Chronicles of an Expat: Me, Myself and My Asus

It is amazing how much we take today's gadgets and devices for granted. If it weren't for some bloke in the 1950s in some university saying " Hey! you know what - I can use these transistors to do calculations" and if it weren't for other bunches of eccentric geeks who managed to put a whole lot of these transistor ( 1000s of them back then , billions now) thingies on to silicon chips we wouldn't have had any of these gadgetry and technical wizardry that we use every minute of our day. Consider the amount of time a revolutionary technology usually takes to evolve from inception to maturity. For example the wheel was conceptualized and evolved over centuries of research and development. The same goes for airplanes which became what it is today over a period of 90-100 years and telephones which again have developed over a century and a half. Now, computers have done the same thing in about 3 - 4 decades! From the 1960s to 2000s computer technology has grown at a blinding pace. And one of the spinoffs of this rapid growth in computational power is the advent of smartphones and tablets. Sci-fiction novels and movies imagine worlds where robots rule man. Whether that will come to pass is anyone's guess but right now and in the near future we can be sure that gadgets of all kinds, sizes and shapes will rule over man.

That said, the plethora of smartphones, computers, and laptops available nowadays means that there is something for everybody. Customization and personalization has become king, from the hardware aspects to the software and appearance aspects and its no surprise that people of all age groups are wielding their gadgets not only for communication but also as a fashion statement. Personal expression and connection to the society on the move is now possible thanks to the stunning advances in mobile technology. Each day more and more applications are released for smartphones to enable configuration, ease of use, and users are finding ways to express themselves emotionally, professionaly and personally in a way never before possible.

But, I digress. I like to think that my first laptop is essentially an extension of myself and my personality - kind of like Harry potter's wand if you will. "The laptop choses its owner my dear boy! Not the other way around". Anyway, I bought my Asus G51-VX laptop a little less than 2 years back when I first came to the U.S to do my master's. I had been an avid gamer before then and badly wanted a gaming rig and so my first laptop was a decent gaming system. It was love at first sight for me and my laptop!. It's sleek, futuristic design with a glossy white finish and lid lights turned more than a few heads. Me and my laptop soon become practically inseparable. I did all my school work on it (while most of my friends prefer to go to the college lab) via remote computing. Despite weighing in at 8.5 pounds and measuring 15.6" I still lugged it almost everywhere. In between exams and projects I blew steam off with hour long gaming romps playing crysis, gta 4 etc etc. The HD display and decent speakers made it ideal to watch movies as well.

It astonishes me even today how uncannily similar my laptop is to me. Like me, my laptop is a wee bit short-tempered and gets heated up sometimes when running demanding applications and needs to be cooled off with a cooling pad!!. If you have been a student and have used your computer/laptop for your projects and school work then you'll agree with me when I say that the PC has a nasty way of screwing things up just when it's most important. It could be anything from a simple OS crash to the earth-shattering Blue-screen-of-death. And it always seems to happen at the worst possible time. So, I take extra care in ensuring I have the latest anti-virus software running, perform regular updates, defragment my drives and generally keep everything running smoothly if not perfectly. The spring of 2010, disaster befell my laptop as my GPU managed to conk itself out somehow. I still had a manufacturer's warranty and so, sent the laptop in for a new GPU. As always happens with these " so called latest technology", the repair process took more than 3 months. Those three months were hell for me as I had to struggle to stay connected to the world, do my projects and homework and generally felt like I had lost my right arm. Finally, ASUS service center sent my laptop back with and I felt whole again. It's been two years now and I continue to spend almost 80% of my waking time with my laptop, either at work or at home. When the time finally comes when my laptop's hardware becomes obsolete and I finally decide to sell it, I think a part of me will die.

It's a disconcerting fact that humans nowadays are more attached to gadgets than other humans, and our personalities are, in whole or in part, reflected on the gadgets we use in our day to day basis. Despite all this, technology has undoubtedly helped man ( and here's where peace activists protest that technology has only brought war and destruction) and advanced our civilization to a great extent. I would, in fact argue that all this new technology, if nothing else, has only brought people closer together. We no longer need be anxious about a relative 2000 miles away in another country when we can log on and connect with them instantly. We no longer have to stand in mile-long queues to book tickets. We can reconnect with all our old friends in an instant, network professionally, buy and sell stuff with our smart phones, and all the umpteen number of things that would never have been possible without gadgets. And this change, for once, is a welcome one.