Thursday, January 29, 2009

Out with the Old

Maven Erica Ridley I've had my old laptop for... wow. Since the days floppy drives were considered indispensable. And although technology continued passing it by, my laptop never let me down. It continues working like a charm, except... Well, except the case is cracking. And pieces are starting to fall off. And the hard drive is so small, I have to delete old emails in order to receive new ones. And--

So finally, after year(s) of suspecting I needed a new laptop (and much ridicule from my friends, who insisted I needed a new laptop) I finally ordered a new one. Overnight shipping and everything. Went all out.

(Natch, there's a part on backorder, so who knows when it'll arrive...)

How about you? Do you write on a desktop or a laptop? Old or new? Or maybe an Alphasmart or handwritten on paper? Ever think about upgrading? Or are you an upgrade junkie?

5 comments:

Jackie Barbosa said...

For the most part, I write on a laptop that I bought in July of 2007. It's not what I'd call brand spanking new, but it's new enough to have Vista as its operating system. (And oh, there are sure times when I wish otherwise!)

If I don't have the laptop with me and the opportunity to write arises, I pull out my trusty notepad, which I carry wherever I go. Interestingly, I am often MUCH more productive writing longhand than writing on the computer. I think there's something about it not being easy to go back and correct things that keeps me forging ahead. The downside, of course, is that all those words eventually have to be transferred to the computer, so I'm not sure it's actually faster in the long run.

Bill Clark said...

I finally ordered a new one. Overnight shipping and everything. Went all out.

(Natch, there's a part on backorder, so who knows when it'll arrive...)


*Loud sigh*

Bill keeps touting the virtues of Macintosh, but no one seems ever to listen...

I use my MacBook less than my soccer-ball iMac desktop for writing purposes, because the desk-and-chair setup is usually more comfortable than the lap-top scenario.

As for up-to-datedness, I use a word processing program (WriteNow) that has been obsolete for a decade, and runs only on System 9.x. So, Luddite. But I can export and convert it to MS Word, at which point it's good to go anywhere in the world. And I don't have to put up with all the annoying "features" of MS Word while I'm composing.

Probably the overriding factor for most people is comfort level. My friend saraclaradara seems to enjoy writing on her MacBook in bed at night. Not sure I could do this. It's all in what you're used to, I guess - would you agree?

Jackie Barbosa said...

You're preaching to the choir when it comes to fabulousness of Macs, Bill. We have an old Mac upstairs (I mean, really old--we bought it in 1994) and, although it won't run any new software, it still runs what it can run just beautifully. By comparison, the desktop PC we bought several years after that has been replaced twice due to various things either dying or burning up.

I desperately wanted a MacBook when I bought the laptop I currently use, but when it came down to it, I just couldn't afford to fork over the $1,200 asking price when I could get the Toshiba for half as much.

Although there are days when I really, REALLY wish I had.

Isabel Roman said...

Yeah, I got a new laptop for a Christmas present last year (2007). My old one still worked (works) fine but was kind of slow to boot up, the catch on the front broke so I needed a pen to open it all the time, but other than the cracks and dents and so on, it was fine.

But I love my new laptop! It's so shiny and fast.

B.E. Sanderson said...

I'm a desktop writer. The closest I get to writing on a laptop is when I drag out a notebook and pen. LOL (And I agree with Jackie about sometimes being more productive longhand.)

This thing I write on is ancient by PC standards. I bought it in 2003 (and replaced the harddrive in '06). It needs a RAM upgrade, and probably a newer version of Windows (if I could find a version enough to replace my trusty 2000NT - like that'll ever happen) but it works for me, so I'll probably ride this horse 'til it drops.

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