Sunday, May 3, 2009

the new tank - maybe not

i bought myself a new notebook - yep, another toshiba tank. the problem is, it has vista on it. i really don't want to educate myself on vista. needless to say, i have been dragging my feet on setting it up. however, i really need to get it done if i'm going to keep it because we are heading to the hometown the first weekend in june and i NEED to take a laptop along. the old one still works - it just seems kinda slow and it needs a new battery. i would have to buy a new car adapter for the new one also - which isn't that much - i just don't want to buy it, if i can't decide whether i'm going to keep it or not. these seem like such simple problems - which they are - but they are just the type of thing that will consume me.

i just did some research on that model of toshiba - and apparently there's problems with the power adapter. so, i think that answers my dilemma. i'm going to stay with my old one for now and take the new one back. i just don't want to deal with the hassles right now. i'll do it like always do it - when i absolutely have to - when this notebook completely dies on me, at a most inoportune time and i am in a full-blown panic mode.

so, i'm off to ebay to buy a battery for the old one.

2 comments:

Hopelessly Aporetic said...

Hi Junque. Long-time no-lurk.

Hey, skip on the A/C power adapter for your notebook and look for a 12v DC - 110 AC power inverter instead. You can use them to plug in any kind of device that needs A/C power and usually find them for about $20 or so (a lot cheaper than most adapters that only works for one thing).

Might be a little bit bigger than Toshiba's A/C brick, but a heck of a lot more versatile.

Anonymous said...

Vista seems to need 4GB RAM to "be nice" but if you're going to get a replacement.
When you get your new one install Linux Mint 6 as a dual boot (via Wubi) alongside your XP on the old one. Should see a bit more speed. In fact there's probably no reason not to try it now.
Good to do a clean up on XP first and then defrag beforehand to make a good chunk of contiguous free space.