June 22

It's been my week for technology accomplishments.

My old laptop died back in March, and has since been replaced. Fortunately, because of my somewhat-anal backup regimen, I didn't lose anything when the computer croaked (although it helped that it gave some warning before it went). Now, my 500Gb external hard drive -- my main backup -- is nearly full. I don't have $100 bucks to buy another replacement drive, so I've been sweating my backups.

I took the chance that my old laptop's failure hadn't damaged its hard disk drive and ponied up $13 for an external hard drive enclosure from Micro Center. After removing the hard drive from the laptop, I carefully put it away, picked up my enclosure, and headed to work, where I started the installation. Five short minutes later (there was a lot of small screws to screw and unscrew, or it wouldn't have taken that long), my hard drive was securely installed and working.

The hard drive is only 160Gb, but it's more portable than the other one. The space available will hold me until I'm able to buy another 500Gb drive (or perhaps go larger).

Meanwhile, I'm going to feel smug for days, having figured out this solution -- and implemented it -- all on my own.

173/365 -