It's totally, like, technology!

[nineveh_uk]

It's decision time, never a good season for me. Having finally got round to upgrading from Windows XP to 7 on Sunday, following a blue screen of death incident that forced the issue*, I have reached the inescapable conclusion that while my 2007 laptop is largely in good nick apart from needing a new battery (not an issue because I use it like a PC), its hard drive is full. So I get to take lots of my documents off it, store them externally, and run programmes only on the hard drive, or I upgrade the hard drive, or I buy a new computer. The first is annoying and liable to lead to worry about losing stuff. The third seems unnecessarily expensive and environmentally wasteful, given that I have a computer that functions fine apart from being full. So it may be screwdriver time. On the plus side, the manual does give instructions on how to do it. The relatively small cost seems worth a punt if I can put off spending a couple of hundred a while longer.

I went to see Beyond Clueless this evening. It was an enjoyable way to spend 90 minutes, and there was a lot of amusement in some of the montages, but ultimately I agree with Mark Kermode's three stars, rather than the more breathless review I read in the autumn. It lacks a real thesis, and fails to deliver analytical bite. Ultimately, the genre it's analyzing does the analysis better.

*Fortunately everything was backed up, not my standard state of affairs.

Comments

[dbassassin.livejournal.com]

I definitely support your approach; I hate to see usable tech being tossed for something easily remedied.

My old laptop is from 2007, as well, but being a Mac can't run the newer versions of OSX because Mac purposely builds their hardware to be crap and they want to lock their customers into a max. four-year refresh cycle. Which is why I've had two Mac laptops for a year now. *sigh*

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I know that I can be too inclined to hold on to things that are in fact obsolete (and hence I have to get rid of a Capsela kit that has sat in my wardrobe for 20 years and no longer works, presumably because some piece of metal somewhere has corroded, but if I'd faced up to getting rid of it sooner it might have been played with a bit longer, but that is sentimentality for you), but I genuinely feel that my laptop isn't. It has one thing wrong with it, that it can sometimes be too slow, and a clear reason for that, that it has about 2GB of hand drive free space. And I can fix that! (Hopefully). The other thing arguably wrong with it compared to a new one is that it is large and heavy. As I use it at home effectively as a PC, that's not a problem. If I'd used it a lot more out and about - well, it probably wouldn't be in very good condition any more!

I'm not bothering to replace the battery, though. The seem to cost a good deal more from reputable suppliers, and while c£30 for a hard drive seems a good investment, heading towards £80 total (plus P&P) is less so.