Why Are There So Many Wires?!

It’s times like these that I wish I had a desk.

My bed is and has for many years been the closest thing to a desk I have, but sometimes it’s far from an ideal setup. When I was trying to troubleshoot my netbook after a botched Ubuntu installation (more on that some other time), switching back and forth between it and my laptop was cumbersome, at best. At times like that, I long for a large, stable, and well ventilated surface to place my equipment on, as well as a computer chair that allows my to move back and forth between workspaces. Tonight is another one of these situations.

While my laptop sits upon my… well… lap, I’m surrounded by no fewer than six cords, almost all of which are plugged into the laptop itself. After using the same 60GB backup hard drive for almost four years, I’ve finally upgraded to a 500GB drive from Western Digital. As excited as I am to finally give my backup some breathing room, I’m not so thrilled about all the cords involved in the transfer from one drive to another. Two wires per hard drive, three of which plug straight into the computer while the forth powers the new 500GB drive. The fifth cord is my laptop’s own power source. The sixth and final cord is my headphones; I’m listening to the latest TWiT podcast while I do all this backup work.

I can’t wait for the day that I can do my backups wirelessly using Bluetooth, WiFi, or something else. I’m glad I backup my computer – it’s something everyone should do – but all the cord clutter is a pain.

Thank goodness I use a wireless mouse. More wires is the last thing I need.

Wireless backup? I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Jeff.