Have you had the experience that your shoes gets so close to being retired that its shoe laces keeps getting untied and you have to double knot it already? For me that is seems to always the case. And was the case for one of my shoes in the past few months. Of course that is aside from the visual indicators of the cracks or worn out soles.
So one September morning, I was running late for work. As I was hurriedly walking to work, my shoe laces got untied again. That single incident caused a string of unfortunate circumstance that still haunts me up until now. As I bend down to tie my shoe laces, I did not realized that the backpack I was carrying was partially open and out slid my powerbook over my head and hit the pavement on one of its corner. Right there and then from the sound of the Titanium hitting concrete, I was expecting considerable damage.
The impact did have visible damages, as it was dented on the upper right corner on the LCD display side and slightly damaged casing on the lower right corner on the keyboard side. But I was more concerned if it is still working. So I fired it up and I got a sigh of relief when it actually powered up and I got to log in. Since the impact was close to the cd/dvd drive, that was the next one I tested. At first, the drive could not recognize the CD I put in into it. But after ejecting and putting it back in for maybe 5 times, it started recognizing the CD. Another sigh of relief.
So as I keep on fiddling around with the powerbook, just to check if all the data are intact and it is still in working condition, I noticed a reddish horizontal line (about 15 cm from the right edge) running top to bottom of the LCD Display. Second visible damage. But at this point, I was seeing it as a minor damage owing that I was expecting something worse.
Next painful task I have to do is telling my boss about the Powerbook. With his unpredictable nature, I am not quite sure how he will react to the incident. Luckily, he was in a good mood that day and all he asked is : Is it still working? Do we have to send it for repairs?
You think that is the end of it? Not quite. As the days passed by and I continue to use the Powerbook, I noticed that more of those reddish horizontal lines on the LCD Display were showing up. Also a few that has a bluish tint in them started appearing too. Last time I counted there were like 9 of those horizontal lines running through the display. It is starting to get distracting that I actually changed my wallpaper to plain white, so as to hide them. Then, I found out that the USB port which I normally use with a mouse does not work. Fearing that it would get worse and not wanting to risk my work data, we decided to take it out of commision for repairs. Since there is no spare Mac around the office, I have to work on a PC in the interim. The only available one has a linux OS on it, but since one of my tools (Macromedia flash MX) does not have a linux version, I have to put in a Windows OS on it.
So two weeks ago, I spent two and a half days setting up Windows 2000 and transferring all my needed tools and work data into the spare PC as my work machine. And guess what, not even five minutes into successfully having set up network and internet connection, I got myself a Trojan virus. So after some more fiddling and lots of phone calls, I managed to take the trojan out. And before opening it up to the World Wide Web again, I made sure the anti virus software is properly set up. It was also suggested that I have to download 35 critical updates and the fourth service pack for Windows 2000 otherwise all these attacks would not stop. And true enough, while in the midst of downloading and installing these fixes, my anti-virus software keeps popping up a warning that “X”-worm or “Y”-virus is trying to mess up with my machine.
Right now the Powerbook has not been sent for repairs yet and despite I have some semblance of a working machine, I have this nagging feeling that my data is quite unsafe under the Windows platform. So I keep on backing it up as often as I could.
Three things got reinforced in my mind with this whole experience
1. To always bend from the knees
2. When your shoes starts to talk, listen
3. Microsoft instills paranoia
Picture of the day :
Apparently this popular alligator in Sarasota, Florida is causing a bit of a ruckus when residents discovered a knife stuck in its head. Check local6 news
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