Made a decision

[selenay]

So, in conversation with a friend and my parents last night, I came to the conclusion that the stress of not knowing whether my laptop will start every day and not knowing what will go wrong this time (definitely the VGA connector on the lappie, the external monitor works fine connected to another computer), I've decided that it's time.

In order to make sure that someone is in the house to accept the order, I'll won't be ordering anything until the weekend. But I've picked out my system on the Dell site and I just need to finish the order.

My laptop is making such a determined effort to die. I can't turn it on anymore without a minor panic attack and there is always something. I'm suspecting that a certain amount of it (the hard-drive making beepy noises when it's joggled, the VGA connector, the heat, the massive slow-down to the USB ports) is hardware and signs that it's going to have an unrecoverable hissy fit soon. The Mcafee stuff may be software, but I could equally be looking at something like bad sectors on the hard drive.

So it's time. I'm working on the family computer right now and it's amazing how easy and smooth the experience is. That's what has decided me.

Thankfully I made this decision before my migraine overtook me last night and I'm happy with that decision now, after sleeping most of the morning away in a darkened room. It's the right thing to do and will at least mean that one source of stress in my life goes away.

Truth is, the system that I plan to buy is something that I can buy without dipping into the iPad fund. I've got plenty of savings and I'm not buying an over-the-top system because I don't need one anymore. However, I do need something reliable.

Apart from anything else, right now I can't work from home because my laptop doesn't like to be on for more than an hour before it throws some kind of wobbly. That's not exactly helpful - what if I get sick again? What will happen when the roads are too bad to drive?

Yup, I can find lots of justifications for this. So, in a couple of weeks there will be a pretty new computer in my house. Until then, I'll gingerly turn on my laptop every couple of days and do most of my computer stuff on this computer whenever my father isn't using it.

Comments

[gmul.livejournal.com]

If the family PC can manage it, I would suggest running the VMware converter on the laptop and dropping the output in to VMware Player on the desktop. Would hopefully make migration a bit less stressful and mean you not having to worry about the hardware quite so much in the meantime.

[selenay]

Actually, I shoved all my data and profiles onto external drives when the lappie started to play silly buggers so playing on the family computer isn't too bad. Particularly now that I've got all my bookmarks sorted out and got a torrent client sorted out. It's perfectly OK as a temporary home from home.

That should also mean that setting up the new machine is relatively painless. I'll probably need to boot up the lappie once or twice, when I spot things that I've missed, but I'm feeling pretty good right now about setting things up. My biggest issue may be getting the new desktop to play nice with the printers.

[fyrdrakken]

Given that you actually use it to work from home (and IIRC live where you get enough bad weather days to make that a legitimate requirement), that makes it an entirely justifiable purchase. And even if you didn't need it for work purposes, I've learned the hard way over the years that it's imperative to get the replacement while the old computer is sickening, so you have it available to copy over the files and programs and whatever else before it dies permanently.

[selenay]

Being able to work from home (and needing to at times to support it) does make the purchase much easier to justify. It's necessary for me to perform my job!

Where I live does tend to have a few (or more) days each winter where I don't feel confident enough in my snow driving to be happy on the roads. I figure it's better for everyone if I stay at home until things are cleared. I've also got a chronic illness and when it flares up, there are times when I can work but am much more comfortable at home with my bathroom just round the corner than I am in an office. So, you know, working from home is very, very important to me.

I could have waited a few more weeks for the lappie to die completely, but I'd rather have it available during the transition. I've heard too many horror tales from people who have waited until the computer died completely so I'm not risking it.

I do feel much better now that I've got people backing up my decision :-)