Tuesday, January 08, 2008

from the "lacktop" dept.

One of the things that I liked about living in Ghana was that my cursed electro-hex did not follow me overseas.

For those of you who don't know about my electro-hex, it is simple to explain: While I love technology, it doesn't necessarily love me. I am able to corrupt computers, shut down cash registers and generally wreak havoc on anything digital -- simply by my presence.

In Ghana, everything worked. Now that I'm back in Canada, not so much.

A small example: my laptops. I have three.

Laptop 1: A used 12" iBook I bought for $100. It is slow but perfect for dragging around to coffee shops. It worked like a charm until about two weeks ago: the screen is dead. Usually. Sometimes the screen works but the computer locks up during the boot process.

Laptop 2: My 2002 vintage Mac PowerBook. Expensive and still robust after all these years -- it is speechless. For whatever reason (perhaps one too many tumbles to the floor), the speakers don't work. Thankfully the headphone jack works and I can listen to melodious beeps and error pings.

I could live with this state of affairs except I can't run some PC-only software I use to do my CBC work. It allows me to work remotely saving me from commuting to, say, Saskatchewan!

For that I use:

Laptop 3: I bought a little Gateway PC especially for my CBC work. It was inexpensive and has served me well for several years.

It's now dead. It won't run off AC power. It won't run off the battery. The battery won't charge. It smells funny. I even tried a new charger - but that didn't work either.

So now I have three laptops: one without a display, one without sound, and one without anything. And it's the PC I really need the most (see reference to Saskatchewan commute, above).

There is a solution: a new MacBook. I can boot in Windows and run my CBC stuff. I can boot in OS X and run Final Cut Pro et al. Perfect!

Except the $1600 price tag. And the fact that Apple is announcing new goodies next week. Damn them! I don't want to wait!

Anyway... as I was lamenting the fact that I have three computers that don't suddenly don't work... I found a funny video to cheer me up.



Cheers!

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