(2024-05-22)

Old technology
---------------------------------------------------------------------

The problem with using old computers is that once they break it can
be more difficult to repair them than to replace them.

Last night my laptop broke, its hard drive appears to have died.

Its had a good life, being a hand-me-down from my parents, who had it
for several years (the processor is an i3-3220U, so its probably
around 12 years old in total)

I put Fedora on it to use as a machine that I could take wherever I
need, as once the family are asleep, I sit in an armchair with it on
my lap without the squeaky wheels of my office chair and continue
whatever I was doing without disturbing anyone.

This has come in hand especially during my studies (I'm a student
with The Open University in the UK, studying Physics) as assignments
seem to take much longer than the time they state they should (which
probably says more about how rusty I am with any sort of education,
rather than the university) and I tend to have to work into the night
to keep up with all my responsibilities as a carer as well as working
a full-time job in cybersecurity.

I've searched online and it seems I have to remove the whole back
cover just to replace the drive, but luckily I have a whole bunch of
2.5 inch drives gathering dust. Or maybe an SSD will give it a new
lease of life to cope with modern day linux distributions.

In other news, we have decided that homeschooling is the way forward
for my son. The high school "experience" has not been great for him
as a mixture of teachers ignorant to his needs and always being the
odd one out amongst his peers have pushed him to the point of hating
school. Being the tech nerd I am, I have been put in charge of his
learning with regards to IT, Science, Mathematics and Physical
Education, which at this point means we are both doing the NHS
Couch-to-5K plan to build a baseline that is sorely lacking in both
of us.

Hopefully my next phlog wont take so long to appear.

---------------------------------------------------------------------