I previously blogged about receiving a free Google Chromebook back in December. Since it was free, I named it "Freebs". Since December, I had some good times with Freebs. I enjoyed playing around with the new ChromeOS. I took it to school to do work with. It was light and fast. A few months later, I figured out how to put Ubuntu on it, and then Freebs became a more ordinary laptop. I did a lot of tinkering around with good old Freebs. As of late, since my laptop's hinge broke, I was using Freebs full time for my summer work.
There were problems, however. Early on, the touchpad broke. My theory is that the wiring burned out. I had been using a wireless mouse, which was less than ideal. Also, although I could live with it, Freebs had a 16 GB hard drive, which is tiny for a laptop.
For my birthday, my mom gave me a new laptop. It's Dell's convertible netbook tablet. Here's a stock picture of what they look like:
Although it doesn't give the touch experience that an iPad gives, it's a good netbook and there are a couple of tasks where it's really useful to be able to turn it into a tablet. Specifically, taking "ink" notes is really useful, and reading articles on the Internet in tablet mode is a distinctly more pleasant experience than reading them on a laptop. It eventually became clear that this device was going to be my go-to take to school/browse the Internet quickly laptop. Since that was what Freebs was, he suddenly had no purpose in my great tower of gadgets.
Logically, once I realized that I didn't need Freebs, I had to sell him. I don't need clutter and I prefer to save money. The thought of it made me sad, however. Although Freebs was just a laptop with a broken touchpad, it felt like he was a part of the family. We gave him a name and referred to him as a he. When I listed Freebs on Craiglist to sell, it felt like I was listing my loyal dog to sell because I got another younger, better dog.
It turned out that I was able to sell Freebs literally within hours of listing. I got my cash money, but I felt sad about it. There is no rational reason to feel sad about it because at the point I am at Freebs was just an inanimate object and, even worse, clutter. I still felt sad about it.
Goodbye Freebs!
 |
| Freebs on his first day, next to my larger laptop. |
There were problems, however. Early on, the touchpad broke. My theory is that the wiring burned out. I had been using a wireless mouse, which was less than ideal. Also, although I could live with it, Freebs had a 16 GB hard drive, which is tiny for a laptop.
For my birthday, my mom gave me a new laptop. It's Dell's convertible netbook tablet. Here's a stock picture of what they look like:
Although it doesn't give the touch experience that an iPad gives, it's a good netbook and there are a couple of tasks where it's really useful to be able to turn it into a tablet. Specifically, taking "ink" notes is really useful, and reading articles on the Internet in tablet mode is a distinctly more pleasant experience than reading them on a laptop. It eventually became clear that this device was going to be my go-to take to school/browse the Internet quickly laptop. Since that was what Freebs was, he suddenly had no purpose in my great tower of gadgets.
Logically, once I realized that I didn't need Freebs, I had to sell him. I don't need clutter and I prefer to save money. The thought of it made me sad, however. Although Freebs was just a laptop with a broken touchpad, it felt like he was a part of the family. We gave him a name and referred to him as a he. When I listed Freebs on Craiglist to sell, it felt like I was listing my loyal dog to sell because I got another younger, better dog.
It turned out that I was able to sell Freebs literally within hours of listing. I got my cash money, but I felt sad about it. There is no rational reason to feel sad about it because at the point I am at Freebs was just an inanimate object and, even worse, clutter. I still felt sad about it.
Goodbye Freebs!
