Computer: it lives!

I'm sitting back comfortably, with the cat sitting up on my lap and purring, dictating this note into my fully reborn little laptop.

For those of you who were not glued to the unfolding of this drama, here's the short version.

I got a TravelMate 3000, and Acer computer that has a processing speed of over 1.8 GHz and whose memory goes up to 2 gigs. And it weighs less than 3 pounds.

In short, it's perfect for me. It's light enough to haul around, and powerful enough to run my dictation software and anything else side-by-side -- and that takes doing.

It went with me to Spain and back -- twice -- without a murmur. It put up with me dragging it all over the central coast of California. It took a licking and kept on ticking.

Last fall, I made the mistake of sticking it in a backpack, and wearing the backpack to climb aboard the boat. The laptop slid out and leaped over my head into the cockpit, cracking the case and killing the hard drive.

I got referred to DriveSavers, but I couldn't possibly afford their prices -- even though, after I told them a little about myself, they cut me an incredible deal.

One friend of mine decided that she had the money and the motivation to take care of that. It took some persuading, but she talked me into accepting her help.

After a couple of tries, they succeeded in saving all my data! That was a huge relief.

Next, I had to figure out if the laptop was savable, or if I was going to have to replace it. That would mean doing without for the best part of a year, assuming there were no other major expenses.

I booted up from every possible source. I tried hacking in at the command line. I tried everything. No joy. I took my courage in both hands, got plenty of masking tape handy to trap screws with, and took the whole thing apart to check the motherboard, connections, and cards for visible damage. everything looked fine.

I finally found Serengeti Systems, a cute little hole in the wall. I sat down with the very nice owner, explained what I was doing, and asked if he had a bootable hard drive lying around. He plugged one in for me and let me at it. after the computer booted up painlessly and then went looking for all the right hardware, I bounced around like a superball. All I needed was a hard drive. Which was going to cost around a hundred bucks.

Remember, I'm on disability. It's barely enough to keep you alive. That's a lot of money to me.

I helped out another friend of mine, who decided that he had some money lying around that he could spare. It took some convincing, but he talked me into taking it.

So I got a new hard drive, twice the size of the old one, and it's the best model that supports my old technology.

Those of you who have rebuilt customized machines won't be surprised to hear that it took about two days to get everything installed and working. It was more than worth it. I am so widely and deeply content to be sitting here, working comfortably, that I'm surprised the force of my inward purring doesn't shake the boat.

The computer is network ready, of course, so it requires a name, in order to be distinguished from other computers on the network. In its previous incarnation, it was Joya, the Spanish word for gem. It still is a gem, but, after its recent adventures and with this new hard drive, it needed a new name... something bigger, something muscular... something that travels widely and can adapt to anything... something tough, but attractive...

Friends, meet Coyote. Coyote, meet my friends.