Horse sense economics 101.12

There has never been a better time to buy a laptop than now. Prices are plummeting as the laptop/netbook market exhibits apprehension that the tablets, novelty of the year, are going to eat their lunch. This is a very active season for all consumer tech. Maybe you're giving or getting one or more new tech toys yourself. I hope so. What a fantastic array of gadgets there is to choose from!

As we approach the giftiness and big consumer technology discounts of late December a word of (very) hard won caution: Do not, if you can help it, acquire more than one new piece of technology at a time. Stabilize one before adding another. There is a reasonable expectation of downtime installing/activating/configuring any new piece of technology. If you put more than one piece of hardware or software into your constellation of personal technology at a time, and something goes glitchooie, it's a much harder job to figure out who the culprit is without uninstalling everything and starting all over. Not a fun proposition when your patience needle hits the red zone. (I love Laura Nyro's line "I've got a lot of patience, baby; that's a lot of patience to lose")

Hardware comes with software and software occasionally comes with hardware conflicts. You can usually work it all out with enough fiddling. But if you need more than one tech support call every other day, it's just too much.

I've known a lot of tech support people in my time. Treat them well, it's hard on them too.

Labels: Horse Sense Economics