Over a year ago Vodka knocked a glass of water over my Sony laptop. After a few hours in front of the fire the laptop dried out enough to boot up but the keyboard never worked properly again. Until I got the new Toshiba P-25 earlier this year I struggled to use that Sony with a thumping great USB keyboard. At the time of the accident I was based in Orkney and didn’t want to post the laptop to Sony for repair (although under warranty I couldn’t really expect them to fix it for gratis) so I just put up with external keyboard. Since returning to England I discovered that Sony no longer supply new keyboards for that model and second hand ones would cost between �50 and �95 +VAT + delivery from companies if and when they became available.

Last Friday I got lucky. I saw a broken model on Ebay. I contacted the seller who sold laptop spares and he offered to sell me a keyboard for �50 inclusive (the one on Ebay had been stripped). It arrived today along with a DVD-R/CD-RW that I bought from him (mine couldn’t burn CDs either) and both items were fitted in less than 15 minutes, easy-peasy.

It seems strange to have that laptop working again. But what shall I do with it now? It has been the server for my home network and could remain so although I have an old desktop (purchased in 1998) that would probably do that job as well as another desktop purchased in 2000 that would definitely do that job. Should I use it as a second, smaller laptop or should I just sell it while it has some real value still? Decisions, decisions.

Other recent Ebay purchases include a tiny Belkin wireless mouse for �20 (half the PC-World price) and a Belkin KVM switch. I’m also pursuing some SAAB parts.