Under the hill and far away

Being thrifty is not very fashionable where I come from anymore. Protestant heritage? Check. Puritan sentiments still rampant around? Check and underscore. But that old protestant thriftiness has certainly taken a popularity hit around here this last decade.

Our repairist was shocked to be called out for fixing a five year old washing machine — it is highly unusual, she said, people just buy new ones. “This kitchen is eight years old”, said our local property agent, it will be described as total refurbishment needed if you want to sell the apartment.“ People laugh in scorn at my ancient cross country skis (five years, mostly unused, for obvious reasons).

Then again, I have to say that I only practice moderate thriftiness myself. New and shiny has its allure, especially in hi-tech. But I do think it is a virtue worth aspiring too, without taking it too far.

Most of all, it is a question of resource responsibility, lessening your footprint in the world and the negative impact your lifestyle has on others . This is also the new thrifty: Shifting your spending from resource wasting consumption to consumption of services and virtual goods.

So I try to fix things that break before I buy new ones. I try to upgrade my computers and gadgets instead of buying new ones, perhaps extending their life with a year or two. It is not very difficult putting that new hard drive into your iPod, actually, and it is a good way of learning more about the tech world. And it’s fun.

Often I get good help online on how to do these little things. So, in good spirit, I’ll jot down a few notes documenting my own experiments now and then — at least when they work, and when I’m not familiar with any other good documentation.

Last year we bought a dual-SSD EeePC 901 in Singapore. It seemed the perfect size and tech for an ultraportable, and I have to say it is way cute and lovable, too. It has been a serious attention grabber in airplanes and meetings around the world. What surprised me, however, was how much the little, square snowyboard gets used and how often it gets preference over the other laptop.

Still, it is undeniably more than a tiny bit slow. A few months ago, I upped the RAM to 2GB, which was a cheap way of getting rid of the worst lagginess, but fast it is not. And worst of all, with every Windows update, the boot SSD filled up and the computer needed some serious attention for a few hours before it recouped itself. And those Windows updates just keep coming and getting bigger. Ubuntu, you say? Not in my job.

Well, it was time to stop the misery and get a new SSD. And that was really a good idea. Now the Eee is actually fast. I am a bit awed right now.

So, to the chase: This is how I installed a new SSD without re-installing Windows:

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