[sf-lug] zareason advice about laptops

[jim]

   lately i've become worried about my two-to-three year old 
zareason laptop and sent email to zareason asking if they 
could help me pick something from their current line as a 
replacement. earl malmrose replied with some very helpful 
information: 

"Thanks for checking in with us. Your laptop should have a good amount
of life left in it. Something simple like a dead keyboard can easily
(and affordably) be replaced. The primary weak spot on almost all
laptops is the screen hinge. Keep an eye on that.

"Another weak spot long-term is the hard drive. Fortunately most
failures are gradual. If you have an up-to-date Ubuntu, the Disk
Utility is really good at monitoring the hard drive health. When the
hard drive is near failure, it will notify you. Don't ignore the
warnings if they pop up.

"And finally, backup backup backup. I swear by DropBox. Put all your
important files in the DropBox folder, then whenever you connect to
the Internet, it syncs/backups everything in the DropBox folder. No
manual effort. Automatic. That's my kind of system. 2 to 3 GB of
storage is free, or you can upgrade to 50 GB of storage for $10/mo. It
even stores old versions/deleted files/etc. that can easily be
retrieved like a month later.

"SD cards and flash drives have virtually no wear levelling features.
Don't depend on them lasting with frequent writes. Go ahead and use
them for weekly or monthly backups.

"--Earl Malmrose  www.zareason.com

"We also have some forums started at  zareason.com/forums 
You can post questions there." 

JS: I'm using ubuntu 10.04; I didn't bother looking at 
the System > Administration > Disk Utility until after 
reading earl's email. Wow! I like it!