Ground Control to Major Mom

Okay, maybe I’m jumping the gun a little by considering it dead already since technically it’s still serving its purpose.

For those who had been following the adventures of my poor dilapidated Dell Inspiron 4100 “Kitchen Laptop” (yeah, I’m sure I’m so popular that you guys are following my laptop), yesterday was another step in the eventual death of a computer that I REFUSE TO LET DIE! After getting my Macbook in April 2009, the “Kitchen Laptop” (as it was fondly named when we got to NC in 2005), actually became the “Living Room Laptop” as it hosts our weather webcam pointing out our front living room window.

The screen stopped working. I had made a point to nix all screen savers/sleep/hibernate modes on this laptop a couple of rebuilds ago because of its inability to come out of sleep. Like it went into a coma, and the only way out was a cold restart. So when I walked past our laptop in the living room yesterday, I should have seen the webcam image fully across the screen. It’s the only non-critical software on the laptop now, in fact. A copy of “TinCam” runs in full screen with the image in real-time. Every minute, the current image is FTPed to Weather Underground for posting to our weather station’s website.

If you’re reading this via my Blogger page, that image is to your right. If you’re on Facebook, you can see the image here.

So I know the Kitchen Laptop is working. It’s sending out the webcam images. In fact, I’m sure if I hauled our desktop’s monitor over to the laptop, I could plug it in, hit “Function + F5” and see the screen just fine. I know what the problem is.

But I don’t feel like taking the time to continue to troubleshoot. I feel like a caretaker for a very old pet, or a very old human even. Once the computer, pet, person gets too old, is surgery going to really help the individual get better? Does the risk of surgery outweigh the benefits of the surgery?

Instead, I’m goin’ SHOPPING!

I’ve been interested in the new Dell Inspiron Zino for it’s stylish appearance and ability to customize to exactly what we want. I think this is what we’ll end up getting, thanks to Dell’s Military Employee Purchase Program. Free shipping and decent discounts on the Zino.

As for hosting our webcam, Dave’s 4.5-year-old Gateway laptop can do that. The hinge supporting the screen is broken, so one has to prop open the lid to do work on it, but it’s otherwise a good computer.

NOTE: I took some time the other night and was reading through my first blog posts from January 2008. Boy was I funny! And boy was the posting profuse! I need to do better than I have been. Perhaps I need more going on in my life than all this snow. Now that some of my blog posts are contributing to another website, I’ll definitely be keeping my eyes out for more weather items to post about. Another snowstorm coming up this weekend???

The kitchen laptop has officially been REPLACED!

Finally!

I haven’t been this excited about computer stuff in a really long time — I’ve been looking forward to getting a new laptop for many months, and for once I was going to save up and get something I REALLY wanted.

After those months in the desert, getting kicked off the WiFi just because someone with a Macbook sits next to me got quite old.

So today I marched down to the Apple Store in West Omaha, took advantage of their “Personal Shopper” service and walked out of there with a Macbook of my very own!  It’s AMAZING!  It immediately hopped onto my WiFi (yes, after I gave it the security code) and I was surfing SO FAST!

A couple weeks ago Dave’s laptop ran into some troubles with the hinge that keeps the computer open, so he’s contemplating getting a Macbook of his own.  They’re offering a military discount, which made it even more appealing!  He’s taking a trip in a couple weeks so it’d be nice if he had a new computer to take along.

The Macbook I got was the most basic of the aluminum models (there’s a white model that costs less, but the aluminum seemed more durable), which has a special multi-function touch pad, it doesn’t work like a typical PC-laptop touch pad, you have to learn some new moves for scrolling and zooming in and out…much like what you can do with an iPhone.  It has a built-in webcam, which is nice, and when I plugged in my iPhone to it, it automatically synced with iCalendar, iPhotos, iTunes and my Address Book.  I didn’t have to do a thing!

Surfing the web has been like lightning, and even task-intensive sites like Facebook have been a breeze to navigate.  I haven’t had this easy a time with our PCs since we moved to Omaha.

So it case you hadn’t noticed, I’m pretty excited about this.

I’ll leave you with this silly picture of me, taken from the built-in webcam. You can see how happy I am: