Computer Maintenance

 

I used to work as an IT professional and although my expertise was in software I have just enough hardware experience to be dangerous, LOL.  But, I can say it has come in quite handy, especially when it comes to prolonging the life of expensive computer equipment.  I currently use a ten year old Toshiba laptop as my primary home computer.  I have been blogging on this one for quite some time.  A few years back I picked up a refurbished HP Probook as my back up laptop.  Both of these laptops have been a godsend, especially during COVID when my girls were doing school from home and we needed to get my youngest one online fast.  My oldest, fortunately, had a very nice laptop for college, but the youngest had been using my old HP desktop to do her homework on and it ran pretty slow.  Anyway, I still have all three of these units and despite their age they seem to be going strong.

 

About five years ago I increased the RAM on both of the laptops in order for them to function faster and a few years ago I replaced their batteries, AC charging cords to replace the worn ones I had, plus the keyboard on the Toshiba.  Each year I remove the back covers and clean out any dust or fuzz that has accumulated inside, especially around the cooling fan.  I turn them off to do this and while I have them off it is also a good time to do a thorough clean up of  the keyboards and screens.  This year I did all of that plus I ordered new batteries for both laptops and a DVD rom for the Toshiba.  The average lifespan of a laptop battery is about two years and I was at three so it was time for a replacement and after dropping the Toshiba laptop recently the DVD rom could no longer open and close.

 

Recently I dug out the old desktop from storage and set it up in the second bedroom upstairs.  In fact, I have made a little change of plans and set it up on the desk it used to be set up on, which is now very pink.  I started blogging on that desktop way back when and it is loaded with posts and pictures as well as pictures from when my girls were little and several of our dearly departed kitties.  I need to get those off of their and I want to do a little bit of experimenting to see if I would use a desktop again for projects and my writing.

 

Although my current equipment seems to work very well it is getting old and I need to start thinking about what I want to replace it with.  I'm not sure yet.  I like the convenience of a laptop, but I also like the performance of a desktop and with the new mini desktop units it makes them much more practical.  Fortunately I do have the luxury of time to decide, not to mention plenty of backup options so nothing will need to be done with a sense of urgency.

 

I also set up a new printer this month.  Our other printer works perfectly fine, however it is more than ten years old, probably closer to fifteen truth be told, and they no longer make ink cartridges for it.  It won't accept anything but the originals and it knows if the cartridge is a refill or a generic (nice job HP 😉) and it won't work so once I ran out of ink this time I was pretty much forced to give it up.  Too bad, I really hate to send a perfectly good functioning piece of equipment to the landfill, but that's the way the printer racket works.

 

Computers are a necessary evil, I'm afraid, at least for me.  All you need is to have your internet go down for a few days (that happened last month) to realize just how heavily reliant we are on these suckers and the internet.  That being said, I really do enjoy them and all that they have to offer me.  I love to sit and tinker on a computer and mess around.  I find these computers are a great resource for my creativity, planning and goal setting, data collecting, pretty much everything and I much prefer them to using my phone.  It is also a great source of entertainment for me.  Youtube anyone?