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Inevtiable Laptop Quirkiness
Aug. 3rd, 2009 11:50 pmMorning: the baby laptop works fine with the home network. (Unlocked, because we are a house of technologically half-ept. It beats inept by exactly as much as you think.)
Evening: the baby laptop cycles through not seeing a locked network, not connecting to a locked network, and connecting just long enough to drive me and other troubleshooting people nuts.
Late evening: I debate the merits of interventions starting with a can of air, ascending to reformatting the hard drive, and buying a new PC. It turns out that some models of the Asus EEE can be upgraded to match my current RAM, and the chipset is slightly better than the baby laptop's. An underpowered netbook, plugged into an external monitor and a number of usb supplements, has a minor computing edge upgrade on my baby laptop. It's not an upgrade, but it's roughly parity. (Except for the keyboard situation: full keyboard or bust.) Cue hysterics, gnashing of teeth, etc, as I wonder if the baby laptop is dying or just hates locked wi-fi. Or Verizon internet; I swear I had this fight with my laptop when I tried to set up wireless the last time I gave Verizon money. (I now am in the thrall of the devil Comcast. My landlord is tasked with dealing with their customer service.)
J. just handed me the printouts of the WSFA Small Press Award nominees, which is a nice reminder to read them, but printouts are just not right: some things were meant to be read on a screen. And some time when it's not after midnight I will do the paper-and-pixels approach to modern reading.
Evening: the baby laptop cycles through not seeing a locked network, not connecting to a locked network, and connecting just long enough to drive me and other troubleshooting people nuts.
Late evening: I debate the merits of interventions starting with a can of air, ascending to reformatting the hard drive, and buying a new PC. It turns out that some models of the Asus EEE can be upgraded to match my current RAM, and the chipset is slightly better than the baby laptop's. An underpowered netbook, plugged into an external monitor and a number of usb supplements, has a minor computing edge upgrade on my baby laptop. It's not an upgrade, but it's roughly parity. (Except for the keyboard situation: full keyboard or bust.) Cue hysterics, gnashing of teeth, etc, as I wonder if the baby laptop is dying or just hates locked wi-fi. Or Verizon internet; I swear I had this fight with my laptop when I tried to set up wireless the last time I gave Verizon money. (I now am in the thrall of the devil Comcast. My landlord is tasked with dealing with their customer service.)
J. just handed me the printouts of the WSFA Small Press Award nominees, which is a nice reminder to read them, but printouts are just not right: some things were meant to be read on a screen. And some time when it's not after midnight I will do the paper-and-pixels approach to modern reading.
