Laptops for Writers
Technological woes are the stuff of Greek Tragedy at the best of times, but for writers – those about to publish the first in a series while at the same time, furiously scribbling away at the second – losing connectivity is like losing a leg (I didn’t write losing an MS, not wanting to tempt the fates).
I had one of my most serious heart failure moments this morning when I plugged the USB stick I use as constant exterior storage into the port on the 17″ HP Pavilion laptop, the tiny red LED blinked once and died. The Word directory told me the port was not found. Cue serious Yogi breathing. In a real state of panic, I plugged the stick into the new Chromebook – the one I purchased when the HP decided it no longer cared to connect to the WWW. Why? Even the two compu boffins in the house can’t figure it out – seriously ,this laptop suffers from full moon madness on a daily basis.
I bought the chromebook as typing extensive mail on an Iphone is detrimental to sanity and viewing a website on that screen is just daft – Note to businesses: MOBILE! At first the Chromebook seems cool – until you try working with it as an author. I never realized how much uploading and downloading a person needs to do in order to send interior MS files and covers to formatters, designers, editors and the publisher. Running a blog and website – plug-ins, widgets – up and down loading which the Chromebook flatly refuses.
Plug in the USB but there’s nowhere to open the file. No Scrivener – it needs to be downloaded. Google wants me to run everything in its Cloud but it’s about as accessible as flying to Venus. Finally, I copied the document and pasted it into a Google Doc. Sure I can work on it (if I ever get to grips with this skewed keyboard and the depressed keys) but I can’t save it externally. I am to trust that Google will nurture my 75,000 word baby.
What now? It won’t do – I need ANOTHER machine to operate my home office. But which one. Looking around it seems the Macbook and ThinkPad are the main contenders, both rocketing in at over $1000. Are there no laptops suitable for authors that don’t bust the budget?
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