So I don't have a fancy laptop. I don't have an ordinary laptop either. Technically I don't have a laptop - by definition, it is a Netbook. What is a Netbook? basically it is a small laptop with a not very powerful processor, memory or storage and is designed primarily to be small, and most of all cheap. They offer a way to access the internet and do various things other computers do, but are not good for things that need a lot of computer grunt, such as photo editing or movie editing. But because they are not very powerful, they don't use a lot of power - so the battery lasts quite a long time.
I never intended to travel overseas with a Netbook - I wanted to buy my new Apple Macbook that I was eyeing up before leaving NZ but couldn't spare the money for it then, so I came up with the idea that I would use the Netbook I had loaned Denise & David (that I had acquired elsewhere - it was 3 years old already when I got it) for travelling until I managed to buy the Macbook in the UK. I set it up, installed Photoshop on it which really pushed it to its limits, but it would prove adequate for a few months. But I never did purchase the Macbook - I never had the cash on hand upfront to buy it, and when I tried to buy it on tick I found I couldn't because I had no credit history in the UK. So I persevered with the Netbook, which had by now had acquired the name the Craptop because, well, it was a bit crap.
I believe when new, the Craptop was probably running Windows XP. When the first Netbooks came out, they didn't even run Windows - they ran Linux, because that made them cheaper. People wanted Netbooks because they were cheap, but soon discovered that Linux was a limitation - they wanted Windows. So the 2nd Generation of Netbooks ran Windows XP because Microsoft wouldn't license Windows 7 for them, but let XP be on them for a discount - but to be eligible the Netbooks had to meet strict criteria, which kept them not very powerful. They had to have an Intel Atom Processor - basically a derivative of a 5-year old Processor, the processor be no faster than 1.6GHz, and no more than 2Gb of RAM. Windows 7 came to Netbooks eventually in the form of Windows 7 Starter - a stripped down version of Windows 7. My Craptop is one of a later model of 2nd Generation Netbooks - it has a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, which means it still meets the criteria but is technically twice as powerful. This Atom processor is also capable of 64-bit processing, when Netbooks are generally limited to 32-bit. So when I knew I had to persevere with the Craptop, I gave it a little bit of an upgrade. It already had the max 2Gb of RAM in it, but I had a spare Hard Drive of 320Gb that came out of another laptop (intended for use as an external drive but I never used it for that) - which was not only bigger than the Craptop's existing 250Gb Hard Drive, but also had a faster read & write speed. The Craptop already had a proper version of Windows 7 on it, but the 32-bit version - I somehow managed to install 64-bit Windows 7 on it. It was faster, better than before, but still slow in comparison to a normal laptop and the replacement Hard Drive would occasionally make a "thunk" noise - a sign the read/write spindle head of the hard drive was resetting, which is not a good sign and suggests the drive could be on the way out. However it wasn't proving much of an issue and for nearly 3 years it never proved a problem. To be honest, I kind of forgot about it.
The Craptop has chugged away quite well, albeit slowly, for all this time and travelling home it makes the ideal laptop to take on the road. However, in Mostar it slid off my lap while blogging and onto the floor. No harm seemed done at first, but after 10 minutes or so the Craptop started to play up and then would not restart - giving me a Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) error (this is an actual technical term). There are two kinds of BSOD errors - software, and hardware. This was a hardware one. It would try and boot Windows, load so far and then BSOD. Nothing I initially tried could get around it. A bit of research and the error code was for the Hard Drive. The fall to the floor, plus the iffy nature of the 320Gb drive had caused the drive to now fail - or fail enough that it was not suitable to use as a computer hard drive.
We're on the road. I don't have spare parts with me. If any kind of technology was going to give out on the road, we thought it would be our cellphones which are teetering on the edge - I never planned for a potential computer failure for either me or Sasha's laptops. Thankfully, there was nothing critical on the hard drive - anything that was on it was either non-essential, or any essential stuff was backed up elsewhere. That was a relief but I was still without a working computer. What to do? I thought it over, and talked to my friend Dion who also works in IT about my issue. He suggested a few things, and bottom line he was right - if you install a new hard drive and install Windows on it in theory the Craptop probably could be resurrected. But I was not about to go out and spend money on a new hard drive for the Craptop - it was more money than it would be worth, and besides how could I get Windows installed on it afterwards? For the money spent on a hard drive, it would probably be better spent on a replacement laptop. It wouldn't be able to be the machine I want - that would be more money than we can spare now. A quick round of research showed that the cheapest laptops were less powerful or useful than the Craptop - strange as that might be, or the cheapest semi-decent laptop was reasonable, but too large to comfortably carry with us. Nothing new would rival the Craptop's 5-8hr battery life, and even then I have two batteries for it. Its the most convenient size to carry also and fits in our bags.
Its not perfect however. Its now slower than it was previously - thanks to putting in the old slower drive, and the copy of Windows is a 32-bit one. It also has a new issue it never had prior to sliding off my lap - it occasionally likes to freeze and fill the screen with crazy colours which can only be resolved by turning it off and then back on again. I think something inside has a loose connection but cannot find where - its probably on the circuit board which I can't fix. But for a zero-cost solution it is working very well for now - the aim is to get it to last until our travels are over. After that, it is welcome to die a long-overdue death if it wishes. My blogging, my photo uploads of our travels to social media and my ability to back up my photos from my camera on the road are dependent on the Craptop. If it dies again, and for good, I have a ready short-term backup solution with my old iPad which I have used on travels before for this purpose - but it can't upload them to the web and it can only hold 64Gb's worth. I could use Sasha's Macbook Air to back them up also, but photo uploads to social media would have to cease, and as for blogging - my phone can't cope with the cellphone version of the blog editor and even if it could, it requires a superfast internet connection which is not guaranteed and to be honest when its working the phone blog editor sucks. So if the Craptop dies, the blogging has to stop or at least go on an extended pause - I can't hog Sasha's Macbook for it, she needs her computer for her own needs.
Which is why there has been a bit of a pause with the blog updates recently - computer troubles. They've been fixed - I never thought I'd be able to get it back up and working on the road and was coming to terms with ditching the Craptop since there wasn't much point in hauling around a dead piece of technology for the next 2.5 months. I'm quite amazed at the ingenuity I managed to pull out to get it back up and running, in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds - there were lots of if's and any one of them could have caused it to be unfixable on the road. But its back, its working (for now), and I'm using it to type this blog. I even managed to retrieve the processed photos that I had passed through photoshop and made smaller for the blog from the old 320Gb hard drive, so we're back to where we were - no lost material, just lost time.
So if you read this blog - even enjoy it - I hope that you'll understand that the near future of this blog rests on a tired, past-its-used-by-date, pushed-beyond-its-limits little Craptop that I hope lasts the next few months. Perhaps the only thing in its favour its its a Toshiba - in among my vintage computer collection at my parents, I have a Toshiba T3200 Laptop from 1987 (one of the very first Laptops there ever was) and it still goes. Hopefully the Craptop has an ounce of the T3200's longevity coming from the same stable!