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

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I vote for buying an album that holds disks (the predominant brand here is Case Logic, not sure if it's true there), savings things you don't consult often to CD, labeling them, and putting them in the album, then deleting--that way, it's easy to leaf through the album on the off-chance you want to see something again. External hard drives are cheap, but it can be a chore actually finding anything on one.

[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*

[azdak.livejournal.com]

I am in awe of your being able to install a new hard drive!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Good luck with that.