Orange Juice and Netbooks

The Great Orange Juice Debacle of ASA is not a total catastrophe. I thought I had lost my netbook when my bottle of orange juice exploded in my bag during my flight home from the conference. It didn't even turn on! Not even after opening it up, cleaning it out, and letting it dry! However, I have been able to save some very important parts of it. Namely - the hard drive. I bought an enclosure for the hard drive off eBay for a very reasonable $6, screwed my hard drive into the case, and voila - external hard drive. I plugged it into my new netbook, and it worked! No data lost. Also, I was able to retrieve my RAM from the old netbook and use it to upgrade the new one. Now I have two external hard drives, a collection of RAM, and the skeleton of an orange-juicy netbook that may or may not still have some salvageable parts.

Now even if I had lost my data, it wouldn't have been too devastating. I would have lost my syllabi for my two courses I'm teaching this fall, and I would have lost some pictures. All stuff from the week before my trip. I back up my data pretty regularly. But still.

Lessons learned:

1. Never EVER put your computer and your drink in the same bag.
2. Orange juice kills computers.
3. Back up your data regularly.
4. In addition to regularly backing up your hard drive (or at the least, your important documents), it is also a good idea to do a special backup every time you prepare to go on a journey with your computer.
5. Lifeless computers can be harvested for parts. Even if those parts got orange juice on them.
6. Never give up hope.
7. eBay is your friend. Seriously. I tried Best Buy first, and all they had were $60 enclosure "kits." I don't even know what that means. It's a case and a cord. Seriously. Mine came with screws and a screwdriver, too. Free shipping.