Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Losing an old friend, gaining a new one

Today my mobile computer for work will be replaced. I thought that I had written about receiving it several years ago, but I only noted its predecessor from slightly over five years ago. There were several problems with the Dell that I received then, mainly that there were almost no sockets. I had the computer replaced with a Toshiba Portege Z30T-A which I have liked very much.

True, I've had problems with the jittery mouse, and the network adapter socket sometimes causes problems, but this computer fits neatly into my backpack, it has plenty of memory and has a very fast disk. So what happened?

Last week (Monday), I travelled to Karmiel on the train. I used the computer for about fifteen minutes at the beginning of the journey with power supplied by the battery. After I had been working at Karmiel for a few hours, I noticed that the battery was empty, even though the computer was connected to the mains. In other words, it should have been charged to full and stayed that way. I disconnected the mains, and as expected, the computer turned itself off. I called our technical support (normally they call me about Priority problems); the technician wanted me to remove the battery from the computer, but this computer doesn't allow easy access to its gizzards, so we had to leave things as they were.

The next day, I looked at the computer again: still the battery was empty despite being connected to the mains. Technical support said that they were ordering me a new computer. On Wednesday out of habit, I took out the mobile computer in order to connect to one of the companies for whom I consult - and lo and behold! The battery started charging. I informed technical support, but they said that the new computer had already been ordered, and anyway this computer is 'old' - after five years!

As it happens, I worked early this morning for about an hour with the battery with absolutely no problems. But progress is progress, and so in a few hours time I will be receiving a new computer. Then will start the awkward process of transferring as much as possible; I keep very few data files on this computer so that won't be a problem, but it's the programs (and their associated definitions) that I'm worried about.

---- to be continued on the new computer ---

So here I am on my new Dell Vostro computer, running Windows 10. I spent some time yesterday getting the computer set up the way that I want it. Earlier this morning I imported all my bookmarks along with VPN settings, so almost everything is ready. I had to look up my gmail password; I haven't yet got access to my home router (!) and there are AnyDesk settings to be imported (?) or reset. Otherwise ....

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