Footprints on the Moon

Well, it officially died this time! If you’ve been around for awhile, you may recall that my laptop up and quit about 7 months ago, back in October. My boss worked his voodoo magic on it, and got it back up and running. He told me at the time that he didn’t know how long it would last, so I’m impressed that the computer managed to limp along for another seven months.

Last week, I left the room and came back to find a black screen with a message saying “Primary Hard Disk Drive 0 Not Found” etc, etc. But I turned it off, and turned it back on later, and it worked fine. Friday morning when I got up for work and tried to turn on the computer though, the ominous sound from October, and the beeping from the hard drive was back. After the original splash screen, it went exactly nowhere, and eventually kicked up an error screen that a certain file was corrupted or missing, and to reinstall this file. My boss left on vacation this weekend, and even if he hadn’t, he’s not as readily accessible for computer repairs. Even if there was something he could do about it, I felt like making another recovery for a computer that was just barely limping along was only prolonging the inevitable even more.

So I put the thought of any Vegas vacations even further into the future and bought a new laptop. No, I technically couldn’t afford it, but I find a computer with internet access to be one of life’s necessities, so there you go. I was approved for credit at Amazon, so it came with a $30 statement credit, and HP’s $50 rebate. I had $15 in gift cards in my account, and the computer I chose should be eligible for their no payments, no interest for six months promotions. All in all, I think I got a pretty good deal. The new credit also has a lower interest rate than any of my others, especially the one I’m focusing on, so if it doesn’t get paid off entirely before the promotion runs out, I’m not going to stress out about it.

I am saying this with my breath held, my fingers crossed, and knocking on wood, but my computer might be fixed. In any case, my boss got it up and running yesterday, I took it home, was able to get on the internet, and it still started up this morning. Much faster than it was before. All of my documents are on a different drive than the one I’m running windows on, but they are at least all still there. He’s not completely done with it yet though, I have to bring it in tomorrow for him to install some Windows updates, and do a little more configuring, but with any luck the computer will stay running for a long time. If nothing else, it has at least bought me some time before I have to do anything because if memory serves me correctly, buying new computers isn’t cheap. After Christmas, I’ll have to sit down with my budget and see if there isn’t at least $10 here or $10 there to siphon off into a computer fund. We’ll see, but as much as I’d love to pretend this computer will last forever and ever, amen, I know I will have to replace it eventually. Just hopefully later rather than sooner.

I’m really starting to get frustrated with my computer. Sometimes it runs just fine, and other times it runs so slowly that I can hardly get anything done. Virus and adware scans turn up nothing, so I really don’t know what the problem is. Maybe it’s a product of the fact that the computer is getting older… maybe it’s a computer memory issue related to the fact that I’m a pack rat in ALL areas of my life lol (Until recently, I had files from my freshman year of college on my computer… nevermind the fact that this computer was purchased after I graduated. Oops?) In any case, I don’t know what the problem is, or how to fix it, but it’s seriously getting frustrating!

I’m probably going to head to bed before too much longer, but I didn’t want to let another day go by without making a post here! I had every intention of posting on Thursday night, but when I got home my internet had mysteriously crapped out. I had been roped into having dinner with my grandmother (on my dad’s side), so I basically changed and was back out the door. I messed with all the settings on my computer after I got home, but the problem turned out to be with the DSL itself, so no matter what I did, my internet just wasn’t going to come back on.

Friday, I just had other things to do! I’d been having some issues with my computer (other than the pooped out internet), so I spent a good amount of time just clearing out files that I don’t need, uninstalling programs I’ve never used or haven’t used in two years. It made some improvement, but I think some more laptop memory would really help. I don’t know though… Dells kind of have a reputation for crapping out after their warranties expire, and my 3 year warranty expires in June. Hopefully that doesn’t happen!

Today I haven’t been as productive as I would have liked, but I got a walk in early this morning, a nap, and spent some time playing with Killian, so I’m going to call it good!