The Tale of My Trusty Old Laptop and the Lessons It Taught Me
Tags: devjournal, programming, learning, watercooler
Published: 2023-09-01 18:45:00

My old laptop, the "Lenovo Thinkpad X220," had a mishap three weeks ago when it suffered a power surge. This laptop, equipped with a 329GB hard drive, which I diligently backed up to Terabox, MEGA, and a few personal servers (not mine, you know what I mean, wink!), boasted 8GB of RAM, but didn't have any flashy extras. It was a standard, unremarkable laptop. Yet, this unassuming device was my lifeline, supporting my small family through my programming endeavors. I had purchased it for 2.3 million IDR, approximately 151.80 USD, in used condition. After just five months of use, its battery had given up the ghost, and in my current residence, power outages occurred a staggering 5-10 times a day (imagine that!). My trusty old laptop was feeling the strain.

![The Dark Setup](https://i.imgur.com/W9eD3Lp.jpg)

However, it was from these limitations that I gained friends and invaluable lessons, as necessity sparked my creativity. But I wasn't ready to accept this fate just yet! Thankfully, on one fateful day, March 13, 2023, I encountered someone who believed that hard work and appreciation for creativity are treasures for every human being. That someone was @mkubdev, a friend who consistently supported everything I did, no matter what.

![GitHub Sponsors](https://i.imgur.com/eKARPwS.png)

The electrical mishap forced me to take a break from the digital world, but not entirely. I still had my smartphone, although I used it sparingly. My child mainly used it to watch YouTube Kids, and occasionally, I utilized it for work via Termux to manage company servers and fix bugs in some of my projects. However, it wasn't as satisfying, given its limitations. Thankfully, the monthly support from GitHub Sponsors provided me with free coffee, serving as a companion to combat emptiness and solitude.

But the problems didn't stop there. I had completed over 35% of a project that I hadn't pushed to GitLab, and it hadn't been backed up yet. All that work vanished! Boom! My HDD was inaccessible and had to be formatted. What a Format! From this experience, I began to understand my lack of trust in hardware storage with inadequate resources, and my efforts to avoid saving all my projects on physical storage seemed futile. (This was me venting my frustration with a tinge of pessimism).

As a Software Freestyle Engineer living behind a storeroom filled with possessions, along with my wife and child, I persevered, albeit with some stumbling. My spirit for coding and my insatiable curiosity remained intact, keeping me on this journey.

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