Giving up the laptop?
For the last day and a bit (by the time you read this, ending yesterday), I've been without my laptop. Those who know me know I tens to spend a lot of time in front of that keyboard, so this is a brief summary of experiences.
Now, for background, its not unconsidered timing. A friend needed to edit some video in final cut, and I I've on my laptop. I spent a good portion of the day in meetings, having given it over at about midnight last night, so the first 8 hours were fine - I went home and slept. Checking email, RSS And twitter on my iPhone. This is different to most considered laptop-missing scenarios, as my laptop is just elsewhere, not broken or lost. And there's nothing I can do/pay/beg to get it back faster (although it'd be back in about half an hour if I asked). Which feels like a safety net and may explain why I've not gone crazy :) . Although if I find the spammer who caused a load of bounces to my inbox which I deleted from my iphone, I might have crazy might be mitigating circumstances...
While I do most of my stuff in 2 screen sessions, its still quite a surprise how much other stuff I do in different places. Having switched to a mac from unix, and never really actively used a windows machine thefew times I have, I had a load of xterms in cygwin. Work was interesting; just realising how customise my mac setup is after 4 years, and how utterly awkward windows can be when you're not used to it as the environment. But email, RSS, twitter, even writing a decent sized blog post was fine from my Phone (although a better mobile site from Blogger would be good).
But the main thing isn't technical. When I left my friend my laptop, she commented that she'd not do the same with hers. My reply, somewhat facetiously, but with a serious underlying point, was that I'll be fine, and if not, then I should learn how. Which is true. Getting home from dinner, my first impulse was to reach for the laptop and check my mail - the same thing I've done forever (well, 13 years). Waking up this morning, I went to open the laptop after turning on the kettle as normal. I found that I can handle just having my phone. Some video/audio based things need more than I have, but its capable for a few days, or easy to work around if it was permanent.
But, over breakfast, rather than reading web pages and not achieving much, I read a bit more of a book (Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Discipline), and had time for yoga. That's a good thing that never happens normally.
One thing hasn't changed, I still forgot to eat dinner as I was writing this. Maybe I haven't learnt how to cope after all.
--
Sent from my iPhone :)
Now, for background, its not unconsidered timing. A friend needed to edit some video in final cut, and I I've on my laptop. I spent a good portion of the day in meetings, having given it over at about midnight last night, so the first 8 hours were fine - I went home and slept. Checking email, RSS And twitter on my iPhone. This is different to most considered laptop-missing scenarios, as my laptop is just elsewhere, not broken or lost. And there's nothing I can do/pay/beg to get it back faster (although it'd be back in about half an hour if I asked). Which feels like a safety net and may explain why I've not gone crazy :) . Although if I find the spammer who caused a load of bounces to my inbox which I deleted from my iphone, I might have crazy might be mitigating circumstances...
While I do most of my stuff in 2 screen sessions, its still quite a surprise how much other stuff I do in different places. Having switched to a mac from unix, and never really actively used a windows machine thefew times I have, I had a load of xterms in cygwin. Work was interesting; just realising how customise my mac setup is after 4 years, and how utterly awkward windows can be when you're not used to it as the environment. But email, RSS, twitter, even writing a decent sized blog post was fine from my Phone (although a better mobile site from Blogger would be good).
But the main thing isn't technical. When I left my friend my laptop, she commented that she'd not do the same with hers. My reply, somewhat facetiously, but with a serious underlying point, was that I'll be fine, and if not, then I should learn how. Which is true. Getting home from dinner, my first impulse was to reach for the laptop and check my mail - the same thing I've done forever (well, 13 years). Waking up this morning, I went to open the laptop after turning on the kettle as normal. I found that I can handle just having my phone. Some video/audio based things need more than I have, but its capable for a few days, or easy to work around if it was permanent.
But, over breakfast, rather than reading web pages and not achieving much, I read a bit more of a book (Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Discipline), and had time for yoga. That's a good thing that never happens normally.
One thing hasn't changed, I still forgot to eat dinner as I was writing this. Maybe I haven't learnt how to cope after all.
--
Sent from my iPhone :)
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