Technology Agony.
A few weeks ago I noticed that my iBook power adapter started glowing orange again. You see, the adapter is supposed to glow orange when it is charging the battery, but mine stopped doing that years ago. It’s green all the time, regardless of charge status.
Originally I thought somehow the computer/adapter were fixed, but unfortunately this marked the start of a continually frustrating greater problem. Now, if the adapter is glowing orange it actually means the adapter isn’t working and the computer is actually on battery only. There is some sort of short in either the adapter or the connector, so I have to fiddle with it constantly to keep it working.
A new power adapter would probably solve the problem… for something like $80, at least that’s how much the current one cost when the original adapter fell apart. I don’t think I’ll buy yet another one, particularly now that the design has changed and it’d be useless with a future computer. I sincerely hope that the new adapters don’t require replacement every year and a half, heh. The fact I had to replace it even once means there was a design flaw… which explains the new design… a few thousand people with busted adapters later.
Unfortunately, I really don’t use my iBook enough to justify throwing down $1100 for another one. This is mostly because I don’t have anywhere near that sort of budget anymore. My iBook has given me four good years, heh, perhaps for another $80 it’ll give me a couple more, but it is annoying slow for most things anymore. So, bleh, a new iBook is on the list, but it’s pretty low on the priorities. I’d much prefer a new desktop first… and before that the 75 gallon aquarium. Oh, and the digital SLR, that’s so far down on the priority list it’s almost invisible… lol. The new TV is invisible… I’ve lost all reason for wanting a new one, maybe someday, but priority for that is simply too low.
The desktop computer has been fine, but suddenly the multicard reader quit working. I thought it was a screwy udev update with Gentoo, but before I put too much blame on that (or wasted a crazy amount of time) I booted into Windows and to my horror and surprise it didn’t work there either. Well, that assures a hardware problem… it might just the cable, but I doubt it. I broke down and just went ahead and ordered a new one from Newegg. It’s kind of sad when you have to weigh $30 against just buying a whole new computer. I think that’s because my “high end” computer isn’t so much anymore, but *sigh* it’s still pretty good, heh.
It seems that most of my technology fund goes toward replacing broken things these days. When I moved my file server downstairs it wasn’t on an UPS, because its UPS died and I had it sharing the one for my desktop. Well, that turned into an incredibly frustrating experience… the power goes out A LOT more than I ever realized. Granted, it’s probably because of all those mcMansions built up the street…. $400,000 houses made of cardboard with well water and no yard. Of course, the RAID that I had to resync every day was a result of the other drives failing and losing data on them. Just another instance of replacing broken technology.
This like most everything is more frustrating than it needs to be.