Simple Snippets

Why do we make something that we hadn’t even heard of until recently so important that all our lives begin to revolve around it? Especially things like WiFi.

Until sometime back I only knew what WiFi was. I could pretty well manage without it, because I had my trusty computer with me. And with Airtel’s near impeccable internet connection I never really faced any problems.

The last year I bought my laptop. And when I installed a wireless router in my house, I realised the power of WiFi. I could sit anywhere and still be connected to the internet. I soon got used to having the internet follow me wherever I went. And then it became something I took for granted.

Then earlier this year, I realised that my laptop was getting very hot. So I went and bought those laptop cooling stands with fans underneath. Fat lot of good that did to me! In barely two days my WiFi stopped working. I couldn’t understand it. I tried everything, reinstalling the entire OS and then Jun and I even took apart the back of the laptop and tried replacing the hard disk back and all sorts of stuff!

I took the laptop to the HP service center which was more like a hospital for injured laptops We(my laptop and me) were given a number and when our turn came the engineer asked us to step inside the consultation room. He looked at me incredulously when I explained my problem to him. Impossible! he said. There’s no connection between your WiFi and the laptop cooler. To prove it to me, he switched on the laptop and there it was working beautifully, the blue light winking away at him charmingly.

See, I told you so, he said and I took the recalcitrant laptop back home. And within two days, voila, my WiFi again disappears. And this time it’s forever. The HP laptop hospital, oops, I mean the service center this time did not take it lightly. Since my 1 year warranty had expired, I would have to pay for whatever repairs they would undertake and since they assumed it was probably trouble in the motherboard, I might have to be ready to shell out at least 14 to 15k.

Horrified, I took my laptop back and I went home. I was just going to get an external network adaptor…those USB thingies that we plug into the USB slot of the computer and it makes the laptop WiFi compliant.

I was not entirely happy with that. Which reminds me again, I am never going to buy any Belkin products again. The laptop cooler was a Belkin one and the network adaptor was also a Belkin. The latter sometimes stopped working and I would have to reconfigure the entire WiFi connection again. It was tiring and one day, Azhaan saw it hanging out from the laptop and decided to push it down instead of pulling it out.  Snap! It didn’t break, but it was close to it. Now I had to hold something under the network adaptor for the points to connect and for it to catch the WiFi. Extremely tiring, let me tell you!

I gave up on my laptop then, and asked Mansoor if we could exchange laptops. He has a Sony Vaio and after a little time he agreed reluctantly.  Now, that Vaio was like a virgin laptop.

The drive wasn’t partitioned, and there was hardly any useful software in it. I liked how it looked, it was lightweight and very sleek. But it didn’t have the feel of my laptop, specially the keys which refused to fly under my fingers.

I used that laptop for about 10 days and then one day, it refused to start up. It didn’t boot and no matter what I tried, it wasn’t working. And since the drive wasn’t partitioned, everything was in C Drive and when I had to reinstall the OS, all my data got wiped out. Lucikly I had taken backups when I transferred the data from my Compaq to the Vaio.  But I lost everything that had come in between.

When the problem got resolved, I started using the laptop again, I was very irritated. Pissed off like anythign actually. All my work, my organisation, my folders…everything had to be done again.

Two days of working with the Vaio, getting the keys stuck and not being able to type as fast as I think made me decide that WiFi or not, I was going back to the Compaq. And just to show its tongue at me, the WiFi on the Compaq worked perfectly for a whole day!

Two days I worked, stuck near the modem. It wasn’t bad but I missed the mobility. Then on Friday, I went to EZone and bought a new network adaptor. It’s working fine so far. Touchwood.

See what I meant? We get ourselves used to all this unnecessary stuff and then we can’t live without it!!