Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler OT- Computer insurance!

Here is one that I NEVER thought of!
My sister's computer recently contracted a virus/Spyware issue that killed it dead.
She remembered this morning that she had added "Computer Protection" to her homeowner's insurance policy, mostly to cover the pounding that her kids might subject it to, for pennies.
She called them and they are indeed going to cover her (not yet known if they are going to pay replacement cost or a depreciated amount on what her machine is now worth- I'm guessing the later) on the computer.
I was astonished!
I had never thought of doing this, and it makes tremendous sense.
Anyone else out there ever think of doing this, or trying to collect on a machine that was lost due to infection?

I did the SP2 thingy update about 5 days ago, set up my computer for automatic updates and bam, my computer went nutzo. The screen went blank and there was a siren sound coming from that complex box. My comp tech son came over, shook his head and said he thought the power source fried. He found that it also had a virus. I think the virus was the SP2. He reformatted my hard drive. But, the graphic card seems to be acting up. I'm just guessing, but SP2 is probably satanic.

That's crazy!

All of our computers, HT, and CD/DVD in the house are insured for replacement costs, not a depriciated value of the original cost. And yes, it is not cost prohibitve at all, just need to be able to document the origianl costs, and also making a inventory video is a good idea. All are covered for any sort of damage, even a dummy spilling coffee. Lot less stress about having good surge protection and so on.

I am reminded of an ole' IT saying -

"Bugs enter through open Windows"

To get off on a little rant here...

As a worker in the industry, I've really started to get the feeling that computers are just too damn difficult for the lay person who does not want to invest all of their time in reading about them and tinkering. Even those of us in IT get our heads spun around every couple of weeks by some new security thing or repair process we should be using. What the hell is going on? Why do people keep buying these things and putting up with this crap? To pull out the old (inaccurate) car analogy, would you put up with a car that needed its oil changed every week?

Would you buy a piece of audio equipment with known flaws that the manufacturer says will get fixed with the next upgrade or model? That's what people do with software, every day.

What gives?

...end rant.

I'm sure there's a Mac pitch in there somewhere....

we the public are beta testers. but in defense of ms and software companys there is no standard for hardware or other software for the company's to conform to so they have to do the best they can and fix errors on the fly.

I was trying really really hard not to do the Mac pitch... because the Mac has its own problems, although they tend to be less catastrophic than Windows.

Plus it really pisses people off.

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Plus it really pisses people off

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naw, not really.. i have been tuning you out for months!!



bigjohn

Personal Computers had been around for about 20-25 years,
Combustions engine's cars started in the late 1800’s/

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Would you put up with a car that needed its oil changed every week?

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In early 1900’s people put up with a car much worst things that changing the oil every week.
So , be patient , PCs (hardware/software) will get better , its just that the technology is in its infancy.

But at that point, most people didn't own a car. These days, it seems like about 60%-70% of people own computers, and I'd bet 90% use them at work.

Valid point you've got, but...

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I was trying really really hard not to do the Mac pitch... because the Mac has its own problems, although they tend to be less catastrophic than Windows.

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After fighting with an SDI interface on an OS/X O/SX? Mac 10 - the Linux thing for the past 3 months, and watching the cool little colour wheel spin, and spin and spin (ooh, a lockup!)... methinks that the Apple guys are stuck in glass houses these days, too. Nothing like a dual processor G5 that keeps crapping out, and it being shuffled off to the side and replaced with a blue & white G3 under 9.2.1 or something(?) that just works.

You'll excuse my vagueness. If it's got a fruit on the case, that's up to one of the editors to figure out... they do that Mac-Mind-Meld thing where they sense what is hurting their computer's id and respond to it.

Bren R.

Yeah, sounds like there was something wrong there. Granted, I don't do video support, but it shouldn't be crapping out like that. Otherwise they wouldn't be used so much in the industry!

Well, from what I've heard from the guys that use Macs for editing... and I'm paraphrasing here:

"OS/X sucks wookiee c**k!"

Luckily I've only ever used character generators based on Windows platforms... (NT 3.51, NT 4.0 and XP Pro) and they've all been rock solid. Of course, I/O and data rates are a fraction of what's necessary for broadcast video.

Bren R.

Boy, you don't pull the punches, do you, Bren?
I'm curious, but I'm not going to ask, about specs and software. I don't need more work in my off time...

Honest to god... last time we were in doing an edit for corporate :30, I was running footage logs and the editor was doing his thing... all of a sudden I see the little spinny color wheel and heard a stream of expletives... the only part I remember 'cause I burst out laughing was "(blankity blanking) OS/X sucks wookiee c**k!"

I have to give the guy the nod, he's been cutting on Macs since FCP 0.0001, so I'll have to defer to his hardware knowledge. When it comes to Macs, I'm a user. I learn what I need to for basic log, capture and playback and leave the technical and real editing to the editors.

All I can tell you is it's a G5 running OS/X and since I signed a requisition for the extra RAM, I know it's got 7GB. Other than that, nothing I could tell you anyway.

Bren R.

Well, that about covers it. Huh. I wonder what's going on. That should be fast enough...

Hey Bren,

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Luckily I've only ever used character generators based on Windows platforms

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Didya ever use any of the Amiga based video tools?

WAY long ago, I was a hardware design engineer at Commodore working on the Amiga. A lot of Amigas ended up in the video production world.

Beth,
I was a wee lad at the time, but my mother used to be the lead graphic designer for Commodore magazine. Now that building complex is QVC's corporate headquarters... But, yes so we had most models of Commodore/Amiga computers pass through our livingroom starting with the Commodore 64. Anytime I mention those computers people tend to look at me like I'm speaking in tongues. But they were nice machines for their time.

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Didya ever use any of the Amiga based video tools?

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Yes, mainly the Video Toaster. I still have dreams about Kiki Stockhammer.

Though during those days, the Amiga was pretty good at CG but computer based editing was still a nightmare compared to A-B.

Bren R.

Kiki is quite the character...