Giving up!

For better or for worse, my not-so-faithful Toshiba laptop has finally actually given up. Many of my long-suffering friends put up with my whining for a good year over my tempermental laptop which would frequently overheat and shut off without warning. It was a pain, and a frustration, but I endured because I really couldn't do without the convenience of internet, my computer files, etc. at home.

And then, miraculously, my computer problems were solved over the summer! Little did I know that the reason my laptop was overheating was because it was dusty. Apparently, Toshiba expects it's customers to buy cans of compressed air and dust their laptops regularly. Though this may seem obvious to some, I had an IBM Thinkpad for 5 years without once having to dust it. So, needing to perform regular maintenance on a MUCH newer generation of laptops just seemed ludicrious to me. Of course, what also seems ludicrious is the design flaw which should've been a red flag when I was purchasing the laptop in the first place -- the fan of the laptop is on the bottom....so if you actually have your laptop in your lap, the fan is blocked and the computer overheats. Makes sense right?? Stupid Toshiba!

Anyway, just recently my laptop has been exhibiting a different problem. It's been tempermental about accepting the power adapter. This means if I move my laptop slightly the power source will shift from the adapter to the battery (which has a 10 minute lifespan), and no matter how many times I try to replug the adapter, the computer won't recognize that it's plugged in. Fortunately, if I hold my nose just right, and twist the adapter just-so, the power will be connected and I have a functioning laptop until this happens again.

Needless to say, this can't last. I've got to send in my laptop for repair. So, while the computer is working, I've been transferring files to my external harddrive, trying to figure out way to backup my emails and other data (because there's always the possibility of losing information when they're working on the computer), and generally trying to clean up my personal information so I'm not putting myself in a vulnerable spot.

This latest issue with my laptop has probably occurred at the best time - during Lent. I had toyed with the idea of giving up the internet altogether, but to be honest, I use it for such handy things - checking the highway conditions, recipes, knitting help, more recipes, store hours, flyers, etc. - that it just didn't seem practical to give up the interenet entirely. Which is why I focussed on the big time-waster like facebook (and Ravelry). But, I think the timing of my laptop's temporary demise is challenging me to take it one-step further. Live without the convenience of the internet for awhile.

So be it.

I'm giving myself the weekend to clean up everything and transfer what I need/don't want others to access etc. And will take the laptop in for repair on Monday. Thankfully, it's still under the extended warranty I purchased with the laptop so I don't have to worry about the cost; and I'm pretty sure the problem isn't so significant that I'm looking at a huge time-delay. Futureshop assures me that it should take about 10-14 business days to ship it to Toronto, fix it, and ship it back.

In the meantime, there won't be much blogging in the days to come, unless I break my policy of no-blogging from work. We'll see. If I have something significant to share, I may.