Computer Problems, Please Stand By

Not much happening here at ExpatUSA HQ. Well, actually there are, it's just that I haven't been chronicling very well. The biggest news is that my laptop died in a spectacular flame-out, and I've been struggling to pick up the pieces.

The short version is that my laptop computer (a Dell XPS, which was temperamental almost from the beginning and is now known to have inherent cooling and hardware design issues) destroyed its internal hard drive LITERALLY as I was scrambling to download everything to an external hard drive. Everything-- and I do mean everything-- from the last 3 years was basically lost. All photos of Europe, my work portfolio, bills, tax information, every document, and all the rest... gone. And the external drive? Well, despite backing it up on a semi-regular basis (but not nearly enough, natch) it was found out post-mortem that the last data it had dated from April(?!) and there was something inherently wrong with THAT as well. The good folks at Geek Squad told me that they could rescue the data from the toasted hard drive for the low low price of around $1700, then cautioned that they had zero idea of just how much they could find, but I'd be on the hook for the total no matter how large or small the recovery. Submitting the external drive for recovery will cost about $850 with the same non-guarantee of the amount of data that can be rescued. So folks... like an IT guy told me: data isn't safe until it is in 3 different places (the computer itself, external drive, and a third storage method like cloud data services). Word to the wise: don't be like me. Computers are not infallible, and the best way to approach them is to assume all will be gone in a puff of smoke.

So instead of paying in to my retirement accounts and buying a lot of Christmas gifts, more pressing concerns arose-- like getting a new computer, and salvaging the remnants of the "old" laptop. The "new" system was a relative bargain, but still more than I was wanting to pay (especially at this time of the year), and the old laptop was outfitted with a new $65 hard drive and is consigned strictly to light web surfing and entertainment duty. I simply do not trust it for anything else-- this is the computer's 3rd hard drive since 2008 (readers with good memories will remember this post from 2010). On the bright side, seeing as I work from home, I can probably get this new computer deducted from my taxes.

Regarding the old laptop, I decided to have a bit of geek fun and try out a more experimental web browser, one that wasn't a bloated pig (cough cough, Firefox) given the computer's temperament and annoying desire to destroy itself every 18 months. Into the breach, I downloaded the nerd-rific open platform Arora browser, which is really REALLY bare-bones, but just about right for the computer's current usage and second-tier status. All in all, it's an OK browser, and does almost everything that other web browsers do with a few quirks along the way (it doesn't recognize or load certain web pages about 5% of the time), but overall it's pretty good. Light and fast, plus its logo (pictured) looks like the bear is dirty dancing with the globe, so it has that going for it.

More adventures soon, including the unexpectedly long road to re-integrating back to the USA lifestyle.