Jimmy

The serial-to-USB adapter that I use to connect my weather station to my laptop has caused two Blue Screens of Death in the last few weeks, reminding me that when I installed the adapter Windows XP yelled at me and told me it wasn’t a supported device (or something along those lines) and that it might damage my computer. I’ve been using this thing without problems for several years, but I think two BSOD in as many weeks shouldn’t be ignored, even if I’m considering getting a new computer soon and have all my files backed up. Four weeks to the beginning of the new school year is not the time to be taking chances with one’s computer when it’s not a sure thing that I’d be able to replace it ASAP. Plus there’d be a small lose of data even if I did nightly backups.

I’m kind of annoyed at myself for my somewhat cavalier attitude about computers. I tend to think that I’ll be able to pull them back from the brink of disaster, or at least not lose any data if I do have a serious error. And so far I’ve been lucky, but this is the fourth time I’ve gotten a BSOD/”stop error” on this laptop in the less than 3 years that I’ve owned it. And second in the last month. I have the feeling that if things go wrong on this computer, they’ll go really, really wrong. And it kinda seems that things are getting close to that point.

I push my computers way too hard in general. Right now, just having started back up after the crash, I already have half a dozen high-memory programs open: the aforementioned weather station program, which pulls data from my weather station every 5 minutes; FireFox with a dozen tabs open, ThunderBird with 3 e-mail accounts that automatically check for new messages anywhere between every 3 minutes and every 15 minutes; and BitTorrent, which is currently downloading at a speed of 35k/second and pushing the data out onto my external hard drive. And this is a low amount of stuff open for me. I also use this machine for hours and hours every day.

I think it’s time I seriously think about my computing needs and make sure I get not just more memory than “normal”, but a faster processor and better OS, as well. I’m totally going to get a MacBook when I next upgrade, and I need to figure out some way to get Linux running on something newer than 7 years old so I can actually learn how to use it, since I think it may be the answer to a lot of my issues.

For now I’ve just ordered a new serial-to-USB adapter that gets 5-stars from 21 reviewers on Amazon that should work better than my current one, and I guess I’ll make sure to keep my back-ups current and work hard to get a new computer sooner rather than later. Because if it’s just a fact of life that I need a new computer every 2.5 years, I guess that’s just that.

-jimmy

Posted in: Geeking, Uncategorized by jimmy / Tags: computers, linux, mac, windows