Life gets a little harder

My faithful computer just had a kernel panic -- the second in as many days.

I've noticed the hard disc sounds...louder than I think it should be. Perhaps it's because it's 5 AM and there are fewer ambient sounds, but I'm...worried.

I need a new computer, and sooner rather than later.

Not sure how I can afford one, though...

The past few weeks have been annoying. I'll leave it at that.

Computer woes

I have a seven-year-old iBook, and it's on its last legs...

Every time there's a security update (not as often now, since I can't run the newest version of Mac OS X), and I have to reboot the thing, there's a greater than 50% chance that the reboot will hang at either the grey screen or the blue screen, and I have to do the ol' 3-finger salute to get it to boot up. This runs the risk of hosing the directory on the hard drive...

I have an external HD. The internal HD is only 20GB, and my iTunes music library alone is over 15 gigs. Last month, the external drive crashed so hard the computer wouldn't even recognized that there was a device plugged in...

The original dual-USB iBooks had an interesting design flaw, where the hinge of the unit would after time damage and ultimately sever the power cable running to the LCD backlight. Due to this, I can no longer close my iBook. I got an external monitor last year, which was an acceptable work-around until this morning, when that backlight died unexpectedly...

Plus a host of other annoyances, some small (the c key works intermittently), some large (various bits of the system software don't seem to be working correctly; for example, I no longer have a brightness control. And re-installing the system would run back into the first problem I mentioned.)

*sigh*

Donations for the "Buy Rob a new computer" fund can be sent to....

Meh. I'm off to drown my sorrows in a bad-for-me McDonalds breakfast.

On owning a six year old laptop

One of the annoying things about my computer is that when I type on a website that uses java/flash/whatever extensively, there is serious lag between my typing speed and how quickly the text appears onscreen. So, i find that I can't watch the screen while I'm typing, because the discrepancy between what I'm typing and what I'm seeing on the screen seriously throws me off. This of course leads to a lot of annoying typos...

A couple of months ago, I noticed that the screen of my computer is not as bright as it should be. It turns out that the earliest versions of the white iBooks had a design flaw that led to the power cable to the backlights to eventually be severed. Also, I had had this issue repaired (under warranty) something like five years ago. Naturally, Apple no longer services this model of computer.

So, I'm sitting here typing into an iBook that's hooked up to a cheap external monitor...that I can't look at while I'm typing, anyway.

Meh.

Rob