Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Death of a Computer

So I don't have much time right now, as this is lunchtime in between our class sessions at this law program at FSU. But I wanted to be able to begin my post lamenting the impending loss of my faithful and honorable laptop. Sadly, I never named him (he's definitely a guy, since I can't have girls in my bedroom at BYU...hahaha), and so I have no name on which to bestow my grief!

On Saturday I realized that I never downloaded the correct drivers to make my Bluetooth module work properly. I decided to fix that problem. Bad idea. I couldn't remember where inside my laptop the module resides, so I began taking things out and looking around - I needed to know the make/model of the Bluetooth module in order to get the right driver. In my own defense (next to my own prosecution), I have taken many an item out of my laptop before, including my hard drive. This time, though, my hard drive did not work properly when I rebooted my computer. In fact, it didn't really work at all.

Behold the dreaded blue screen of death!
Except my dreaded blue screen didn't have half of these words on it, all the text was in the top left corner, and it only lasted approximately .7 seconds. Then the entire system restarted. If you try to load Windows in any format, Safe mode or whatever, you get the same screen: the Blue Screen of Death.

Now, the observant among you will realize that I have created this post on a computer. Indeed, I am typing this on my very own laptop. The contradiction is resolved with this: Ubuntu! My old roommate and good friend Antony directed me to the Ubuntu website where I could download the Operating System, burn it onto a CD, and then use that OS directly off of the CD in a Live Session. Basically I could throw my hard drive out and just use this CD. Unfortunately, it takes a bit longer to use than I'm used to because it's constantly reading off of the CD, and I can't make any changes that will last longer than a single restart. But for the time being, I can use the internet and type up assignments.

Speaking of which, as soon as I get some more time, I will post a sampling of some of the best assignments that I've done with this beloved machine. They will be sparse; do not fear.