Laments Over A Thing

Ah, the end of the day...what was a melancholy day reflecting on things and people gone by. Not a bad day per se...just one to think back. I was lamenting the loss of a friend, and the leaving of a colleague and, later in the day, the impending loss of a thing. I'll start with The Thing.

The Thing in this case is a laptop...yes, a computer...my work computer no less. Yeah, I know...a computer for God's sake.

This is going to get geeky...at some points very geeky by some folks standards. So, if you don't care for geeky tech talk skip this one...or read it and see how much makes sense. Maybe I explained it well enough to work! Maybe.

It started when I started with T-Mobile, on 26 December, 2006. I get a laptop within a couple of days. It takes some time to get admin access so I can install software...I have to be able to install software because I support software, at least in that role. It's common among the app support crowd.

It also takes time to get wireless so I can carry my laptop around the office without needing a network cable...and time to get VPN access so I can access the systems I support from home or elsewhere. Again, all common stuff for app support folks, but at the time required a lot of time and work to get set up. We call that a "process problem"...it has been largely addressed since then, though not perfectly.

Along the way I hear of folks who get loaner laptops when their laptop dies...and they cannot install software because they don't have admin on the loaner. VPN might work or might not. Fixing the broken unit takes too long. This all adds up to a nightmare for someone whose job relies on this one tool. The result is that we become Very Protective of our laptops and desktops, and hoard spares for the few teams under some senior manager with the ability to have at least one local admin on each who can grant local admin to the borrower.

Confused? Yes. You should be. It was a mess. A process mess, or lack of process mess. Nightmare == laptop or primary desktop dies.

I'm self-sufficient for the most part...I've pulled laptops and even subnotebooks and now even cell phones apart to their bones and put them back together again. I figure I can manage in the face of such challenges.

Sure enough, some months after I start, laptop starts to die. I figure out it's a problem with the power module inside the laptop...beyond reasonable repair. I don't want a nightmare, so I go hunting for a replacement.

We have one somewhere...I find it. Rather than reload all my stuff I simply swap the hard drives. Start up new laptop with old hard drive...same model and all.

The computer names at T-Mo are taken from the asset tag, a little bar-coded label on the lid of the laptop or on the case of the computer. Well, when I swapped drives I ended up with a laptop with one label and another name...and no, I cannot rename it even with admin because it will break certain critical bits of software. I figure if anyone asks I'll beg forgiveness...the folks who matter (boss, co-workers) know, so that's all that really matters...I guess.

You can see why The Loaner Nightmare can drive lots of choices, but I also have a hangup on something akin to continuity. I like that I carried the same drive forward, with all my stuff on it, to a new laptop. I've done this at home with our home system since 1997. It was a Windows 3.1 system on MS-DOS 6.2, which I upgraded to Windows95. Along the way I either move the drive into a newer, faster computer, or copy the whole drive to a new, larger drive. Over the years I have moved us through a few boxes and a few hard drives, as well as upgrading to WindowsME and finally Windows XP Pro. I actually have files and programs on there from the late 1990s.

I take a certain perverse pride in carrying this "drive image" forward from an old 386 on maybe a 20MB or 40MB drive to a P4-something on a 400MB drive. I still look on it with some pride, but I think it has really come to a point where it will not move forward. I imagine we'll buy a Windows 7 desktop sometime, or I'll convert the computer into a Linux server and let our personal laptops use it as a resource.

The laptop, however...it has a future. Well, had. Laptop 2 goes kapoop...I just made that word up, based I'm sure on the Germanic kaput, but better describing my feelings about it. Off I go hunting for a replacement.

Now, 1 and 2 were Dell Latitude D600 laptops. Not bad little machines, but old when I started and on the way out. Now, in 2008, D600s are out, so I turn up a D610. It's cool...it has bluetooth, so I could use it to play music through my snazzy stereo bluetooth headset that I also use with my phone. Downside...bad bad downside...the max screen resolution is 1024x768! Why did we ever buy a laptop with such a stupid old display??? BT is cool but not that cool. On to the next find, another D610 without bluetooth but with a display supporting 1400x1050 pixels.

Hmmm...I've pulled these things apart before...maybe...yep, that's what I'll do. I swap the good screen to the laptop body with the Bluetooth and, voila!, Frankenlaptop, my own creation from one body, another screen, and my precious hard drive. I am happy.

The D610s were on the outs by then, too, so again, the mismatch of the system name to the label on the lid to the serial number on the base won't really matter. Plus I have by then scrounged yet another power supply and more RAM and two extra batteries, and enlisted one of my former laptops as a battery charger at home...I am flush with freedom from having the batteries and so on. Living the dream...in a desperately poor sense of "the dream".

Now it's simply time to retire the D610. I have filled the 80GB drive too full, and the thing is slow, but it runs and runs and runs. The Word, however, is down...it goes.

Now I have this nice new HP EliteBook 6930p, a dock with its own power supply, a screen running at 1400x900, and no Bluetooth. This matters now because I tether my laptop to my phone for internet access on the road. Now that I've rooted my G1 I've gotten it to wirelessly tether via Bluetooth, saving tons of battery live over the WiFi sharing on the phone while getting our fast 3G speed. In a very real sense I now rely on my laptop's Bluetooth for my internet more than anything. I can work from the vanpool as we roll homeward, or answer support calls from my slower 2G Dash while surfing via my 3G G1. No Bluetooth is a setback.

Still, I am settling into the new laptop. Getting admin was easy now that our processes are improved...just tap the local "ITA" (person who maintains the desktops and laptops) and, poof, local admin.

Now I want to relegate my D610 to desktop duty at work, something I can use over a slow connection since the apps I support now are very very network-chatty. Better to remote-desktop to the D610 at my desk and run my apps from there; better and safer. It's also my own built-in backup laptop, just in case the new one turns sour. The Word, however, is that the D610 goes, once and for all, no options allowed. Damn.

So, it has served me rather well, but now it's time to move on. No more spare batteries (for now) or erstwhile battery chargers (great use for the cheap laptop with the busted screen), or angled docking assembly that lifts the laptop level with my second screen.

So, that was my last lament. It matters far less than the other two, but in many ways it has a big an impact on my daily life these days...well, sorta. The people matter more, even if I use the laptop all the time, and I do men all the time.

Sayonara, wabelhlp0232677. It's been a great run.