Well my LCD monitor de-rezzed for the last time, I whispered to myself', "I need to take it apart to see what's wrong". There was a loud out cry, "No disassembly!?!, Johnny 5 is alive!!!"
A technician gets no respect in his own lab. I called the maker (HP), they grilled me according to their script. I kept telling them I am a certified technician, but they had to make sure I was grilled on both sides. Finally I got agreement that my LCD monitor was faulty. Then I proceeded to ask about the two circuit boards on the inside. The power board seemed OK but I wasn't getting a picture so I suspected the video board. Oh man, I could hear them thinking, "red alert, red alert, the user opened the case!" I asked the question simply, "Is it possible to purchase a new video control board for my LCD monitor?" It is a yes or no question, right? They insisted I just buy a new monitor. Dudes, that's very not green of you. Two or three emails later I got the "no way" response.
Come on, I am not talking about fixing a broken board, just swapping an old board with a working replacement. I have faced this in other areas like oven and washing machine repairs. There are certain consumer level repairs and then stuff so technologically complex and life threatening a credentialed specialist is required just to get the parts. The install is simple but you must understand the whole system so that if something goes wrong you know what to do. Gad, I'm so strained I need to degauss myself.
Taking the monitor apart I find the numbers and search the net. You know, it's cheaper to just find the same but used LCD monitor on ebay than find parts to fix the one I got. God forbid I learn something to keep what I own working. So I recycle the old monitor and they either trash it or test and reuse and swap out the parts. Gee, I can do that!
A techie gets no respect in his own lab!
Speaking of labs, I cleaned out my bookshelf, looks barren now. I got rid of old Win95, NT, Autocad 11, Office 95 books and others. The old Linux stuff I kept, lots of it still applies even though todays Linux is ten times better. I think that is a truism that MS totally changes to improve. Linux gets better but is essentially the same. It's the modular design of course. I can even get an up-to-date Linux with an older GUI if I wanted to retro. Right from the beginning Linux info was posted on the net. And that is where you will find it today. So the drive for eReaders for digital books and documents will well serve the Linux community. And that's a wrap for today, eWord up!
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