EIEF... and dead laptops...

[Nick]

In a couple of weeks' time I'm heading up to Edinburgh for the EIEF, the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival to cover all the stuff that'll be happening up there. (You can see what EIEF is all about here. ).

So today, whilst taking a break from writing up a review of Madagascar, I started sorting out my kit for the trip. Us journos like to travle as pretty much self-sufficient entities, technology wise, because it's never definite what'll be available at the event itself.

A lappy is essential, even though many press rooms have PCs laid on for the press, its an utter pain trying to remember URLs and log in details for the site, so it's just easier to bung your own lappy on the network and go from there.

Also, the PCs very rarely have any software on them other than a basic Windows install and Word... so having a laptop with all the software you need, all your URLs, passwords, imaging software, word processing, FTP and all that makes life so much easier.

A few bits of my kit have changed since I last used my lappy, so I booted it up today to throw it on my network and update it with new software and just basically make sure its ready to roll...

Except this lappy is going nowhere... the screen has decided to die on me completely with the display fubarred in the worst way possible... it looks like a slightly out of tune tv picture with something displaying on the screen but I'm not sure what...

One panic call to the boss later and it seems that a very friendly company have stepped into the breach and sorted out a loan for me... If I don;t have a lappy there's not really much point in going as the amount I have booked in is simply phenomenal and there's no way I'd be able to cover it all unless I have my own computer to work from during the day and then write up more stuff on during the evening.

Here's hoping the guys come through!

[Lee H]

LOL Nick what is it with you and "hardware" dying on you.

Are you some sort of walking static magnet or what ?

I KNOW how essential your laptop is to your work - you we're on it all the time @ ACON5 posting snippets. Fingers crossed you'll get this sorted asap matey

[Dougal]

Hope you can get the gear in time, there were a few of us looking at going to EIEF from Teeside Uni but most of us couldn't get there easily, shames its in Edinburgh