I mentioned in my last post that I finally broke down and upgraded my Acer Aspire netbook from its original Linpus Lite (Linux) OS to a new Linux Mint 11. It is MUCH better (and yes, I got tkoutline to work -- just had to apt-get install the file it told me it couldn't find). But Mint also told me that I have an older and never more than 34% charged battery. Truth is, with this 3 cell battery, I don't think I ever had more than an hour before I had to plug it in. Which is pathetic, given that this computer doesn't even have a hard drive. (It uses an 8 meg SD card, which truly has always been plenty for my modest needs.)
So I noodled around on the web and found a 9 cell battery that promises 10 hours of charge. I ordered it. That will be an interesting thing, if it works. It is certainly much easier to write on the netbook, and do various other computing tasks, than it is to use an iPad.
But the point of this posting is to underscore the advantage of holding onto equipment past a few hardware cycles. Recently, I replaced my old Palm Pre smart phone battery. Originally, they cost $20-30 dollars. Now, you can get them for $2.
The 9 cell battery I just ordered retailed originally for $121. Now it goes for just under $30.
There comes a point when you don't actually NEED all of the computer equipment you have around the house, and I just might be there. On the other hand, I actually do a lot of writing, and it's good to have a backup. Or two.
But it's a lot cheaper to hang onto something till it really does die, doing the odd repair as needed, than to replace everything all the time with something new.
So I noodled around on the web and found a 9 cell battery that promises 10 hours of charge. I ordered it. That will be an interesting thing, if it works. It is certainly much easier to write on the netbook, and do various other computing tasks, than it is to use an iPad.
But the point of this posting is to underscore the advantage of holding onto equipment past a few hardware cycles. Recently, I replaced my old Palm Pre smart phone battery. Originally, they cost $20-30 dollars. Now, you can get them for $2.
The 9 cell battery I just ordered retailed originally for $121. Now it goes for just under $30.
There comes a point when you don't actually NEED all of the computer equipment you have around the house, and I just might be there. On the other hand, I actually do a lot of writing, and it's good to have a backup. Or two.
But it's a lot cheaper to hang onto something till it really does die, doing the odd repair as needed, than to replace everything all the time with something new.
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