Cyberspace Wilderness

Stan got swept away by a sandstorm and ended up in the digital wilderness before returning back to the cyberspace urban center. *blows dust away* This space has been abandoned for almost 3 weeks, quite a number of events have not been archived but I'll try to give a summary of what had happened for those weeks in the wilderness. It was an unexpected sequence of events and let's recount back from the day when Stan got dispatched and dismembered from the cyberspace connection in an almost torrential manner.

It was on a Tuesday when my trusty old lappie froze with yellow lines streaking across. I restarted the lappie as usual but to my horror, the screen graphics started with a distorted mess. I cannot see anything in the screen at all and at first I thought it was a virus. After analysing it in the net using the library com, it dawned upon me that it could have been the graphics card problem and true enough, the google search yielded a whole mass of complains on nVidia 84 and 86 series going haywire for all computer brands. Gosh, it's going to be costly trying to fix up that problem sinc one fix would cost at least RM300 to Rm400 plus it's not guarantee that fix will last for long. In any case, I need a quick temporary fix because the spoilage came at the worst possible time, when I need to complete my thesis within 2 weeks.

It so happens that I chance upon a rather strange and bizzare solution in YouTube for my problem. It involves using a HAIRDRYER blowing at the graphics card chip to pump it back to life. Personally, I think it's quite ridiculous but I gave it a try anyways since I have nothing to lose with such desperation. Reuben and I dismantled the entire lappie and gave the lappie the hairdryer treatment that it needed.We were laughing as we put back the parts after the hairdryer treament and to our utter shock, it DID work! LOL! The joy was short live because the graphics card got fried after 30 minutes. Then I have a DIY session to give another round of hairdryer treatment and this time it lasted for another hours before going off. I repeated the process a few times and soon, even the hairdryer treatment can't get it back on track. This calls for desperate measures and this means that a motion for a new lappie has to be initiated. I do not really have plans to get a new lappie until June just before I fly off to UK so as to ensure that I get the most updated models in the market. I had always wanted to have a lappie that can touch high-end games but I didn't expect that it had to come that early in January now.

I was hoping to get it within the second week of January so that I could at least have one week to rush finish my thesis. I ordered from Dell but to my frustration, the new lappie did not come within the second week. Getting to Dell's customer support to ask them to double up was nonsensical coz I wasted RM10 trying to call them and no one picked up the phone. I really had no choice but to go to the library to type it out or borrow some of my friends' laptop (being parasitic for the moment..lol). It was hard work travelling from place to place but not that I had lots of options available. The most wasted thing was the weekend because that could be the period in which I could make the most progress in my two thesis. As the days approach nearer to the dateline, I was kinda nervous that I won't complete it on time. Nevertheless so, I manage to receive some really important aid at the right time when Jojo's boyfriend offered to lend me his lappie for the last 3 days of the thesis, enabling me to burn the extra midnight oil to get it done since library or labs don't open overnight. I'm indeed very thankful and grateful for his help :)

I manage to complete the two thesis on last Friday, right to the death of dateline and it was a relief for me personally during the weekend after the thesis fiasco was gone. In fact, not only was the thesis was affected because of my lappie breakdown. The CF secretary work suffered a major deficiency as I had to go to library or Jonathan's room everyday to type out the memos, proposals and register and again, the lappie breakdown had to hit on the spot when I'm the busiest in the CF calendar - the Exhibition Week itself.

After the long long wait, I finally received shipment from Dell yesterday. I was anticipating it well over the weekend since I received a sms from Dell stating that I would receive my new lappie latest by the 26th which is today and then another which stated that delivery would be made earlier on the 25th. I was kinda excited on Sunday night and couldn't get to sleep and on Monday, I had difficulties concentrating in class because I'm eagerly waiting the phone call from the delivery person. However, by 2 pm, when I did not receive any call, I was kinda worried that they might have delayed it or something like that for the next few days. Then I remembered Ben telling me that his friends needed to go to the General Office to collect it and no one actually informed him that his shipment had arrived. True enough, the lappie was there and I happily carried it back to my room. I only had the opportunity to test it on yesterday late night since there's Equity class and captain ball. Haha..the testing period will continue today and few others to see how the programmes would run.

This is fantastic. With a new lappie at hand, Stan's blog is back to life again and he shall go forth to continue with his conquest of cyberspace xD