Reporting Live from the Front

So this Thinkpad T41, like its predecessor, is not long for this world. Much as I like these machines in most ways, they have fatal flaw: the power connection gets loose after a year or two of daily use, becomes unreliable, and finally fails altogether. Meaning the power doesn't get to the battery, the battery doesn't charge, and the laptop doesn't go. For a while, by tilting and waggling and prayer, you can get the juice to flow again, intermittently, but the writing's on the wall.

Soldering the damn thing is possible. Someone in town here offers to do it for $150, but they emphatically decline to guarantee the result. But $150? That's halfway to a brand new ASUS eee.

I was particularly peeved when I was thinking that I'd just gotten the present machine a few months ago. But a year and half is really not so bad a run for a used laptop. They're not terribly durable. So I'm looking at cheap netbooks. Probably Linux: I've about had it with being pushed around by Mr Gates. Not only do you have to buy his damn operating system, then you also have to buy the virus protection to make up for its security flaws. A better operating system with rational security from the start and a reasonable footprint seems like a much better deal. Plus I have been not at all happy about Windows' increasingly pushy updates. I'll download things when I damn well want them, Mr Gates!

So anyway, if it falls silent here, you'll know there's been a direct hit, and I've had to scramble for cover. Then, hopefully, communications will resume from some Finnish-Taiwanese outpost in not too long a time. If anyone knows of a cheap netbook alternative that they like, let me know!