What were the most valuable pieces of information that you learned from
presentations in class tonight.
Let's face it, Ron had the most obscure subject of all of the presentations in class. The holiday ads don't have Bios at low low prices and there won't ever be a Superbowl commercial extolling the latest big thing in BIOS flashing. On that level then BIOS held the most new information available. Unfortunately, there is little to take away that I can apply in the rest of my life. BIOS is so obscure that it usually does its job without making any waves, causing any problems, or even letting the user know it is there.
The one thing of value that I will take away above all others though is the following realization: there is a reason we wait fifteen seconds before restarting a malfunctioning computer. I have done this on everything from my laptop to my DVR box and never really understood why those ten to fifteen seconds made a difference. From Ron's presentation I surmised that the wait time will trigger the BIOS to do a full POST on the system components whereas there are items it might skip on a straight restart. It is always a good day when I can remove some of the voodoo surrounding the computer. Now if I can only figure out why I need to cluck like a chicken in order to get my printer to work... ... ...
As a runner up, the fact that flash drives have a limited number of read writes was a new bit of information that I have already passed onto a friend. I liken this to the unpublicized fact that Batteries have limited numbers of cycles. No one told me. (My laptop battery is at 270 cycles and 47% health. That isn't good and might explain a few abrupt shutdowns. Looks like I'll be needing to use AppleCare. Wait, does AppleCare even cover that?
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2 comments:
I enjoyed your reflection - my mom just told me she is having battery problems on her MacBook too... BIOS is rather dry - kudos to Ron. Good to hear you found educational value in the presentations. Clucking like a chicken???
Yes, Apple Care does replace batteries, I had mine replaced along with all the other things that have died on my computers. I seriously think that there is some type of voodoo curse on electronics in my house.
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