Hello everyone, Brother Allen here.
There’s a thunderstorm here so I turned off our desktop PC and switched to a laptop, powered by Windows 10 OS with an Intel Dual-Core Celeron processor and 2 GB of RAM. If you’ll look for ASUS X453S, you’ll see the specs. Last year, I asked my superiors to buy me the cheapest ASUS laptop. I saw X453S in Lazada worth 13,000 PhP (approx. $260). But when I asked the Brother responsible in buying my laptop 8 months after (because we only had the chance to talk about the laptop when I was using it during the retreat for my secretarial tasks during a meeting), I only learned that they paid 16,000 PhP (approx. $320). Maybe Windows 10 costs that much with all the pre-installed bloatware apps that I uninstalled. And speaking of Windows 10, I have a story which I don’t know if you have encountered already.
(Warning: A technical rant written below)
I don’t recommend Windows 10 anymore. That’s for you readers or any of my friends and family members who doesn’t want to stress themselves getting their OS fixed for days, weeks, or months. I experienced first hand how I had difficulty using Windows 10 when I installed the Creators Updat. The inconvenience lasted almost a month! I even barraged the @WindowsHelp in Twitter because of the inconvenience it caused to me. First, I had to contact one technician and let him do the job via remote access. Then it installed the update for more than 22 hours (I’m not kidding). I contacted again Support and they said I just had to “hard reset” my laptop. Though I was a former technical support for mobile phones, I forgot what on earth’s name “hard reset” was especially when it comes to computers. I just know hard reset means factory reset in phones. But on a laptop or PCs, it means hold the power button until it shuts down (for a laptop) or push the reset button. So I finished installing Creators Update after 3 days. The good thing is that I was finished with computer the students’ grades. The bad thing is that I don’t have a back up. And I have no idea how can I back up all my files when all I have are 3 pieces of USBs, one 16 GB and two 32 GB. Then I went to retreat to learn about that my laptop is freezing after 5 minutes. What’s funny was that when an application crashes (which does not happen before), the whole laptop freezes. I counted and it had frozen for 18 times in a week. I had to get back to Cotabato just to have a stable internet connection and contact Support. Then I now get an error message (which I can’t pull up as of the moment because Windows 10 doesn’t want me to talk bad about them). And they told me: “Hi, Allen. We suggest you perform a clean boot to eliminate software conflicts after an update”. And you know, I gave up. Windows 7 and 8 are better OS than Windows 10. Believe me.
End of rant.
But I realized in that series of frustrations in contacting Windows Help, I can put my shoes in the situation of the technicians, who are not at really at fault, but are receiving all the negativities from the irate customers. I just said I was a former tech support. So there. The empath in me wins.
A joke
I remember a joke about a fellow tech support whom I have overheard while I was on the floor waiting for calls. He said, “Thank you for the inconvenience.” It never fails to leave a smile on my face. Classic.
You know what? I did not plan to write a rant about my Windows 10 experience. It just came up when I mentioned my cheap laptop. When I mentioned to a priest that we are using the same make and model, he said that he bought it because it won’t give him so much stress when it gets lost or someone steals it. I just hope that he will not experience what I had experienced.
I initially planned about writing about Easter (my favorite liturgical season), my 28th birthday, and ending my staycation tomorrow. But this is enough. Post is too long now.
I will be out again for a two-week training. Please pray for me. I’ll be needing your prayers guys. I’ll be praying for you too so keep in touch.
Br. Allen 