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Thanks for reading.

11/28/04

I'm having trouble with my laptop's power cord. The laptop's a Gateway Solo, of several years' vintage, as I suppose must be obvious since when my wife needed a new battery for it in 2003 she had to buy a new laptop instead. Lately the cord jack won't stay far enough in its port to maintain the contact unless the cord's at just the angle the jack wants - right now I have the cord wrapped around the upright monitor/cover, which significantly affects the slack between the computer and the wall. Alternatively I can press the jack in the port, which of course occupies one hand constantly and so is a mightily less-than-satisfactory solution. Since the battery can't hold a charge for long any more (hence the desire to replace it) this's resulted in the poor laptop crapping out on me once or twice in the past week before I learned to strangle the monitor with the cord. (Thankfully I know enough to save my work early and often.)

And when the contact is loose, it makes a squeaking whine like a balloon losing air. I'd been hearing that for a week or two before I realized what it was symptomatic of.

Is my power cord going bad? If they don't make Solo batteries any more, am I going to be able to find a new Solo power cord? Or do I merely need to clean the contact points? But how do I do that? Thanks.

Webcomics I read mornings: Peanuts, General Protection Fault, User Friendly, Sinfest, Kevin & Kell, Real Life
Webcomics I read middays: Calvin & Hobbes, Least I Could Do, College Roommates from Hell!!!, Wapsi Square, Dandy and Company
Webcomics I read evenings: Something Positive, Irregular Comic, Count Your Sheep, Sluggy Freelance, PvP
Webcomics I read Monday-Wednesday-Fridays: Megatokyo, Reasoned Cognition, Onezumi, El Goonish Shive, Striptease, Skirting Danger, Queen of Wands, Loserz, Penny Arcade
Webcomics I read Tuesday-Thursdays: Digger, AppleGeeks, Her: Girl vs Pig, As If!, The Whovian Observer
Webcomics I read Mondays: Framed!!!, Boxjam's Doodle
See also The Belfry Comics Index, The Webcomic List, Nth Degree, Comixpedia and Websnark.

Arthuriana sources I use or recommend:
Arthurian Legend
Arthuriana - the Journal of Arthurian Studies; the website of the quarterly journal of the North American Branch of the International Arthurian Society.
The Camelot Project at the University of Rochester.
Camelot In Four Colors: A Survey of the Arthurian Legend in Comics
Mystical-WWW - The Arthurian A2Z knowledge Bank which has encyclopedically-arranged entries on the characters of the Arthurian legends.
Le Morte Darthur: Sir Thomas Malory's Book of King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table, Volume 1 and Volume 2.