It’s no secret that my 5-year old laptop died recently; the cries of anguish could be heard a mile away. What to do?
Step 1: Boot the system off Fedora on a data-stick, recover the lost files, and move on.
To do that required the mechanical workaround of duct-taping the power supply, which wouldn’t stay seated, to the chassis because the battery wouldn’t hold a charge, and laying the laptop on a squishy bag of ice to keep it cool enough long enough to do the off-loading. Happily, the tired old hard drive coughed up the goods, then sputtered one last time and said adieu.
Step 2: Buy a new laptop, which is far easier said than done if you’ve been out of the market for a while. Too many choices, too many price ranges, and too many metrics to consider.
To my great luck, however, my old HP died just days prior to CEDA’s Design Automation Futures Workshop. Right there on the Mentor campus in Fremont in late October, therefore, I had the opportunity to do some critical [secret] market research: What are the brightest minds in technology using these days by way of laptops?
