100 windows per day over the next month.
A brand-new PIII will cost you about $3000. You do the
math."


--Geoff Hart @8^{)}     Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"Patience comes to those who wait."--Anon.


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=