Laptop Woes

My Old Friend Is At The Doctor In The Shop...


I sorry to report that I finally had to drag my old HP Laptop Computer over to the computer shop yesterday.

I've had it so long (October 2006) it's like my alter-ego...and with each day creeping toward full blow Alzheimer's it serves more and more like part of my brain because it has so much stuff in it.

I paid near $2000 for it back then and used it as my primary computer until I bought the HP server PC, and it has been everywhere from Chicago to Key West to Pennsylvania to Kansas City and most places in between with me and never once let me down, so I finally was forced this week to give it a break and let it go see the computer doctor just this once I guess.

It had been limping around with power supply/cord and battery "issues" for the past couple of years but it was too important to me to give it up for any length of time because in spite of being...get this...A SIX COMPUTER HOUSEHOLD...it is the second most powerful computer in the building right now.

Pat's new company machine might have a faster processor...I haven't used it and checked the specs yet...but my HP is a "Media Center Edition" with a 17" screen, weighing about 100 pounds 11 pounds, with every kind of port and cable connection known to man on it.

I can hook a cable TV connection to it and watch Food Network on it if I want to

It has 4 gigs of RAM and not one but TWO 120 gig hard drives, and I have two versions of AutoCAD, a full blown version of Photoshop CS3, and a whole bunch of other technical software which would take about a month of time to either download or install from CD's if something happened to the machine.

And that's right, with the addition of Pat's latest business laptop--another Dell--we have six computers here at the Turbo Pup Compound on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

We're up to our ears in laptops, because in the past, before Pat went on "fur low", every time one died...

hold on...the phone's ringing...

GREAT NEWS...that was the computer shop (seriously) calling to say all I needed was a new AC power supply adapter and the machine would be almost good as new.

any way...every time one of Pat's corporate laptops died they just sent her a replacement, and since she worked remotely from the Island they didn't bother to pay to have the old one shipped back.

So you know what I...Mr self proclaimed computer nerd (in another life) did?

I hoarded those suckers and then I bought parts on line on e-bay and in the end managed to replace crashed hard drives and broken displays and keyboards and so now I have a little fleet of notebook computers varying in age dating from 2003 to 2007...and the cost me on average about $50 each.

When I started writing this posting, before I learned that my primary HP laptop was going to be OK, I decided that it would be a pretty good idea to take one of the other machines, upgrade the hard drive from 20 gigs to something larger, and put copies of Autocad and Photoshop and my PLC programming software and other important stuff on there so that when and if the day comes when my lover the left side of my brain the old HP has to go back to the shop or ...God forbid...it dies, I don't go into full panic mode like I did over the past few days.

I absolutely have to get this latest PLC programmed and out the door before we head south to the Chili Cookoff, and I also have four more three-way valves to re-build, and now I have to go out the door and go pick up my old friend, Mr. HP laptop, and bring him home and order a new AC adaptor on line because I refuse to pay $89 for a new one.

While I agree that dogs might be "Man's Best Friend", in today's technical world a good laptop computer is worth it's weight in gold in my considered Redneck opinion.