December 25, 2010

Thank you Averatec 4100 for your service

5 Years ago on this day, December 24, 2005, I was a happy new owner of
my very own laptop. I had originally bought that laptop for myself to
prepare for my grand return trip to Germany that weekend, which didn't
happen until 2 months later.

The original (primary) plan was to use this laptop to assist me in my
mangaka endeavors. But I had that gut feeling inside me that leaving
the USA suddenly at that time wasn't a good idea, and my health turned
for the worst in the second night of my stay in Zurich, Switzerland.
What became of a laptop for work ended up being a laptop for
entertainment, as I proceeded to buy a bunch of DVD's while
recuperating on post in US military installations in Germany (due to
the suddent timing of the trip, I couldn't preload it with my favorite
anime).

Afterwards, the laptop saw me accomplish some amusing tasks, like
overclocking it (yes, overclocking the laptop really works), online
gaming of Delta Force BHD, more famously my fansub translation work,
and various Photoshop work, like the worst file to run on 700MB of
RAM: http://animangatron.blogspot.com/2007/10/here-heck-i-am-again-lol.html.
I had so many layers, I had to merge many of them to prevent myself of
running out of RAM lol (I eventually suffered from peeling of my gfx
adapter).

Of course, one of the best years of its' usage was this year, 2010,
which marked my return to forum going and the re-appearance of
Animesuki's mangatron.

Facts:
--Upon its official retirement in August 13, 2010, the laptop was
still fully functional (minus an Ethernet port I could have fixed, but
didn't)
--I rarely shut down the laptop during it's 5 years of service. On
average, I shut down 10 times a year MAX, which was usually less than
that (because shutting down was primarily during travel). For example,
during my fansub tenure, I shut down only twice, which was for
transport. The laptop has stayed on an average 340 days a year for 5
years!
--I only went to 1GB of RAM for a couple of months while staying at my
uncle's place in DE.
--The hard drive now serves as an external drive in an USB powered enclosure.
--Overclocking was possible from 1.6ghz to 2ghz, provided one uses
dual channel DDR400 memory.

My only regret during those 5 years, was that I was unable to
accomplish within the timeframe of my poor state of health the
original goal of this laptop's use. Let's hope I have overcome my
health problems and actually start releasing my manga project to the
world. Thanks again Averatec lappy, your services will never be
forgotten.