September 16th, 2006
When I bought my laptop, I got the less expensive one, being but a poor grad student. Not that I was going to class in rags and flip-flops, but I wasn’t exactly flashing wads of mad cash at passersby while strolling down the avenue in my silk pajamas either. Now, of course, I’m living in the lap of luxury, making huge sums of money as a big-time librarian. Now I can afford to spruce up my l’il wizzybox.
Mainly, I wanted a wireless laptop. My not-as-expensive-as-most computer didn’t come with a wireless card, but a wireless laptop is a wonderful thing, especially if one is going to California for a conference on library technology. The one hitch: my computer runs on Ubuntu, and everything I know about Linux is that wireless cards don’t always work right out of the box. Not being the deftest techie on the block, I decided to act like a librarian and do some research, looking for the easiest way to go wireless, without having to do too much hardware and/or software prestidigitation. Thankfully, the good people on the Ubuntu forums pointed me to a card with a good reputation amongst the Linux set.
I still wasn’t convinced it would be easy to cut my laptop’s puppet strings. The card arrived the other day, I stuck it into the PC card slot yesterday, made sure the computer recognized the card, and this morning I tried it out at my library (where we provide free wireless to the public). Bingo! I didn’t even have to install any drivers or do any command line programming. It was about the easiest tweak I’ve done on my computer in a long time, and I’m all a’glow at just how easy it was.
Gosh, it sure is nice to have a wireless, portable computer! It beats a jetpack and a light saber any day of the week.
Hey, what’s wrong with rags and flip flops – that’s what I wear to work (you think I’m kidding…).
I’ve never seen you in person, but I have this cute image of you walking across some campus in silk pajamas, flashing a big roll o’ bills like P. Diddy.
Yep, that’s me. “J. Diddy.”