Asurion Warranty and Cloud Backup The Good and Bad
TLDR = Asurion warranty returned my $415 purchase price, and all my data was saved on Msft OneDrive.
My beloved Beelink $415 computer died a month and a half ago. Wouldn't power on. I had purchased the Asurion warranty via Amazon. I'm a sucker for warranties. In this case, it worked with caveats.
I loved this small form factor, Intel NUC style computer. I had upgraded the ram and the nvme. Great price/performance. Alas, a year and a half later, it died - wouldn't power on.
I created an Asurion claim but didn't want to wait for the repair as I had work to do. So I bought a second "identical" Beelink delivered the next day. I took the upgraded ram and nmve, put the originals back in and shipped off the original for repair under warranty.
I put the old nvme into the new computer and -- booted right back up! I was back in business with thoughts that I'd get the original repaired in time for me to send back the second one. I never worried about my data as I have all my data on OneDrive. My "My Documents" and other directories are linked to OneDrive so I don't worry about my data. I also have periodic local backups but would have been screwed if that had been my only data recourse this time.
Asurion held onto my machine for 2 weeks with occasional information free status updates. "We are working on your computer". They have NOBODY to call and talk to. The AI chatbot was no help. And it wouldn't respond to "I want to talk to a human".
I resorted to x/twitter where I got a response and DM's that escalated the effort until, two more days later, they refunded my original purchase.
My second version of Beelink that was the same as the first had dropped $80 in price, so I made money on this deal.
Ultimately the Asurion paid for my computer after 1.5 years of use. So I'm glad I bought it. But I am not thrilled with their lack of human support.
I'm glad that OneDrive among its other uses, automatically backs my data up to the cloud.
I still think the Beelink's are decent computers for the money. I'll withhold final judgment with this second one.
Over the last 2 years the famous Linux project has attacked and mass-banned non-Leftists. Now there's nobody left to run openSUSE.
The Wordpress v. WP Engine legal battle just took a detour into... food.
The former "CEO-to-be" will get his day in court against the Firefox maker... but not until a few months after Mozilla loses 80%+ of their revenue.
Mozilla Sued for Discrimination by Former CEO-To-Be:
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5765292/mozilla-sued-for-discrimination-by-former-ceo-to-be
Ads are filling the entirety of the Web -- websites, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc. -- at an increasing rate. Prices for those ad placements are plummeting. Consumers are desperate to use ad-blockers to make the web palatable. Google (and others) are desperate to break and block ad-blockers. All of which results in... more ads and lower pay for creators.
It's a fascinatingly annoying cycle. And there's only one viable way out of it.
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https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4619051/lunduke-journal-link-central-tm
Give the gift of The Lunduke Journal:
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Those in power with openSUSE make it clear they will not allow me anywhere near anything related to the openSUSE project. Ever. For any reason.
Well, that settles that, then! Guess I won't be contributing to openSUSE! 🤣
Looking for the Podcast RSS feed or other links?
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4619051/lunduke-journal-link-central-tm
Give the gift of The Lunduke Journal:
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4898317/give-the-gift-of-the-lunduke-journal
Just a quick heads up that Lifetime Subscriptions are being made available now through December 26th. Either for yourself, or as a gift for someone else.
All the details are on the subscription page:
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5786973/subscribing-to-supporting-the-lunduke-journal
And linked to right from Lunduke.com as well:
https://lunduke.com/
A long (long!) time subscriber wanted to pick up a Lifetime Sub as a gift for someone. And that seems like a good idea (I think we did something similar last year), so I'm posting it up for anyone who wants to do that.
I'm making these available at the lower discounted price. Because... why not. Always nice to save a few bucks.
This isn't a big promotion -- and I won't be posting a bunch of reminders about this. No pressure. If you want one, snag one.
That said... if someone wants to grab one for Linus Torvalds, Satya Nadella, or someone else amusing. I wouldn't object. 🤣
-Lunduke
