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Monsoons Begin

I really thought I was dreaming last night when I heard raindrops falling on the roof. And it persisted! Those who haven't experienced dry climates might not appreciate how brutal aridity can become, at times.

But what should a person do to honor the occasion after a long drought is finally broken? Maybe the answer is in Frazer's The Golden Bough. It bothers me that I am living in a RV park surrounded by standard RV indoorsmen; the culture here encourages one to say, "So it rained last night, for the first time in six months. Big deal. What's on TV? Should we go out to eat?"

On an unrelated topic, my 2004-era laptop is having trouble starting up Windows. It seems foolish to take it to a shop: all they will do is run an anti-virus program on it, and charge $100. Does anyone -- Apple groupies excepted -- have an 11.6" netbook (no optical drive, and low power consumption) in mind, that they would recommend?

Comments

Anonymous said…
I have a Dell Latitude of that size that has performed admirably for several years. You can shop their offerings through Dell Financial Services, where computers off lease are offered.

oops... I see you want one without optical drive. Mine, an X300 has the optical drive mounted in a docking station. When I travel with it, I leave the docking station and drive behind. It weights 3lbs without the dock. This is an older model no longer available. Still I would suggest shopping there to see what they offer currently.

Tom in Kansas
heyduke50 said…
before doing anything try reformatting the hard drive and reloading everything you need - bet you get another year or two out of it
Anonymous said…
Dell finance currently offers several off lease models, D430. The Latitude models are built very solidly with good keyboards and responsive mouse pads. The D430 has a titanium metal case. While you don't want an optical drive, the drive that comes with the D430 is an external model, which you can plug in only when and if you want to use it. Extremely well built computers.

OTOH, Consumer reports two top rated net books are: Toshiba Mini NB505-N500BL, and Acer Aspire One AOD255E-13877. The Acer has the best battery life (but not that much better) and the Toshiba has a superior key board.


Happy Shopping

Tom in Kansas (Returning to Orlando soon)
Thanks for the advice heyduke50 and Tom. For years I've lusted for a low power netbook; one that wouldn't drain my RV batteries when boondocking.

Also, I would like to be able to carry it to a wi-fi spot without using a hand cart.

I'm tired of traveling only where there is Verizon coverage. I want the freedom of going anywhere I want; then take a trip into town once per week, do errands, and post a blog.
Anonymous said…
The MacBook Air is really nice. Instant boot-ups with solid state memory, weeks of standby time on one charge, and no bloatware. Plus having a metal frame, it does not squish like a lot of plastic laptops out there. It is built to last.
Anonymous, It IS a great idea to replace the hard drive by semiconductor memory. I compliment Apple for that one. Let's hope it sets a trend. My music only takes up 6 Gigabytes and the photos are 0.6 GB, so who needs big hard drives.