It’s never fun when your computer doesn’t break. It’s also worse when you’re limited with repairing options. Even with this era of the world of technology, people still don’t fully understand computers without really being in the field. I don’t necessarily blame people for this. we can’t be good on everything, but it does become a disadvantage when trying to solve these tech problems especially with it more involved in our lives. I’m going to explain a story of one of my siblings.
She currently is going to school to get her PHD in exercise physiology. She works really hard and spends majority of her day in the lab, researching, and studying to meet the demands of achieving this. Throw in her personal, social, and dog she takes care of, you can imagine the little time there is when problems show up.
Randomly, she calls me saying her Dell XPS 13 wouldn’t work. Specifically, her M.2 SSD wasn’t being detected. As you can imagine, she is upset and furious and rightfully so. Her laptop is only about a year old. She only started using it for 6 months given her previous job provided her a work laptop so she bought this in advance to prepare for school along with the deals.
She had very little options considering her warranty ended 1 month exactly from the day this happened. She was going to have to pay out of pocket for the repair, but she didn’t trust Dell. I decided to assist and bought a new SSD M.2. I had to wait for her to come home for the holidays so i can take a real look at it.
Miraculously, It didn’t require a new SSD. I noticed her BIOS version was old, once i flashed to the latest version, her original drive showed up.
Takeaway
So why do i mention this story. Well for a few reasons
- To the best of ability and general interest, learn about technology even if it’s your primary job. I compare it to learning skills for if you’re alone in the wilderness or putting on a spare tire. These type of skills come in handy when you least expect it and when the opportunity presents itself, it can make the difference in getting out of that horrible situation. I argue this more important than my examples given technology is all around us everyday in society
- Help out when you can. I know we all have busy lives going on, but if someone needs help with something, reach out and attempt. Any attempt is better than nothing and maybe that person can help you one day. Even with learning with technology, it doesn’t mean you’ll know what to do. I’m glad the skills i’ve learned were put to use and solve someone’s problems.
- Tech is everywhere. I’ve totally repeated myself with this but that’s because it’s important to acknowledge. To put in perspective, my sister needed that laptop for school, but she also had personal data. Not to mention, nowadays that without the device, you can seem out of the loop on things or on how to do tasks because it can be done there. I would say about 10 or so years ago, this wouldn’t be as much of the case, but once smartphones came into the mix, so many things are now possible on these devices that not having them is a disadvantage. A real wake up call for sure.