Entry 2443, on 2026-05-26 at 13:05:17 (Rating 1, Computers)
Well, after many years of using computers I have finally done something which might be described as kind of dumb. I was working on some tricky computer issues with a pile of computers, keyboards, and other paraphernalia on my desk, while drinking a cup of tea. Do you see where this is going already? Yes, the tea ended up in the computer, because I sat it on top of a disk dock which had a cover on top which tilted and spilled the tea directly into my main laptop's keyboard.
So the first thing I did was shut down the computer and tip it upside down to drain as much out as possible. In fact, I shut it down while it was upside down, which was a challenge in itself. I left it in a warm spot overnight, then was delighted to see it start the next day. But when I went to log in, it would not accept my password.
Of course, the typed password is not shown on the screen, so it is hard to tell what might be happening, so I tried logging in with a different user name and noticed while typing the name (which was displayed) that I was not getting the characters I thought. In fact I was getting the special characters you get when typing with the option key down, so instead of "w" I got the Greek sigma!
At least this was progress: I knew the option key was jammed (probably electrically rather than mechanically) so I worked on that, but it still insisted that key was down! So I plugged in an external keyboard but you can only do that after logging in, for security reasons (otherwise anyone could plug a device in and maybe steal your data).
Luckily after some persistence I did eventually log in - for some reason the option key was released again - and ran a full backup. Of course, most of my stuff is stored in the cloud as well as on the local disk, and I had run a local backup a few weeks back, but I still wanted to make sure I had everything. During this time the stubborn option key problem returned, and I noticed a few other issues as well. Also, once a computer is water damaged it does tend to get worse over time, so I had to replace my trusty machine.
It cost me $600 in insurance excess and an official inspection fee, but I now have a brand new M5 Pro based MacBook Pro 16 inch (worth over $5000) to replace the old M1 Pro machine. And while the two machines are equivalent models, there has some very obvious progress made in the 5 years between the M1 and M5. The old machine was fast, but there were a few places where it lagged just for a second, but even that is not acceptable to a true computer geek like me! The new one is noticeably faster, and there is no lag anywhere. It really is awesome.
So while the older machine was still working well and had been incredibly reliable for almost 5 years, the new one really is amazing. It has 18 (yes, you heard that right) CPU cores and 20 GPU cores. This is on a laptop with "all day" battery life so it's an awesome feat of engineering getting that performance and efficiency at the same time.
I usually re-build new computers from scratch when I get them, instead of just bulk moving the old data to the new. I had over 500 apps on the previous machine, and to be honest, there probably at least 100 where I had forgotten what they even did. So I just installed apps as I needed them and currently have just 120 on the new one. Maybe the best thing is that after one week I still haven't installed any Microsoft programs, because I just don't need them. I probably will install Office soon though, just to support the poor suckers who still use it!
So I have spent hours getting this laptop to a point where it does what I need, including system enhancements like multiple clipboards, fast launching apps, and doing quick calculations, all of which are provided by my favourite system enhancement app: Launchbar. I also have an app called Fastscripts which allows be to run tasks by pressing key combinations, and iStat Menus which shows various graphs (CPU use, memory use, etc) in the menu bar.
The biggest challenge was probably getting my web development environment working again, because I had to install Apache, PHP, and MySQL and get them all configured correctly. But again this gave me the chance to tidy up some old issues which had crept into the previous install. Now web pages sometimes load 10 to 20 times faster than previously, and some of my timers for checking my code speed are running in tenths of microseconds!
Many people don't care about the speed and efficiency I have been talking about here, but when you use a computer as much as I do it is important. The computer is like a part of my thoughts and if it doesn't do what i want instantly my "brilliant ideas" are sometimes interrupted and I think "now, what was I just about to do?"
During the switchover period I used a laptop from about 12 years back. It was the highest perfomance Mac laptop available at the time, and has 8 Intel i7 cores. But doing an AI enhanced resize of photos in my favourite graphics app on that machine was tedious. It took almost a minute, and I usually just cancelled it. On the new machine it just takes a second or two, and even more impressively, when I look at those CPU meters in the menu bar I mentioned earlier, the system is running at about 10% of its total capacity!
So there has been some stress and cost involved in switching, but it is worth it. I feel kind of bad about destroying the old machine, because my computers are sort of like my friends (I think that way about my cars too: how sad is that!) and I feel like I murdered it, but hey, ces't la vie!
Comment 1 (9535) by DM on 2026-05-26 at 18:36:10:
PS: note to yourself, no drinks near my computers!
Comment 2 (9536) by Pat on 2026-05-27 at 12:29:36:
Very interesting vignette Owen!! And a little insight (to me) into your brain workings too, and though computers don't obsess me quite so much, I'm curious about most everything, and gobsmacked about the lunatic advances in the things (as I recall fondly my Mac Classic from about 1993). I apply it to bikes similarly, and they are even better as you get on the road and enter another dimension - physical, mental, and - believe it or not - some kind of 'spiritual' (in between dodging homicidal co-inhabitants of the planet and evident halfwittery on the planet). Funny, you also 'get' the car thing, as in macro machines vs micro machines - it's awesome, cheers mate Pat
Comment 3 (9538) by OJB on 2026-05-27 at 18:59:12:
Yes, I try to appreciate many different things, not just computers. I am also a "car person", although I never got into bikes. Have ridden bikes (nothing serious) a few times and did enjoy it. I can see where the "spiritual" dimension comes from!
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