Things aren't looking good for me having a laptop to do my presentation on Customizing DotText at Code Camp III. I don't own a laptop myself, as I rarely travel and I never have to work out of the office. I don't go to many conferences and the ones I do go to, my Axim PocketPC and foldup keyboard I carry in a fanny pack are more than adequate for taking notes and staying in touch. As for presentations, this is the first one I'm giving in a long, long time. The last presentation I gave was at an American Library Association regional conference in New Orleans in 1990 on the topic of Capturing User CDROM Usage Statistics using a DOS memory-resident program I wrote in Turbo Pascal.
For Code Camp I was planning on using my wife's work laptop, so on Sunday (the day after Community Server Day) I went to load-up VS.NET and my code. It was then I realized that the thing's unuseable. There’s a mouse problem where it just goes away, and for some reason--possibly her employer's network synchronization software--makes it impossible to use as it cranks and cranks away. After 3 hours of trying to get it setup I was literally screaming. (My wife was out of town for the weekend.) I emailed Thom then and said it didn’t look good, and that for the moment we were in a hold pattern circling the airport.
A friend of mine recommended rentacomputer.com, so I filled out the online form, received an email from "Darcy" with a quote of $325 to rent a laptop for a month. I emailed her back immediately and 24 hours later have received nothing. So much for ever considering rentacomputer.com again. Schmoes.
My wifey's going to see about a replacement today, but even then my confidence is not high and that I won't have time to make the laptop "developer friendly." I know I should breakdown and buy a laptop, but to use only 2 or 3 times a year? I can't justify it. Yet passing on presenting at Code Camp and elsewhere (though CC3 is my only current opportunity) because of not owning a laptop is just idiotic. Maybe I'll mosey on over to dell.com/laptops and see what's happening....