Computer Problem Solved

Well, I solved my computer problem — the expensive way.

The computer story had a twist at the end. It seems that when the repair people opened it up, they found liquid inside. That pretty much voided my warranty, although they did offer to fix it for $299 plus tax. For that price, they’d replace any component that had gotten wet, which, sadly, might include the internal hard disk. I took advantage of the offer; the computer is, after all, only two years old and still under warranty.

I should mention here that I really don’t know how liquid got inside the computer. Yes, it pretty much lived standing on one edge (taking up the minimum amount of space) on the table in the boat (near one of the few AC outlets) and yes, the table is close to a window, and yes, it did rain one day while the window was open. But it didn’t live anywhere near where the window actually opens and the table didn’t get wet at all when it rained. So the water is a mystery to me.

Of course, their $299 plus tax repair didn’t solve the problem — which, if you recall, was that I didn’t have a computer to compose the day-by-day blog posts I’d promised — because they had to send it to some Apple fix-it place, so I couldn’t have it back anytime soon. I got them to agree to ship it to my house where my house-sitter will take care of it for me.

I still had the original problem: no computer to blog with for the next five weeks. And I was already behind at least a week in my posts.

So I did what any idiot (with more money than brains?) might do: I bought a new laptop.

I bought the bottom of the line MacBook Air, stripped down to whatever it comes with. No upgrades at all. I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do with two laptops — I might make the new one a blogging/writing computer only — but getting the new one did solve the problem at hand.

So now I’m using my iPad as a hotspot to connect to the Internet and download the apps I need to resume blogging. I’ve already downloaded MarsEdit, which I’m using to write this post. I’m waiting for Affinity Photo, my photo editing app. (Preview just doesn’t cut it for me, and I refuse to pay “the Adobe tax” to use Photoshop.) The hotspot connection is brutally slow; apparently, it’ll take another 3 hours to get that app. In the meantime, I’ll get organized and start writing; with luck I’ll have a few new days’ posts for you within the next 24 hours.

Thanks for your patience.