So, I’ve had a lot of time the last couple of weeks to think about how electronics are at best somewhat problematic these days…
My issues with computers recently have not been a “It’s on a boat” problem but simply that electronics of any sort can be a real pain in the ass. Especially when the electronics are pretty much new right out of the box and under warranty.
A quick recap is that some months ago we bought a couple computers and the one I used started behaving strangely. No problem right? It’s under warranty and all I have to do is to send it back and they’ll either fix or replace it. Which they did and sent me my computer back or so I thought. I used the computer which worked and was a somewhat happy camper. A couple of days later the same issues resurfaced and we spent many many hours talking to technical support trying to sort out the problem until my computer turned into the proverbial brick and would not work at all and we finally got permission to send it back for repair or replacement.
Which is when the better half’s computer decided to do the same thing and started the death spiral mine had just encountered forcing us to jump through all of the various jumps to get be able to send it back as well.
Meanwhile I’d also just purchased a new video editing computer which arrived in the middle of all this and guess what? It arrived not working. Which puts us working on three separate warranty claims and all of the hassle that entails as well as the fact that we were forced to use our old vintage steam-powered HP laptop. Which left little time for blogging as most of our time was devoted to waiting on hold for a tech to sort out our computer apocalypse.
On the positive front we now have two new computers which (knock on wood) work and the computer company even upgraded us to more expensive and powerful units. The editing computer has been replaced but is now stuck somewhere in Jacksonville and hopefully will get here before the year’s end. Or to put it another way I’m not holding my breath.
I mention all of this partly because some of you have asked and partly because a lot of folks seem to think that buying an extra piece of electronic gear somehow will protect them because, you know, redundancy.
Sadly, redundancy only sorta/kinda works where electronics are concerned and electronics by their very nature have so many possible failure scenarios it’s a wonder that they even work at all. Anyway, it’s something to think about…
