Dying hard drives on new laptops SUX

Just a few weeks before devLink, I purchased a new laptop to replace my ASUS G51JX. I ended up getting a Dell Latitude E6520. Within the first few days of getting it, the laptop had a KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE blue screen and lost sight of the hard drive. After rebooting a few times and working with Dell ProSupport, it came back up. Unfortunately, we couldn’t identify what had caused the issue. We figured it would be a one-time deal, perhaps a fluke.

Fast forward to today… so the laptop made it through devLink without showing any adversity. However, this morning, while listening to Zune, reading emails in Outlook, and chatting with my husband on Lync Communicator, the laptop decided to spontaneously throw another KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE error. Unfortunately, this BSOD doesn’t log in for some reason. I can’t recreate it, and Dell said “Dude… don’t get a Dell!” So my frustration was back. Rebooted, couldn’t see the hard drive… rebooted again and the hard drive came back just fine.

This special 512e hard drive just doesn’t like me. I think it’s a 512ew hard drive as stable as it has appeared. However, we’ll see if its replacement is any better.

After an hour and change of diagnostics with Dell ProSupport, I’m getting a new hard drive. I’m thankful for Dell ProSupport — support in English with a very knowledgeable crew. I didn’t have to deal with a script, and Todd in Nashville was great at getting me what I needed.

Why am I WAI-flagged with laptops lately?

devLINK 2011 Recap - Sadukie’s Tales, Part 4

Last day of devLINK... I started off in Open Spaces, giving John Kellar and Leandra Baker live feedback on the conference. It was great to hear how planning worked this year, and I gave them some suggestions for next year.

After giving feedback on the conference, I was off to the Mobile Smackdown! First of all, Mobile Smackdown is the brainchild of my friend Jeff Blankenburg. I’ve seen other versions of it at CodeMash and StirTrek, so I was curious to see how the devLINK version would do. Add to that I wanted to see how my friends Ben (on Android) and Sam (on Windows Phone) would fare, and I was curious to see John’s approach to iPhone. Little did I know, this was John Baker’s first time in front of a group — in my honest opinion, for the first time around, he did an amazing job. It’s one thing to present in front of a group and totally different to live code in front of a group. Ben was about one line of code away from finishing in the allotted 15-minute time period. Sam had it a bit written and just needed to run the code. John still had a feature to add. I enjoyed seeing the Mobile Smackdown and seeing the different platforms. It reminded me...

• Windows Phone — C# — This makes sense.
• Android — Java — Hey, I can read that! Maybe one day I could write it again...
• iPhone — Objective C — Um… not a chance. Reminded me sorta of my C++ days. Don’t think I’d go back along that route.

Now that I’m on my own, I can finally look into building Windows Phone apps that I’ve wanted to build for awhile. But I gotta give the Windows Phone Mobile Smackdown veterans — Samjib Basu, Jeff Blankenburg — a lot of credit. That would be nerve-wracking to be live coding in front of a group!