Dead Laptop: That's Not Good

My trusty ThinkPad T40 died this week, and life has been a bit more complicated as a result.  I've been able to keep working on my wife's laptop, but most other tech-related activity has come to a grinding halt--and work hasn't gone all that smoothly.  It's a sobering reminder that no matter how much of my digital identity has migrated to the cloud in recent years, a healthy chunk of it is still locked up, earthbound, in that goddamn wonderful machine.  So do I complete the transition, cut the tether that binds me to a particular box, and hope that I'll have access to the network whenever I need it?  I'm not quite ready to make that leap--there are too many times when I want to work off the net, if only to silence the ADDemons that thrive online and sharpen my focus on the task at hand.  But I clearly haven't gone far enough--so if you're so inclined, please say a little prayer for Herrick and the gang at Ameritech Computer Services.  I know you can do it, Herrick!  (And in the meantime, I probably won't be blogging much.  Hope to be back in action soon.)

Comments

[Matt Florence]

Sorry to hear about that, Ed. That sucks. It reminds me to back up my computer this afternoon. Talk with you soon. I'll say a little prayer for Herrick.

[Katrina]

Sorry you had to go through this, Ed.
My 14-month-old Toshiba Satellite laptop just did the same thing. It felt like an out-of-body experience, but after I found out that the hard drive was not easily recoverable (perhaps I gave up too quickly), I decided to be Zen about it, let it go, and transfer files from my old laptop's hard drive to the new one, which Toshiba was kind enough to replace even though it was 2 months out of warrantee (always ask!). This happened after a month of wrangling with Time Warner Cable to restore Roadrunner service to our building - the wire had been mangled by construction workers next door. Ain't technology grand? Will be interested to hear whether Ameritech retrieves your files and how much they charge. I've bought some DVD's to copy & save my current files, as the external hard drives are supposed to be just as tricky as those on laptops. What's your back-up plan?

[carter johnson]

Ed,

what a wonderful opportunity to bring yourself into the 64 bit age!

Carter

[ed]

Thanks, Matt. I'll be talking to Herrick shortly--we'll see how it went.

My condolences, Katrina--what a drag. I went with Ameritech in the hopes of avoiding shipping anything, but if they can't get it done, I'll just go directly to IBM. However, I'm prepared to be as Zen as possible about it all :-)

Carter, translating that into non-geek, I'm assuming that means switching to a Mac? I gave that a serious look before getting the T40 18 months ago, and I just couldn't do it. Nothing was intuitive, and I just felt really clunky and unproductive anytime I tried experimenting with a Mac. I'm sure I could make the switch if I really tried, and I'm sure there are some advantages, but I just can't muster up the requisite energy. (And I really like having a pointstick instead of a touchpad--that's a key reason I've only owned Toshibas and IBMs.) Besides, it's not as if this disaster can be blamed on the fact that I wasn't using a Mac. Hope all's going well in CO!