A friend in need is a ____.
A) Friend with a non-booting laptop.
B) Friend with a non-booting desktop.
C) A friend indeed.
D) All of the above.
I’m sitting here with not one, but two pieces of hardware from two different people I know. Everyone in this field is familiar with playing tech support occasionally, it’s my turn now and they've come in bunches.
At least I’m getting a few good meals for my efforts. I’ve already had a down payment made in the form of a sausage, shrimp, and red pepper jambalaya. It’s a shame I can’t help this person out much, it appears the hard drive has destroyed more files than an Enron paper shredder.
The problem I’m really having is with a Toshiba Satellite notebook. I did manage to get this machine running. The screen is large and crisp and clear. It’s fast. It’s sleek. It makes my aging Thinkpad look so bad.
I keep finding myself on the Dell homepage clicking “Customize It”. I almost get to the checkout when I think: “No, what I really want is a Tablet PC”, and I’m off browsing for a Tablet. Then I wonder if I will really make good use of the Tablet. How often will I use the Pen? What if I need to do some extended development work on the machine? It’s just so cool, but is it worth it?
Now I can find no middle ground. It either has to be the super-portable, battery friendly Tablet PC, or the desktop replacement monster laptop that will give my legs third degree burns if I use it on the couch.
Pen versus Pentium 4
Sexy versus Sledgehammer
Space versus Time
This is the last time I fix a computer for someone who has nicer hardware than I do.
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<br>The only person I genuinely help without any complaints is my mother. I'm glad she has a PC and that may be one of the few frequent forms of communication we have if I decide to move away. My dad knows his way around a PC so I rarely have to worry about him screwing anything up.
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<br>I haven't fixed a computer at work in 2-3 years. I'm severely rusty yet people have brought in stuff recently as if I'm the local computer repair shop. I don't get paid to REPAIR now. I get paid to MAINTAIN. Proper maintenance has kept repair times down to a minimum if at all now. I'm so rusty I can barely help anyone any more and I generally don't even try now. It's a good thing I don't run Windows 98 on any machine on the network either. I can lie and say that I'm too rusty in Windows 98 to help which has kept me out of fixing a number of issues.
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<br>It's one thing if I worked at the local computer repair shop but I don't. I don't enjoy that kind of work, not now, not ever. I try to discourage people from soliciting my help because in the end what they really need is to spend the 20-30 minutes it takes to get to know and respect their machine.
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<br>I've always heard it like this: A friend in need is a friend no more.
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<br>Many developers use the Toshiba M200 (12" SXGA+, 4.6lbs, external optical drive), the Acer TravelMate C30X (14" XGA display, 6.2lbs, internal removable optical drive, and Gateway M275 (14" XGA, 5.7lbs, internal optical drive). All convertibles. But for demonstrating products, letter writing, note-taking, etc. you'll enjoy a slate better. Based on your heat comment, it sounds like you'll want to stay with a Pentium M processor. :)
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<br>I hate to break this to you, but having seen your laptop, I don't know anyone who doesnt have better hardware then you have