Why You Shouldn’t Trade In Your Mobile Device
Mobile device retailers like Apple, Best Buy, Amazon & Verizon want you to recycle or trade-in your mobile devices. They even offer a good chunk of change to do so.
Bonus: Check out the terrible alien/ Michael Jackson-esque photoshopping of this woman! Good job Verizon.
It’s usually not a terrible deal, but there is one big reason why you should keep your retired mobile device:
Mobile devices break.
They are portable, small, handled often, and as a result are easy to drop.
The screens are prone to glitches and wear-out over the course of a year or two.
Replacement
When they die, you may have a warranty, and your retailer will get you a refurbished one, but it will take a few days to a few weeks.
During that time you will either have to pay for a loaner (which is usually a shitty Droid Eris or something equally crappy), or you can use your own old phone.
You will be much better off with your own phone, but you won’t have your old phone if you don’t keep it.
Giorgio Armani Unvails Designer Phone
Who called it?
Microsoft, Armani, and Samsung revealed the brand new and seriously overpriced Armani Phone (it hasn’t been given a price tag yet, but I’m sure it will cost far more than it should).
I can say with absolute certainty that I will not be purchasing this device, but you’re more than welcome to… help spend our way out of a recession.
Zombieland Slayed Me
The Academy Award for best use of a Metallica song goes to… Zombieland!
It also won the award for best celebrity cameo… but I really can’t tell you who, it would spoil far too much.
Seriously, I laughed so hard in this movie, it hurt. I’ve been out of the theaters for hours and I’m still laughing at it. When I go to work in the morning, I will be shocked if the clock strikes 9:30 and someone hasn’t made a Zombieland joke (I saw it with a number of my coworkers).
I’m calling it now: Cult classic.
The humor in this movie was brilliant and so geeky; I loved every second of it.
They don’t waste lines, they don’t waste scenes, the characters are likable, every odd joke is tied back to the characters in strangely meaningful ways (Twinkines anyone?), and it avoids all of the stupid horror clichés such as:
- The awkward, “we’re going to die sex scene”
- Picking off the cast one-by-one beginning with the funny black guy
- And my personal favorite, “oh no, it’s 2009 and my cellphone can’t get reception anywhere!” bit
Every victim in modern horror films must be on AT&T. Take that iPhone users! …with your cool phone and crappy network.
Go see Zombieland.
Microwaving Your Cellphone Could Unleash Hell
Thanks again boingboing.
Save Your Serial Numbers (Updated)
Update 1/9/10 – I’ve written a more extensive post on this subject –
http://geekwhisperin.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/record-the-serial-number-of-big-ticket-items/
I am exhausted far beyond my capacity for rational thought (which is rare even with the limited sleep I allow myself). With that in mind I am going to relay a public service announcement from regular TGW reader and fellow blogger pochp:
Keep a hardcopy of the serial number for your big ticket electronic devices (laptop, cellphone, iPod, etc). If they are stolen you are going to want to report the theft with a serial number.
The odds of retrieval aren’t great, but having the serial number can help. It would also help with an insurance claim.
pochp’s blog is called Plato on-line.
No Gadgets During Takeoff & Landing
I spent most of this past week visiting my younger brother in Arizona. On the flight back I had the great fortune to sit two seats away from an extraordinarily loud and obnoxious man. He happened to work in the same field that I do and claimed that he had great success… and oh boy was he a talker, and that’s coming from a guy who can talk your ear off. Seriously, the guy didn’t shut up until he passed out halfway through the flight.
Wave to Eddie!
His many angry and inescapable monologues which he directed at me included everything from career advice, to his wife’s “excessive spending habits” (she sitting between us… I cannot tell you how awkward that was), to how “women are destroying the workplace,” to his rage over having to turn his cellphone off during air travel.
In an effort to cope with this guy’s schmucky, misogynistic diatribes I started to write this post in my mind. He was upset that he couldn’t use his cellphone on the plane (among many other things).
If I though that he would have listened I would have explained to him that the reason portable electronics aren’t allowed during takeoff and landing is because there is a concern that they could interfere with communications systems (which are crucial during takeoff and landing). There doesn’t seem to be any conclusive studies that confirm that electronics pose a threat to communications systems, however the FAA and Congress feel that on the outside chance they can cause a problem, it is better to annoy passengers for the first 20 and last 10 minutes of a flight by making them turn everything off instead of crashing a plane and killing everyone on board.
As far as the general cellphone ban on airplanes is concerned, it seems to have more to do with a general dislike of cellphone yappers in close quarters. This issue is still up for political debate. Personally, I think there are enough annoyances on flights: the screaming baby, the guy who hasn’t bathed in a week, the kid who keeps kicking your seat, or the ass who won’t stop ranting at you. I don’t really want to add the self-important business person who can’t put down his/her phone, or the chatty teenybopper who can’t sever the connections with her BFF during a flight to the list of “people you don’t want to sit near.” But that’s just me.
To answer the question of safety, I doubt that anyone’s Nintendo DS, cellphone, iPod, or laptop will bring down an airliner. If that were the case, it probably would have already happened. Plenty of people forget to turn these devices off or they turn on in your bag or pocket. So rest easy, your phone isn’t going to make the plane crash.
For more on this, you can read WiseGeek.
Limiting Damage to Your Phone or Laptop
In the immortal words of The Tick: “Gravity is a harsh mistress.”
When using a flip phone, laptop, or any other device with a hinge, the closed position is always safest during a fall.
The more compact, closed position will almost always take a fall better than the open position. This has to do with a number of factors including:
Smaller surface area – there is less exposed that can break.
Screen exposure – it is less likely that the screen will crack if it isn’t stuck directly.
Self-reinforcement – the more compact, closed position will typically allow the devices parts to reinforce themselves a bit more.
The bottom-line - Keep your laptop or phone closed when you aren’t using it. Especially if it is in a precarious position.
This won’t necessarily save your device, but it will increase the odds of it surviving a fall.
If you drop you device in water, follow these instructions:
http://geekwhisperin.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/saving-a-drowning-cellphone/
Practice safe computing by not dropping the delicate electronics!
