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Coming to Terms with a Crash-Proof Laptop
12/6/2007
It's much easier not to. Imagine going through a 15-minute shutting-the-computer-down ritual while your wife is waiting outside in the car to pick you up. So I don't turn it off properly. If I turn it off at all, I just hold down the power button for a few seconds until it stops running. But I'm finding that I don't even do that for weeks at a time!The strangest, very unexpected consequence of all of this turns out to be the value to me inherent in having all of those programs running and all of those windows open. When I am actively engaged in writing, communicating, or learning, it's like having 200 to 300 open documents in front of me, between which I can switch nearly instantly.
That's pretty cool. Except that now my laptop, with its finely tuned 200-plus open windows, which I spent hours getting open, represents such a valuable resource that I have to treat it differently. If you have not experienced something like this yet, if I am losing you with this concept, try imagining with me a scenario using old-fashioned books and journals.
Imagine you are researching something in the graduate library on your campus. You've spent the last eight hours using the card catalogue, wandering the stacks up and down several floors of the library. You've blown dust off of the covers, scanned tables of contents, and before you on a single table are maybe 60 books and periodicals, each open to a piece of information you find useful to the research you are conducting.
Then the librarian comes along and says that it is closing time and informs you that while the library is closed that evening, someone is going to come along and re-shelve all of those books.
That's what it feels like, now, to turn my laptop off.
There have been times, during the heady decade-and-a-half of this wild Internet and information technology ride, when I can look back and see that I was enjoying something that would soon become commonplace for most technology users. I think this is one of those things that will become commonplace for all.
I don't know what to call it, it's sort of an "Instant On" for Your Outboard Memory (IOFYOM). I hate to think about the energy I am wasting, but this machine does go to sleep and wake up seamlessly as well, so I find it easy at the moment to balance the value against the energy cost and decide to keep things going.
I recall a few years ago at a conference that the president of the University of Phoenix spoke about wanting to provide its graduates with a continuously upgraded, virtual library of each of the texts and resources they had utilized while matriculating. I loved the idea then, don't know what has happened to it, but I think I'll go find out.
Meanwhile, whatever we call it, IOFYOM or whatever, I think it's a new feature, even if unintended and previously unrecognized. I'm pretty sure that in a very short time, not only are we going to have our portable Libraries of Congress that are our computers linked to the Internet, but we're also going to each of us have our library tables full of always open to the right place books, as well.
About the author: Terry Calhoun is Director of Communications and Publications for the Society
for College and University Planning (SCUP). You can contact him through CT's IT Trends forum by clicking here. View more articles by Terry Calhoun.
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