March 12, 2021
Dear Everyone:
Everyone should change their passwords on a
regular basis; like, once every month.
But, with 149 at last count, even I don’t try
to change them all. I just
do the 20 or so that I consider the most important.
Like online banking, email accounts, and the pharmacies; and the
computers, of course.
At last count, I have five computers, two
tablets, one cell phone, and a partridge in a pear tree.
However, two of the laptop computers have been relegated to the
second bedroom, also known as the Really Big Closet, because they are
more than two years old.
These two oldest laptops, Petruchio and
Sebastian, are basically retired.
But every time I change my password on the current laptops, I
charge up the older ones and change the passwords on them, so all the
computers are linked with the “official” password at Microsoft (aka The
Mothership).
I also run any upgrades that may have come up
since the previous month.
This is because you never know when you might need to press a retired
laptop back into service for some emergency.
And an emergency situation is not one in which you want to find
multiple “mandatory” upgrades running in your way.
I remember one time when I was about to leave
for an appointment with the City Clerk in San Ramon, back when I was
still “working” as a freelance Records Manager.
I decided to take one last look at my presentation before
leaving; and, as I was shutting the computer down, it announced that it
had to run an upgrade with “Do Not Shut Your Computer Off” messages
threatening who knew what dire consequences if I did.
I couldn’t even send the Clerk an email to warn
that I might be a bit late because the computer was busy
not-shutting-down-just-yet.
I did manage to phone her on my cell phone.
By that time, the computer was finished.
When I turned it on at our meeting, it
immediately started processing the newest upgrade, prompting the Clerk’s
assistant to blurt out; “She
was telling the truth!”
Well, of course.
Generally speaking, computers really aren’t
designed to last more than about two years.
After that, the operating system has been upgraded so many times
that it’s better to just start over with a new one.
Also, after two years things begin to break down.
The hard drive starts to develop quirks.
Or the wireless transceiver goes out with (sometimes) a minor
puff of smoke, after which the computer can no longer communicate with
the modem and the rest of the outside world.
This is what happened to “Jeannie’s “preferred”
laptop, the one still using Windows 7, which she refused to replace
because she didn’t want to have to learn a “new” keyboard.
So, after about two years, I replace a laptop
with a new one, relegating the older one to the Really Big Closet.
In contrast to which, “Jeannie” still hasn’t unpacked the laptop
she bought months ago to replace the Windows 7 machine that can’t
communicate with the rest of the world anymore.
She currently works on the old machine, then copies files to the
“old, new” machine so she can email them to clients and upload them to
“the cloud”. Because that’s
all so much easier than beginning to use the “new, new” one before it
becomes outdated.
For myself, eventually I take the oldest
laptop(s) to Best Buy, where they accept just about any electronic
product for recycling.
Naturally, I clean it up first.
I delete all documents as soon as I transfer
them to the newer machine. I
also uninstall some software, like the antivirus application and MS
Office so that they can be registered as no longer on that machine and
the license transferred to the new one.
So, taking an old laptop to the recycling
“center” is usually fairly easy.
However. In case you
haven’t noticed, there’s a Pandemic going on.
For quite a while, Best Buy had stopped accepting older machines,
just in case they contained “bugs” of the non-electronic type.
And, each month, I dragged the oldest laptops
into the kitchen, set them up on the counter and changed the password
and ran any “mandatory” upgrades.
All, just in case.
Until last week, when I finally took Petruchio and Sebastian to Best Buy
and bid them a fond farewell.
Technically, I won’t need to replace one of the
current three until next summer, when its second “birthday” arrives.
Unless I just can’t wait to try a new one.
Love, as always,
Pete
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