Two weeks ago, there was a blackout in my area. I thought nothing of it, even though it was quite unusual. The power was back after one and a half hours and went off again. Finally, in the afternoon, the power was up, and I put on my computer to catch up with things I should have done. Not too long after it was on, the screen went black.
My laptop was old in today’s standard. It was almost ten years old and had gone through a lot of life preservations. I had changed the screen after I endured the grain-sized dead pixel that grew as big as a ping pong ball, which was troublesome, but I held on until all it showed was lines; the screen was dead. The hinges had become uncontrollable, and I changed that too, and the adaptor went off, so I bought a second hand. Everytime I had to carry it around, I’d treat it like a big, square egg. Family members were asked to stay away from it, and I had it stationed at home so I didn’t risk carrying it around. I knew the time was near, but I liked the laptop; it allowed me to do many things and had been with me for a long time.
After waiting for the diagnosis for a long, agonizing week, it was declared unsavable. The VGA was dead, that even if I disabled it, the voltage wasn’t enough to function. It would cost a lot without a guarantee of a better time ahead. Most likely, the power cut had fried it because it only relied on power as the battery had lost its function, which was another thing I needed to replace if I had wanted to minimize the risk in the future.
It was not a good time to acquire a new laptop, but I was left with no other choice. Since I practically hadn’t held a new gadget for a long time (my phone is almost eight now), it was eye-opening for me. Everything comes preset, but not to the user’s advantage in terms of privacy. It was scary for me to open Word for the first time, and it said that the document was automatically saved in the cloud. What? I know it’s a common practice now and call me old-fashioned, but I don’t need that, I don’t want that, and I don’t trust that, especially in Terminator era. Local is fine! I had to exercise various way to prevent it. I also had to disable and took off permissions of many other things. It took me hours because I was not familiar with the new settings. Basically, everything is allowed. It reminds me of those pre-approved insurance or pre-subscribed stuff that you have to go through the extra length to get rid of instead off signing up voluntarily.
Maybe you are not as paranoid as me, but be careful all. It’s not paranoid if they are out to get you! Hehe.
