I have chosen on this day to speak, fondly of my soon to be departed EEEpc 701 netbook. You see this venerable example of its breed is not long for this world. The poor dear has in the last few days developed several symptoms which point to a not very sudden demise. In fact it was only on the evening of Saturday the 4th that my poor beloved netbook developed what can only be described as a nasty death rattle. So with its consignment to computer Valhalla assured in the near future, the time has come to pay my respects to this, the greatest of my electronic game-day players.
Yes this is the colour and model of my netbook. (Image via http://dailytechdiva.com/my-daily-tech-jessica/ )
I still remember the day that my netbook arrived in the post. It had taken me 12 weeks to save and another weeks wait after ordering for that moment. But it had been so worth the wait. In it’s surprisingly small white box waited the best piece of bad technology I have ever owned. Which is saying something when you consider I once owned an Atari 5200. I very carefully opened the box and inside, resplendent in hot pink and white lay my EEEpc 701. Without even switching it on, I fell totally in love with its miniscule size and equally tiny weight.
Less than ten minutes later that netbook won first blood, when a sharp piece of soldering inside it cut into my knuckle as I fitted the second stick of ram. That was when I knew our future held many battles of willpower, where the most stubborn would be the victor. How right I was.
You see this was back in the day when netbooks only came loaded with Linux. The operating system I loathe most of all, even more than Apple OS or Windows, Linux represents everything I hate about computing. It’s clunky, badly realised and so completely user-unfriendly as to be almost unusable for the uninitiated. Needless to say at that point in time I was most definitely one of the uninitiated. That said in time and through sheer pig-headedness I grew to be proficient with Linux, though I will never like it. But even so, to this day my sickly netbook and I have toe-to-toe battles, caused purely by that most hellish of mankind’s creations Linux.
Yet despite these ups and downs, my netbook and I grew to have an extraordinarily productive relationship. To date, between blogs, articles, four drafts of one whole novel, one-quarter of its sequel and miscellaneous other pieces of writing, together we have churned out a minimum of a half million words. That of course is without counting emails and the innumerable posts on Facebook.
On its tiny seven-inch screen I have watched dozens of episodes of the Angry Video Game Nerd, trawled the mucky streets of 4chan and spoken for hours with friends on Skype.
Yes my netbook has been my link to the outside world when my health has prevented me from leaving home for days and occasionally weeks on end. It has been my release from boredom in Airport lounges and even my MP3 player when my real MP3 player has simply given up and died, mid train journey.
All this for just over €200 almost five years ago, five years of heavy use.
Unfortunately though, my netbooks solid state hard drive has started to fail, the screen flickers, the voice from its speakers is roughened with age and the “m” and “k” keys only work when they feel like it. It’s almost time for my netbook to be brought out behind the wood shed, so I can put a deer-slug through its processor, releasing it from its current state of misery.
But today friends I take this opportunity to say a fond and loving farewell to my fellow adventurer in my forays into literature, while it is still alive and striving still to kick my ass, with its hateful operating system. My netbook I raise a glass to you, you have been a worthy companion and occasionally worthy enemy. I will miss you now that I am forced to replace you in the coming weeks. But for the time being I will still love using you, even if you are occasionally spitting up digital pus and blood while you sit on my lap.
My Random Ruminations. 