She has been a trooper.
She got me through college and acted as my television, personal shopper, filing cabinet, and link to the larger (and less collegial) world. Hauled around in backpacks, stuffed under seats, dropped and bumped more times than she should have been... It's amazing she's lasted this long.
Her fraying power cord is wrapped with black electrical tape and sometimes, when I tip her to the right, her CD-RW drive falls out. But these things are purely cosmetic, like the missing CAP lock button that disappeared a few years back. Sure, she's a little slow and I have to use Ctrl+Alt+Del a few times a day, but she still runs and, as you might have noticed, I'm loath to throw away anything that, with a little encouragement, will still function.
Despite my attachment to her, I did linger in the electronics department this morning messing about with the new laptops. They're so light and sleek, all their buttons work. Cameras and memory card readers seem to come standard now and they start up instantaneously. And they're so cheap!Well, maybe someday when the girl needs more TLC than I'm willing to give her. At the rate she's disintegrating that might be sooner rather than later.
I use a small netbook, it doesn't have a disc drive or card reader, but it functions good, and the battery last about 6 hours and charges in 2, so it is good for the road. It is fragile however, I broke a hinge on the screen when it fell onto a tile floor, but it works good. If you ever do upgrade it is something to look into.
ReplyDeleteI've heard that netbooks are really fast but you can't save things on them. Not that I need to, I could save things to USB drive... I'll take a look and harass you about it later:)
DeleteI'm traveling with a netbook right now, and you certainly *can* save to them. They usually come with a 60 or 120gig hard drive, which might not be enough if you're torrenting the world, but is otherwise more than enough.
DeleteThe only real limits are if you need it for something like video or doing hard-core photoshop. But that's because they have slower/ smaller processors, and generally top out at 2gigs of RAM... all of which is probably more that you've got on your ancient laptop.
Good luck with that laptop of yours. Just stopping by to say "Hello" and how much I enjoy reading your blog. Take care!
ReplyDeleteOn second thought I'd like to add this: I've had a few netbooks, and although small and convenient, they just don't have enough "Ooomph!" to satisfy. Speed and power are the ticket when it comes to a laptop; it saves time (lots of it) and adds an amount of "satisfaction factor" that's hard to define, but easy to appreciate it once you have it. And one can purchase a laptop with lots of juice these days for between three and five hundred dollars. Well, that's my opinion. Good luck, Tuck!
Best regards,
Larry
I'm a netbook user, too. I love this little machine but the video "magic" you see on my blog had to be done on the big 64 bit machine in Dad's house.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about the laptop. It's kind of difficult to retire something that works. I've been looking at new laptops, too. They are fast but so... big! The little netbook has been faithful and has provided so many good memories it seems desirable to use it as long as possible.
Yes I have a IBM ThinkPad T42 that I bought for $50 dollars years ago and I installed 2GBs of Ram and it runs excellent ! I`m just missing the the left arrow key but can still press down on the
ReplyDeletesmall clear rubber that is left .... and it works.
I might give this to one of my grandkids and buy me a cheap ACER netbook ..... "someday" ..... lol
Wolf
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That "small clear rubber" is what I'm holding on my finger in the picture. I was surprised that it held on almost eight months after the key fell off.
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