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A mystery....
Sep. 1st, 2009 12:58 amLast year, around Thanksgiving, my laptop (in a backpack with a number of accessories) disappeared. Since I bring it to at least three different workplaces regularly, for several days I thought I might have left it at "the other office". After a few go-rounds of this, I concluded that no, the laptop was well and truly lost. I acquired a new-used, cheap, slow, small-screen laptop to keep me mobile, and life went on.
Today as I pull out of my driveway I spot a backpack out on the curb in front of my neighbor's house. Having just missed another Craiglist curb alert, I decided to take a closer look. "Hmmm... this bag looks AWFULLY familiar!". Open it up, and there's my laptop inside! I have no idea where it went or how it got there. I knocked at my neighbor's door and asked if she knew anything about it, but she was at a loss. That neighbor DOES have a daughter who I believe is NOT the type to go stealing things like this, so I'm at a bit of a loss. There were things missing from the bag -- pretty much all the little bits and wires and cables. The bag contained only the laptop, an external DVD burner, the laptop's A/C adapter, and a small first-aid kit that I KNOW I hadn't put in there. Weird!
The power supply for the DVD burner is missing too, which at this point renders it a high-tech brick. I'll see about getting a replacement, though I fear that the cost will be competitive with a new burner.
I did boot up the laptop (while studiously avoiding connecting it to any networks) and everything seems to be there. The CMOS was confoosed since the battery ran down, but once I straightened that up it booted no problem. I poked around to see if maybe there had been any activity since its disappearance. Based on file modification times, apparently the system had not been run since November 29, 2008, so I don't think it was returned to me for the purpose of spreading malware or anything like that. Still, I think I'll keep it off the net and back up any critical files, then wipe it and do a fresh OS install...
Today as I pull out of my driveway I spot a backpack out on the curb in front of my neighbor's house. Having just missed another Craiglist curb alert, I decided to take a closer look. "Hmmm... this bag looks AWFULLY familiar!". Open it up, and there's my laptop inside! I have no idea where it went or how it got there. I knocked at my neighbor's door and asked if she knew anything about it, but she was at a loss. That neighbor DOES have a daughter who I believe is NOT the type to go stealing things like this, so I'm at a bit of a loss. There were things missing from the bag -- pretty much all the little bits and wires and cables. The bag contained only the laptop, an external DVD burner, the laptop's A/C adapter, and a small first-aid kit that I KNOW I hadn't put in there. Weird!
The power supply for the DVD burner is missing too, which at this point renders it a high-tech brick. I'll see about getting a replacement, though I fear that the cost will be competitive with a new burner.
I did boot up the laptop (while studiously avoiding connecting it to any networks) and everything seems to be there. The CMOS was confoosed since the battery ran down, but once I straightened that up it booted no problem. I poked around to see if maybe there had been any activity since its disappearance. Based on file modification times, apparently the system had not been run since November 29, 2008, so I don't think it was returned to me for the purpose of spreading malware or anything like that. Still, I think I'll keep it off the net and back up any critical files, then wipe it and do a fresh OS install...
