A Mac Wannabe

Elana Centor — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 06:20:20 -0600

I was a MAC user until 2001 and the "plan" is to get a new MAC this spring. I was trying to keep the old computer on life support until then. I still plan to get a MAC just waiting to see what new models are unveiled at MACWORLD next week :)
elana
Blogher Contributing Editor,Business&CareersFunnyBusiness

ps

landismom — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:43:51 -0600

sorry to be on of THOSE mac people, but I couldn't resist!

umm

landismom — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:42:33 -0600

I have a Mac. My computer has had like one 'sick day' in 4+ years.

That being said, I think it's a great excuse, and look forward to using it!

Temporarily out of commission

Suzanne Reisman — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:23:56 -0600

Here at Case de CUSS, computer issues crop up every once in a while. Sometimes they are not really issues at first, but then they turn out to be issues that leave a computer in several pieces. This usually (only) occurs when my husband decides to "upgrade" something, and while the fix should be simple, it goes slightly awry and takes him 40 times longer to finish than he originally anticipated. Sometimes they are very bad issues, like when the computer refused to turn on and required being replaced.

My laptop is having an "upgrade time out" right now, so your post could not have more meaning to me. It got the day (or a few, we'll see) off.

Suzanne Reisman, Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS)& Other Rants

Relapse

Elana Centor — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:26:55 -0600

So I scheduled a webex meeting this morning and tried to pull up a powerpoint..it wouldn't open. None of my documents will now open on the new computer. I
'm getting ominous messages that the files cannot be read or found.

This is not good. I'm getting cranky. I am on my way to tech support. This is so not fun.
elana
Blogher Contributing Editor,Business&CareersFunnyBusiness

Obsolete Warning

Freddie Moorer — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:00:30 -0600

Thanks Elana, cool post! Never thought of a crash as a sick day. Frankly, if my computer has a major sick day/crash (one that ties up more than a half hour), I begin looking for a new computer. I figure that is the laptop telling me on the quiet that it is getting on the obsolete side. Time to check out what is available and plan for the ineviitable.

Mercer County Community Blog

Has Your Computer Forced You To Take A Sick Day?

Elana Centor — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:35:27 -0600

When my children were young there was a day care for sick kids. It was this place where your kids could lay on cots, watch videos ,and drink juice to their hearts content.

It was the kind of place you would take your kids when they were not so ill that you would have felt like a horrid mother for abandoning them but were too sick to go to pre-school.

My kids loved it there. So did I. Evidently most moms did not. Chicken Soup for Kids did not survive.

For me, Chicken Soup for Kids was an absolute lifesaver-- this was in the days when I may have just started using email but definitely didn't have internet at home and working from home with sick kids was not easy.( it's probably not easy now but without office connectivity it really wasn't easy)

While the days of worrying whether I have to deal with a sick child are behind me, I still have to deal with unexpected bumps in work because of a sick computer.

My computer took ill sometime around 11:30 Saturday night right when I was planning to do some research for my Sunday morning blog post on Blogher.

If truth be told, I caused it. After my ancient iPod died several weeks ago I treated myself to a new iPod --the faux iPhone model. When I tried to link it to my computer I was told I had to install some additional software. Evidently some vectors didn't take to the software and the computer crashed.

I wasn't worried about losing any work. I back up my work on several vehicles -- I like to think of it as my computer's living will.

It's not as if there wasn't another computer available to me --fortunately my daughter was still home on break and I was able to use her MAC.

It's not that this was even a surprise. Last spring a Geek Squad technician confirmed the computer was having hot flashes and was terminal.

The real aggravation is the time it takes to get up and running. Between the four phone calls to Verizon to figure out why my Blackberry was only receiving sporaic emails and the various other software snafus it has taken a ton of time to get my game on.

A few years ago Yahoo! did a survey in the UK and discovered that the average computer has nine sick days a year--at that time six days were lost to spam and three days were lost because of computer viruses.

That survey was taken almost four years ago. If Yahoo! has conducted a follow-up survey they haven't gotten much publicity about it.

While computer sick days are inevitable, backing your data up, much like a flu shot can make the experience a lot less severe.

From Meryl's Notes Blog, some tips on getting up and running in record time.

I’ve had my share of crashes and fortunately such set backs don’t affect my clients. These apply to home computers, too. Here are the things I do:

* Backup data on a regular basis to an shared storage external hard drive.
* Run Belarc Advisor on occasion to stay on top of the programs I have.
* Take a screen shot of my desktop, Outlook, and any other application with lots of interface customization

The Freelance Folder also has some advice

The Big Three: What You Need To Prepare ForThere are three things that slow you down when it comes to getting back in business after an unrecoverable computer crash (or the dreaded laptop theft): 1. Replacing the computer 2. Setting up all your software and settings (again!) 3. Getting your data back on the machine.

Note to self: Pay close attention to these points:

* Keep all your CDs/DVDs in one place. If you have CDs/DVDs, keep them all together. You don’t want to be running around finding install disks (or serial numbers!) when your business is on hold. Make it easy on yourself.
* Back up every installer you download. If you download a lot of programs and utilities, save them all in a common area (that you back up, of course). This way you don’t have to go on the hunt for all of those little programs you use (that may not even be available anymore).
* Make a running list of all the tweaks you make to your system. If you like to have your software set up in a particular way, or you have a lot of plug-ins or programs that need specific information (like passwords for social bookmarking sites or cryptic usernames for FTP programs), save them somewhere - anywhere - so you won’t be left out in the cold when you have to set everything up again.

Not only may you have to take a sick day because of your computer, turns out your computer can actually be making your kids sick enough that you do have to take a sick day to take care of them. Writing in Gearlog, Jennifer "Weird Hunter" DeLeo, Associate Editor for PC Mag.com says invest in a washable keyboard and mouse.

Last February, an outbreak of the stomach flu at a Washington, D.C. elementary school left 79 students and 24 staff members sick. The cause? In a first-grade classroom, a computer mouse and keyboard tested positive for norovirus, otherwise known as the stomach flu.More recently, a school in New York City has similarly experienced an ongoing outbreak of the norovirus since last November. A reported 500 people were infected, showing up each day at emergency rooms around the city.[]"This is the first time that we have demonstrated that keyboards and computer mice can be a source of transmission of norovirus," he added. So make sure that if you or your child shares a computer, to wash your hands after using shared objects and invest in washable keyboards and mice, such as ones we've tested from Unotron and Belkin.

Image Credit:: Austin Real Estate Blog

Elana blogs about business culture at FunnyBusiness

BlogHer - Has Your Computer Forced You To Take A Sick Day? - Comments

A Mac Wannabe

ps

umm

Temporarily out of commission

Relapse

Obsolete Warning

Has Your Computer Forced You To Take A Sick Day?