En attendant phonecall

[desperance]

The nice men said they would phone sometime today, with news of the possible fate of my desktop. It's midday now. Urk.

Meanwhile, how have I been using my time? Usefully, by working upon the LHP? You suspect not. I am reluctantly compelled to confirm your suspicions.

I have mostly been playing with my laptop, in a way that sort of almost feels like work: I have learned, specifically, to plug in the big keyboard and monitor (though not in Mepis, which doesn't want to recognise the existence of the monitor; there is undoubtedly a process that I don't know, to make it do that; so at the moment I am working in Windows, yuck spit...). This is not a lifechanging discovery, as it only wants to display in a resolution that feels like shouting, or being shouted at.

I want my desktop back, sob whimper...

The professional man would be making do, working on the laptop until. It's odd: put me on a train with no alternative, and I can work four or five hours on the LHP, no worries. Put me in the Lit & Phil and I can do an hour, maybe an hour and a half before the lure of distraction draws me out. Hand it to me here at home, and - well, I've written about a sentence and a half this morning, and those are no good.

I suppose I could take it downstairs, try that sprawling-on-the-sofa thing that people do - but, y'know, Patrick O'Brian waits down there. I'm not convinced. There would at least be no internet (no you! you distracting beasts, you...), and I could work in Linux, but...

Hmmph. *wants desktop back*

Comments

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Last year I got round to finally replacing the old and very creaky desktop with a reasonably high capacity laptop. (Dual core processor, 3 mg memory and 250 gig HD and Windows XP pro NOT Vista!!!) So my laptop is now my one and only machine. I use a separate keyboard and had intended to use a separate screen as well, but I find the laptop screen is actually good enough. It's revolutionised my desk and working position.

I'm on the house network so my backups go straight to a drive shared with Best Beloved on an independent machine in another part of the house.

What will happen if my laptop goes down, I just don't know, (borrow Best Beloved's in an emergency, I guess) but so far, so good.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

There is comfort, I am finding, in having two machines - but it's the comfort of staying in touch, rather than the comfort of working. So much of my life and/or business is online these days, it's a great relief not to have lost that (entirely - tho' webmail is a poor substitute for the real thing); but I am finding it ridiculously difficult to work on the laptop in the house. I need to fix this. Now would be good...

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Just having a proper keyboard and mouse for the laptop makes an enormous difference to me, especially for everyday use. I have a Logitech wireless set with a little USB transmitter no bigger than a storage dongle.