24
My whole work setup died in a Lisbon cafe yesterday
I was finishing a client's website when my laptop screen went black and wouldn't turn back on. The power was fine, but the machine was just dead. I had to run to a local electronics store and buy a cheap Chromebook for 300 euros to meet my deadline. Has anyone else had their main gear fail while traveling and what did you do?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
thomasw482mo ago
That sounds like a nightmare scenario, having your main machine die far from home. I read a piece recently about how common this is for digital nomads. The writer suggested always carrying a backup drive with a portable operating system on it. That way you could boot up on any borrowed or cheap computer and keep working. Your quick Chromebook fix was smart, even if it hurt the wallet. The real lesson might be that our work tools are more fragile than we admit when we're on the road. Carrying a full backup plan seems less like overkill after an experience like yours.
10
simon_davis1mo ago
My laptop screen went black in a Lisbon cafe last year. Tbh I had to buy a whole new machine because my backup drive was back at the apartment. Honestly that portable OS idea is genius. I keep a tiny USB drive on my keys now with a bootable Linux setup. It cost maybe twenty bucks and saved me a huge headache when my power adapter died in Berlin.
5