marko
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2011
- Messages
- 8,427
I've been an early tech adopter my whole life. Had a DARPA email account back when there was no one to email with. I spent my entire career in high tech.
But! Every once in a while--and especially this past week--I'm ready to throw my laptop in the trash, cut my cable cord, disconnect the electricity and go whole-hog off line and live in a cabin out in the woods!
Here's my tale of woe:
In the past week:
My modem started dropping its internet connection. My modem wasn't that old but after a lot of playing around, I went and dropped $200 for a new one.
Nothing...same problem. Back and forth with Comcast. Guy comes out (they charged me $40 because I installed the modem myself--don't ask! $%#&#) does some messing around and despite my strong suspicions that the problem is out on the pole, says: "It's not at the pole, but you're all set now!"
Well, that lasted two days before I had the same problem. New guy comes out, climbs the pole and says "Yup! It was all corroded!".
No problem since then. (so far...fingers crossed)
Then, our 11 year old fridge died the next day. New one will take 3 weeks to arrive so we've got a rented one sitting next to the old one. $2K plus $250 rental.
Then, my supa-dupa "ride-flat" tire goes flat. Dealers says, "well it's better for us to come tow it...don't drive on it". I had the tires insured but they only cover the one that went flat and because you can't drive on tires that are not equally worn, I need to pay for the other one! $475
Yesterday, my 5 year old Chromebook had a sudden case of the flu and the lower row of the keyboard stopped working (my log in uses those letters!). New Chromebook $200. While the re-boot went flawlessly (love Chromebook!) spent another hour getting it to talk again to my printer.
Meanwhile, independent of the internet issue, my Wink Hub that controls a lot of stuff (lights, door lock etc) went south. I cheaped out and bought a used one but because it was so old it took three days of updates to get back on line.
So!
It's not so much the cost but more the time lost getting all this stuff working. When things work, they are incredible time savers (Amazon, Google) and informative (this forum!) but when they don't work...OMG! what a PITA!
That's my rant. Thanks for reading.
I just wonder if we're just trading the time saved shopping on Amazon with time spent making it all work.
There! I just spent 30 minutes typing a note on this forum to b*tch to people I don't even know!
But! Every once in a while--and especially this past week--I'm ready to throw my laptop in the trash, cut my cable cord, disconnect the electricity and go whole-hog off line and live in a cabin out in the woods!
Here's my tale of woe:
In the past week:
My modem started dropping its internet connection. My modem wasn't that old but after a lot of playing around, I went and dropped $200 for a new one.
Nothing...same problem. Back and forth with Comcast. Guy comes out (they charged me $40 because I installed the modem myself--don't ask! $%#&#) does some messing around and despite my strong suspicions that the problem is out on the pole, says: "It's not at the pole, but you're all set now!"
Well, that lasted two days before I had the same problem. New guy comes out, climbs the pole and says "Yup! It was all corroded!".
No problem since then. (so far...fingers crossed)
Then, our 11 year old fridge died the next day. New one will take 3 weeks to arrive so we've got a rented one sitting next to the old one. $2K plus $250 rental.
Then, my supa-dupa "ride-flat" tire goes flat. Dealers says, "well it's better for us to come tow it...don't drive on it". I had the tires insured but they only cover the one that went flat and because you can't drive on tires that are not equally worn, I need to pay for the other one! $475
Yesterday, my 5 year old Chromebook had a sudden case of the flu and the lower row of the keyboard stopped working (my log in uses those letters!). New Chromebook $200. While the re-boot went flawlessly (love Chromebook!) spent another hour getting it to talk again to my printer.
Meanwhile, independent of the internet issue, my Wink Hub that controls a lot of stuff (lights, door lock etc) went south. I cheaped out and bought a used one but because it was so old it took three days of updates to get back on line.
So!
It's not so much the cost but more the time lost getting all this stuff working. When things work, they are incredible time savers (Amazon, Google) and informative (this forum!) but when they don't work...OMG! what a PITA!
That's my rant. Thanks for reading.
I just wonder if we're just trading the time saved shopping on Amazon with time spent making it all work.
There! I just spent 30 minutes typing a note on this forum to b*tch to people I don't even know!
Last edited: