R.I.P. My PC

The PC is dead, long live the PC! Ok, I am being flippant but if I wasn't then I would be crying. After owning PC's for over 20 years I am, for the very first time, having to deal with one that is dying. I blame the recession, but spending too much time as an unpaid Open Source software contributor has also taken its toll. When my UPS died, I was unable to afford a new one. So, when a storm took out the power and this damaged my PC power supply, which then damaged the fans and the resulting heat build-up damaged the hard drive... well, you get the picture!

As a result, I have not been around online much. This has impacted on my ability to contribute to both Mambo and WordPress, and I have been unable to work on my blog. I never did get around to setting up my blog to handle posting from my mobile.

A kind friend on Twitter is coming to my rescue and I will soon be back in action. In the meantime, I have been writing some articles on paper (gasp! when did my handwriting become so bad?) and will be blogging again as soon as I have a reliable computer to use.

Of course, if anyone wants to donate a new PC to me, this would be very welcome

Update

Sadly, the donated notebook did not eventuate and I am still trying to find a way to purchase a new computer. The one that died is an HP Compaq Presario 64x2 Dual Core, only three years old, but a model that was only released for Australia and New Zealand. Like most HP desktops, it uses proprietary sizes which make swapping in non-HP parts extremely difficult. It's also using a motherboard that was pretty well obsolete at the time it was released, with a very old chipset. While some components, such as my DVD-writer, are recoverable most are damaged beyond reuse and even the case cannot be reused for another build.

So ends my tale of woe. I will be back blogging and contributing to OSS as soon as I can get the hardware together. (Soon, I hope!)

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