Farewell to the old laptop

Back in 2008, I was a graduate student and completed my degree through distance education. It was the first year in which our chats went from an instant-messaging, text-only discussion to an online video format. 

I had a Mac mini at the time that was one of the earlier models, which could not handle streaming video. So, I was one of the lucky ones who didn't have to turn on the video camera, but could simply participate through the voice chat.

Eventually, for one of my courses, I needed to run software that was Windows-specific. I couldn't run it on a virtual machine on my Mac mini. I caved and bought a laptop that was on sale at Staples.

Well, this laptop finally died on me last week. I ended up with a system error. I didn't even get a glorious blue screen of death. I just kept looking at my black screen of horror.

Okay, it wasn't really a horror. It was more like an inconvenience. I was at a crossroads. Should I attempt to salvage all data on my hard drive and throw out the laptop, or should I save it by getting a new hard drive and reinstalling Windows?

I opted with the former. These days, I can get a faster, more powerful laptop than spending hours trying to fix old technology.

I am not your average technical writing gal. My undergraduate degree was computer science, which was my major. I had friends during those days call me a techie because I fiddled with my computers over the years. I swapped out and upgraded hard disks. I changed sound cards and CD-ROM drives. I upgraded motherboards and added more RAM. 

To this day, I still like doing all these things, but I haven't needed to do it because I became a Mac user at home. I am lucky that I haven't had any issues with it. At work, I have a Windows-based laptop and don't have the luxury of tearing it apart, whether I want to out of frustration or not!

So, last Saturday, I went to my local computer store. I walked through the main doors and was immediately greeted by a helpful male staff member.

"Can I help find something for you?"
"Yes, I'm looking for a hard drive enclosure," I stated.
"This way," he replied, leading me over to the proper aisle. "Computer or laptop?"
"Laptop," I replied. "I need a 2.5" enclosure."

I go to this store because I am not treated like a woman who knows nothing about computers. I get that often. However, after talking to me for a bit, you can tell that I know a decent amount to get by.

He was helpful. I bought my new enclosure, went home, took my laptop apart, and seated my laptop hard drive into the enclosure. I now have a new external hard disk drive with a USB 3.0 connection. All my files are there.

So, my next debate is whether I truly need a replacement laptop. I could use my work laptop, but there is so much encryption on it that it's just sluggish to do fun stuff on it. Fortunately, I am not under any pressure.

After I was done with graduate school, I bought a new Mac mini. It is my main computer at home ever since. The majority of my blog post are written from it and I have yet to complain about its performance.

I will miss my old laptop. My guy and I have spent many fine times talking on Skype. Lately, we both noticed that when I was using Skype on this laptop now and again that the connection would drop because Skype would hang. I do have fond memories of my conversations with him using this laptop. I should stick to using Skype from my phone or my tablet.