Yesterday was a bad day for my tech. Yes, I ran over my iPhone, and yes, I dropped my iPad Mini. My iPhone was valued at $1 at the store yet eligible for an early upgrade, and my iPad Mini was (I guess) long overdue for an upgrade (it was paid for, at least). Insurance and upgrade statuses in hand (I would recommend insurance on ANY piece of tech these days, because they cost the small fortune that you might get on the black market for several limbs and organs combined), I was led to the iPhone section. Looking for a replica of my duely departed model, I saw a display model, and I looked at the price. Comparing the prices, I looked at the new iPhone with the larger screen. I was told it would be cheaper to go with the upgrade ($85) than to go with the insurance ($100/device that did not have a good day at my hands) because they had a promotional of $200 off going on for the new iPad Mini. I’ve lost track of what version. It works with the iPencil, though, as I understand it. So, I went out, counted my pesos, used some cash and put the rest on my credit card to buy the accessories (trust me, I went big on the “you can run this over and it won’t hurt it” factor), and the total that I will end up with on my credit card statement around 01 Dec 2019 is $172 and some change. Yes, my cell phone bill is going to go up about $20/month, but I won’t have to mess with this for another two years, hopefully, and my phone, next time, will be valued at more than $1 because I will not have run it over with my truck. Miraculously, the technician was able to save all my data and transfer it over to my new iPhone so that nothing was lost…or nothing important, at least. I had my crunched iPad with me, too, so he set that up for me and told me to wait a few days, then trade that in for some credit toward paying my next bill (which will be a bit high due to all the fancy trade-up/trade-in magic that he had to do to get me the best price on accessories with going-rates, deals, and Veteran’s discounts considered). Let me say something about accessories really quick. If you are buying a $1500 computer that allows you to communicate in just about any fashion you desire, spend the extra money to make sure you get the insurance and the physical protection – I’m talking a REALLY STURDY CASE and a TEMPERED GLASS SCREEN PROTECTOR – for that thing, because you never know when you’re going to answer an unexpected text, get distracted, accidentally leave that expensive-as-new-car-smell piece of tech sitting on your vehicle, and subsequently run it over when it slides off your vehicle and under the tire when you go to move your vehicle on a nice day with the windows rolled down. It’s a rather sickening CRUNCHING SOUND, but good protection may just enable the technicians at the local phone store to transfer your precious data to another device before they have to bury it at sea (or whatever they do with things like that). Long story short, PUT SOME ARMOR ON THAT TECH OF YOURS!
So I go to set up the security features on my new iPhone and discover that now, in order to successfully access your iPhone, a thief wouldn’t just need your thumb – they’d need your whole face! Or the passcode. But I had the bizarre thought of someone having to cut off my head instead of just my thumb to carry around in order to unlock my phone and access my data or communicate with it… Yes, I’ll admit that this was in the midst of a no-good, very bad, terrible, horrible, no-good day that I didn’t want to talk about at the time, so that’s a rather macabre thought…but think about it. No, on second thought, don’t. I don’t want you cutting off my head just now. I have to figure out this new tech and get everything up and running again for the sake of, well, getting it up and running again. I don’t know why we spend our lives so attached to this tech. I didn’t grow up with this stuff, but these days, it seems essential that we be literally be “on-call” 24/7. I don’t really get it, and sometimes I just shut my tech off so that no one can reach me. After all, I think that everybody needs a little “me time”, and tech, although great, can make you lose your head!
CLIMBING 4 THE REST OF US 