OK, this is my first blog of the new year and it is already the 24th of
January, but I have some fairly good excuses. I decided that I would take
December off from blogging since I was taking vacation and December is generally
a busy month. When I returned from vacation all refreshed and everything, my
laptop (which is the machine I use at home, where I blog) decided to take its
own vacation. It decided that it was only going to start if it was docked in its
port replicator. Apparently, the sensor for the port replicator got flaky; the
laptop would sometimes think it was docked when I was home. Since the laptop
requires more power when attached to the port replicator, the laptop will not
start when the power adapter is disconnected. The battery alone is not powerful
enough to power the replicator. Also, the normal power adapter does not supply
enough power to run the replicator so it needs a different adapter and the
laptop detects when the wrong adapter is connected. All this has worked great
for almost two years but a flaky port replicator sensor means the laptop will
think it doesn't have the correct adapter connected and it refuses to start. All
this means I was computer-less at home during most of this month. A truly
painful experience.
So, now I have a new laptop. I decided to go with a Toshiba Tecra Tablet PC.
I have always wanted a tablet and now I have one. I don't find myself using the
tablet capabilities much but I believe I will over time as I get used to it.
Switching laptops is a pain! The biggest pain used to be installing all the
software I use. Now, with the most computers coming Office preinstalled, there
is less I need to install. I had to install Visual Studio and RSS Bandit and
then I was pretty much done. The biggest pain was transferring My Documents
folder and remembering all my internet passwords again. This brings me back to
my excuse (embarrassing as it is), I forgot the password I used for my own blog!
Obviously, I figured it out, but it took me a bit. Now I am up and going on my
new laptop, I will try to get back on a regular blog pace.
With this entry I am also starting a new category, Meta. I will use it to
discuss the blog itself, so don't expect much technical content in this
category.