Computer Problems

My laptop is only a year & a half old, but a couple of days ago, a few of my computer keys suddenly stopped working. The B, N, spacebar, & the arrow keys all kaput. I asked one of my students who knows a lot about computers if she knew what the problem might be. She did a quick search online & found that this is a common problem with Dell laptops. Hm.

We went to the computer market together to see what they could do for me. One guy wanted to install a new keyboard on my laptop for 450 RMB (about US $65). Although the keys would have been stamped with Chinese characters, which I thought would have been really cool, it was a bit expensive.

The next vendor offered an external keyboard for 180 RMB (about US $25). That was a much better price, but the keyboard was huge - the standard desktop size. It would take the laptop out of my laptop. Besides, it was probably fake.

I decided to take a look across the street at Walmart to see if they had any better options. There I found an external keyboard just the right size to fit over the existing keyboard on my laptop for 59 RMB (about US $8). Score!