Lesson Learned

Over Spring Break I got a new MacBook Pro. This computer is awesome! It's fast, light and has an incredible battery. It's everything I had been wanting. When I tried to take my computer to class one day, it didn't connect to the school Internet. I went home and tried to figure it out, but couldn't. I was wanting to take it to class the next day so I asked my dad for help late at night. When he didn't respond, I decided to go to the school's computer help center. The help center was having some problems and after about 10 minutes they asked me to go into harddrive and delete a folder called System Configuration. Looking back on it, I know it was a dumb move. Once I did this and restarted my computer, I lost all the icons from the top right corner including important stuff like Airport, battery and spotlight. We tried fixing it, but I had to go to class.

That evening, I arranged to call my dad for help. I called my dad around 10 pm and explained the situation. He tried a few simple things, but realized quickly that this was a big problem. We ended up going into "Safe mode", which is where you type in unix commands. Pretty much we were problem solving in the computers language. After working on this for quite awhile, we finally got a few icons back, but it wasn't perfect. Finally, after about 2 hours, we fixed it. I was so thankful to have my computer running properly again. We then fix my original Internet problem in about 10 minutes. Just a few simple clicks.

I learned a lot throughout this experience. First, that this computer that I love is just a material thing. For the last week, I have been babying the computer. Not letting anyone get close to it. I realized that it's just a thing and things will ultimately break. Needless to say, I am still taking good care of it, just not as concerned for the minor things.

Second, I learned that my dad is a genius. There has never been a time when he couldn't fix a computer problem. I am always amazed at how smart he is when it comes to these machines. I could not have fixed it without him.

Third, I learned that you can't blindly follow people who think they know what they're doing. I was doing whatever the help lady asked me to do, even if it meant deleting important files. I need to make sure and challenge authority more and take a step back and realize that if something doesn't look right, it probably isn't. I'm not blaming the help lady at all, she was just following a guide.

Finally, I learned to just be patient. If I would have just waited to talk to my dad, it would have only took about 10 minutes, not 2 hours. I tried to rush things and it blew-up in my face.

Looking back, I can see how I needed to go through this experience with my new computer. I tried to protect it and ended up really screwing it up. At least I learned a few things along the way