Dean Christakos« Pedestrian Traffic Report for Boston | Main | Reflections on July 4th »
January 31, 2005
Best... laptop case... ever
After the laptop I was issued at work had a tragic hard drive crash, I sent off my hard drive to DriveSavers, who, for a price equivalent to the cost of about 25 Travelstar 40GB notebook hard drives, will extract your otherwise inaccessible data. Considering that half the contents of my thesis work were on there, there wasn't a question. Besides, you get your data express-mailed to you in a bunch of nicely packaged DVDs!
Of course, this caused me to ask some soul-searching questions, the first of which was "why don't I back up my data?" and the next being, "why have I been lugging around a huge, five and a half pound, 3-year-old IBM T22 laptop?" The answer to the last question turned out to be, "because it was a free loan from the MIT Media Laboratory." The idea of a "desktop replacement" that does everything your home computer could do, as the T22 is, sounds really attractive when you're looking for a laptop computer. However, once you've carried such a thing back and forth for a few years, the concept loses its appeal. Suddenly, that 15" screen no longer seems so necessary. Realizing that I could afford my own laptop from a later era for about $1000 that would be far more gentle to my back, I managed to track down a refurbished IBM X31 laptop which weighs about 3 pounds, features built-in support for bluetooth and firewire, and is far more conducive to traveling around giving job talks with. I have to give a big shout-out to Eritech for providing a good selection of inexpensive refurbished laptops.
The next thing on my mind was, of course, what neat gadgets and accessories to get for it. I came across the Viper XS laptop case. It is truly a thing of wonder, constructed of ballistic nylon and form fitted for a 12" laptop. It is also on back order for the next two and a half months and will set you back about $40, plus shipping. Still, I must have it.
On the other hand, if you have money to burn the Matias black aluminum "Laptop Armor" looks pretty appealing as well, assuming you have $150 to spare.
Update: A reader informs me of a similar, but more easily available, laptop sleeve from SFBags.com, also made of foam and ballistic nylon and in a large variety of sizes to fit whatever laptop you may own. Consider yourself enlightened.
Posted by Dean at January 31, 2005 11:46 PM
Comments
My Travelstar 40GB notebook hard drive died on me this week. I had made a backup -- in November.
Fortunately, most of my December work was on another machine, so really I just lost January. I did some good stuff then, so it bites, but perhaps not $2.5k worth. It'll take me ~$500 of time to re-do it from what I remember, but I'm not sure who to bill it to...
Posted by: de at February 3, 2005 11:50 AM
Different people all over the world take the home loans from different creditors, because that's easy.
Posted by: BrookeFox30 at July 1, 2010 11:21 AM