Sigh...

[kayshapero]

Well, that was interesting. Accidentally spilled tea onto the keyboard of my laptop. Since the keyboard on a laptop is right on top of the rest of the computer... Anyway I think I fried my motherboard, because despite as quick and thorough a drying I could give it with towels etc., and being left off (and unplugged) overnight, it won't come up. It has now been FedExed to Dell in one of the 4 (?) boxes they sent me (perhaps they figure if I'm that much of a klutz I may need them in the future). Good thing it's not the only computer around here. Also a good thing I discovered the boxes in the morning; it rained spectacularly a couple of hours later. Come to think of it especially a good thing that I've got a really good service contract/warranty on the laptop, so all this is costing me is downtime.

I'd just finished uploading a lot of stuff (like Fred Patten's most recent APA-L zines to his website), but, alas, MY Apa-L zine had not yet been printed out, and is now sitting on my hard drive in the computer room (there are limits as to what I'm going to mail out to the service department) awaiting the return of my computer to put it back into. Fortunately it was just a page of comments; nothing I can't recreate if the gadget isn't back in time to print it out for next week.

This is the last time tea goes anywhere near that thingie.

Comments

[jeran.livejournal.com]

Suggestion: you can find little boxes that'll take a bare hard drive and connect it via USB. Mine's an i-Connect 3-in-1 Drive Adapter, Fry's should carry it or something like it. Plug the box into the drive's connector, plug in power, plug USB cord into computer, hard drive should appear as a really big removeable-media drive.

[kayshapero]

Thanks, I'll look around for one. Don't think I'll need it this time, but it sounds like a good thing to have. How expensive are they? I don't want to buy anything from Fry's that I'd have the least interest in taking back there for repairs...

[jeran.livejournal.com]

Should be in the $15-25 range. If it's not time-sensitive Newegg also stocks them. There's nothing to them to repair, thankfully. If they're DOA it's just return for refund or store credit.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about the suckage, but glad you've got a good service contract and it's not the only computer in the house.