Laptop down, a cautionary tale

So immediately after I bragged/blogged about riding the high tech LimoLiner to New York City, I managed to incapacitate my laptop! It was pouring buckets when we stepped off the bus, but I just didn’t think about leakage through the zipper of my snazzy rolling computer bag. I’d left the laptop in standby mode, too, which I think may have compounded the poor thing’s fragility to a few drops of water. At any rate, I did notice moisture and I did try to dry it out, but when I turn the old Gateway Solo on all I get now is a “can not find operating system” error message. It may be repairable (and I do have a boot CD back in Maine), but I thought this a good excuse to buy a new mobile computer (with a wonderful 17” screen). And I lost very little data as I’m fiendish about backing up (pat on back). Still, the whole deal has set me back time wise, and I don’t yet have all the software tools I need to create full Panbo posts. So posting may be raggety here until I get back to Maine at the end of this week. Treat your electronics better than I do!

Ben Ellison

Ben Ellison

Panbo editor, publisher & chief bottlewasher from 4/2005 until 8/2018, and now pleased to have Ben Stein as a very able publisher, webmaster, and editing colleague. Please don't regard him as an "expert"; he's getting quite old and thinks that "fadiddling fumble-putz" is a more accurate description.

4 Responses

  1. Terry says:

    I trashed a nice laptop with saltwater when the handle came off the shower hose in the cockpit and did a wild snake dance … managing to shoot through a portlight and onto the keyboard while it was in operation. But I removed the hard drive and put it in a case with USB connection (bought mine in Singapore for $12) and, after finding everything there and transferring what I wanted, now use it as a nice compact 40GB external hard drive.

  2. So, are you going with a PC or a Mac? 😀

  3. Ben Ellison Ben Ellison says:

    Macs are gorgeous, but I’m too Scotch and have too much PC software already. I got an HP DV8230US, which just may have the same screen as a 17″ Mac? So far, so good.

  4. GPSNavX says:

    New Macs can run both OS X and Windows..
    Macs make great Windows PC
    Boot into Windows when you must, use OS X the rest of the time.

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