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Another computer catastrophe...
Nov. 4th, 2007 11:34 amSo I'm home this weekend; we're shortly going to head up to New York to celebrate my maternal grandfather's birthday, with a number of my aunts who have flown in from Hong Kong. This morning, after being up early for church, I took a nap afterwards as is not uncommon for me (although to be honest, when I'm at Harvard, it generally means I nap through the sermons in Memorial Church after we're done singing the anthems), intending to wake up and continue working on my fellowship applications.
Last night I left my laptop plugged in with its power cable and with an ethernet cable in the bedroom that we've used as a computer room/work area since we've had the house. My father moved it so that he could use his computer, placing it on top of a stool but not wanting to disturb anything by unplugging the cables. And then he tripped over the cables, knocking the computer to the ground. Now the screen is jammed in some weird position and will not close, and some of its connecting wires at the hinge are exposed. Fortunately the computer does start up.
I'm going to see what I can do with my VGA dongle and an old monitor we have around. Hopefully the data I need (eg, the fellowship application essays, papers that I've used) is still there. When I get home tonight, I can do a full backup onto my external hard drive. I will see what can be done about the screen tomorrow; it's hard to use my computer as a laptop when I can't open the screen to more than a 20 or 30 degree angle from the keyboard. It seems to me that some sort of nontrivial repair will have to be made, one which might prove expensive. If the repair cost turns out to be more than $350 or so, I'm going to have to seriously consider replacing the laptop rather than buying a new one. While this is a pretty bad time to be without a working computer, with the NSF due this Friday, I'm glad that at least on first inspection, the hard drive and processor are fine. If I can get the critical stuff onto my physics or SEAS server, I can still get work done. But still.
O treacherous cables! O fatal nap!
Last night I left my laptop plugged in with its power cable and with an ethernet cable in the bedroom that we've used as a computer room/work area since we've had the house. My father moved it so that he could use his computer, placing it on top of a stool but not wanting to disturb anything by unplugging the cables. And then he tripped over the cables, knocking the computer to the ground. Now the screen is jammed in some weird position and will not close, and some of its connecting wires at the hinge are exposed. Fortunately the computer does start up.
I'm going to see what I can do with my VGA dongle and an old monitor we have around. Hopefully the data I need (eg, the fellowship application essays, papers that I've used) is still there. When I get home tonight, I can do a full backup onto my external hard drive. I will see what can be done about the screen tomorrow; it's hard to use my computer as a laptop when I can't open the screen to more than a 20 or 30 degree angle from the keyboard. It seems to me that some sort of nontrivial repair will have to be made, one which might prove expensive. If the repair cost turns out to be more than $350 or so, I'm going to have to seriously consider replacing the laptop rather than buying a new one. While this is a pretty bad time to be without a working computer, with the NSF due this Friday, I'm glad that at least on first inspection, the hard drive and processor are fine. If I can get the critical stuff onto my physics or SEAS server, I can still get work done. But still.
O treacherous cables! O fatal nap!
