phthalombrage | (no subject)

I might be in the market for a tinier laptop, probably to be purchased at the unfortunate time of around-the-holidays, mostly so I can leave my old one at home.

My current laptop is a little over 6 pounds, 15.4 inch widescreen. It is heavy for tiny people to carry, and I don't really need all that much screen space (my desktop has a large monitor if I ever do). Its battery life is also extremely sad: less than an hour and a half, since the screen-dimming drivers only exist for Vista, which I uninstalled. I enjoy having a full-size keyboard, but if I can't get that, my hands are small, and I guess I can deal... I can always work on my desktop or in the cluster.

I'd just really, really like to have a laptop that is actually portable. I hate carrying the thing around, particularly when I ride my bike, which is every day, so I usually just leave the clunker at home. I could always actually go to the bike shop to talk to the dudes about getting a rack for above my rear wheel and some fenders to avoid backsplash, but the time draws nigh when my bike will no longer be of use, and I'll probably have to stand up on sardine-packed buses going home with a huge, protruding backpack stuffed with ponderous electronics. I also hate needing outlet access if I expect to want to use my laptop for longer than an hour.

My old laptop was heavier than this (although six pounds does superficially sound pretty light) and had a larger screen than this one (only slightly improved performance battery-wise), so this is not so bad, but I guess I need to determine my threshold for "heavy". I also under no circumstances want Vista, which should be avoidable if the laptop is tiny enough.

Other than that, I am not picky. A laptop is a traveling computer. Capabilities I require are mostly internet-based. Go online, ssh, get work done. Have some kind of word processor in which to write papers or edit Pravda?s on the fly. Nothing exorbitant. I don't use my laptop for music or movies or even pictures anymore now that all cameras I own are busted (I should probably look into getting a new camera, too), so I really don't need much more than maybe a USB port.

I also don't want to spend lots and lots of money, such as considerably over $1000, although I may be inclined to spend more if Apple actually refreshes its laptop line and has something attractive. But I'm frugal enough that this is unlikely?

But oh man, what an age this is in which I gripe about how huge my six-pound portable computer is.

Let me know, lj-friends, if you have any advice or suggestions.

Man, I haven't been using this thing nearly enough. This week I've barely even been checking my email, using internets primarily and sometimes exclusively for sshing into unix to write, debug, and generally stare at code and push around files, copy/pasting pravda submissions, retrieving problem sets, notes, deadlines and reading material on blackboard, and doing stupid online math homework.

I have survived both Wednesday and Thursday, and my dance show's opening night is two weeks from yesterday. Two weeks! It's exciting and terrifying. And we are not ready, but nobody ever is. We just need to work constantly and do our best.

Next week there are two exams, two hoffman labs, possibly two MSE lab reports due, and presumably the same load of problem sets and homework assignments, although Garrison for one may let us not do a Thermo pset on the same week as his exam (don't expect that courtesy from Salvador. He is a good lecturer and really wants us to know the material, but he is sort of flaky about posting psets and makes them and apparently exams pretty freaking hard because he's too smart to understand what it's like to be us.)

I also realized I tend to prefer to use the implied (I) syntax when I write? Which is not formally correct, but a spoken/thought sort of convention.

My life hasn't been much more than that. I get too much lettuce and peppers to cook anyway, and it took me all week to get to the UC info desk to fax a thing to Comcast to transfer the account billing to me. I've been putting my needs and small social things aside and just doing work, which, frighteningly, I don't mind all that much.

My train of thought has been uncoupled and derailed. In closing... submit to Pravda?!