My First Notebook

For years people have been trying very hard to convince me to buy a laptop or a notebook. But I have been stubborn; I preferred the old-fashioned way of working on my desktop instead. Think about it; what would I need a laptop or notebook for? I have a desktop at home, and I have another in the office. And the distance between my home to the office is only about 15 minutes away. What's the odds of me working on a laptop between those two points?

Besides the hussle of packing and tagging along my laptop, it's also a known fact that for the same price I can get double the speed on my desktop when compared to the laptop. I was also a bit concerned that it's much harder to type on the laptop, because I had the impression that the keys were smaller and closer to each other.

Then this lately, whenever I went outstation, I've been seeing people working on their laptops. And there were many instances where I've seen them connected to the internet too; for example at the airports. It struck me that I could at least update my blog while waiting for flights etc. Yeah... that would be good. In the end, I began to explore the possibility of buying my very first notebook.

I have said before, that I'm an idiot when it comes to computers. That hasn't changed very much up to now. When I made up my mind to invest in a notebook, I didn't quite know where to start. I went to Karamunsing Complex and there were tons of laptops and notebooks there. I grabbed several brochures and brought them back to the office. Going through the info in those brochures did little for me. I was just blind to all those computer terms.

After trying to investigate, and failed to get very far, I decided to seek help from my friend, Eric. Incidentally, Eric has been meaning to get a notebook himself too, but he said he's a bit pokai right now. Anyway, I told him what I need a notebook for, which was basically, well, basic stuff. He recommended something which I understood next to nothing. But I told him to make the order for me anyway. No need all those special high-tech stuffs—a plain simple one would do just fine!

And so Eric picked up the phone, made some calls and proceeded to make the order. Well, that was last Friday. I had no idea what's coming my way. This morning, my very first notebook arrived with a pricetag of RM2,500. Quite a decent-looking machine and in my opinion for the right price too. I paid up, and was given a receipt containing the following info:

ACER 2920-6A1G16Mi NOTEBOOK

- INTEL CORE 2 DUO PRECESSOR; 12.1" WXGA ACER CRYSTALBRITE;

2GB DDR 2 RAM; 160GB HDD; DVD-WUPER MULTI; 56K, BLUETOOTH;

10/100/1000 BASE T; 802.11B/G

I spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out the above cryptic information, but all I got was a grim reminder of the Crack-A-Pot clue of the Kiwanis Treasure Hunt. I am still lost up to now.

I was talking over the phone with a friend and wanted to boast a bit about my new notebook. So I mentioned some of the above features, trying very hard to behave like I knew what I was talking about. But my friend told me that those are common features found on a basic laptop or notebook these days. He told me to make full use of my notebook while I still can, because it will soon become obsolete. I refuse to believe him; I am determined to use my notebook for at least 5 years!