November 21, 2005
A laptop a day
After 'Lill Dell's descent into unhelpfulness last week the entire laptop population around us started falling apart. See, we have an old Mac laptop in a cupboard that we bought second-hand years ago and which we've never had time to get around to using. Since the Mac had everything installed on it that I wanted on 'Lill Dell I dragged it out and started it up. Ok, there were a few minor hiccups, a flat battery, a lost power chord and 'where's the 'on' button', but no more than you'd expect form a PC user struggling with a closet-Mac. Except, that when I did finally hit my stride, it seemed that everything on the Mac, EVERYTHING, was working except the one thing I needed last week more than anything else. Photoshop.
So, after a wasted day it was onto the next laptop. Ron's work one. A useless machine set up for consultants to use so of course there is nothing but MS Office on it. Still, it meant I could access the internet and check my email (although most of my email addresses were still on 'Lill Dell). We did install Photoshop but the laptop doesn't have the sheer strength needed to edit one photo without crashing and needing a reboot. As I have almost a thousand to do it was looking like a loooooooooong week ahead. And after one day even Ron's laptop gave up the ghost and died on the one day a week he needs it at work.
In the meantime Dell support had identified the problem with 'Lill Dell as the monitor, not the Graphics card. We thought this was good news until we found out the price for replacing the monitor. 700 Euros! We can buy the whole laptop brand new with software and accessories for less than that in Australia in six weeks! So now all we need is a monitor to use with our laptop for the next six weeks here in Amsterdam. If you see one on a footpath near you call me!
Posted by Faith | TrackBack