Desktop 4 is my primary desktop system, the one I use every day.

I've had it a couple of years, but it works reasonably well and has the dual monitor adapter installed in it. Read more »

Switching to one of the notebooks (to keep the order of failures correct), my new HP tablet "failed" (aka had its LCD screen cracked) when I dropped it onto the pavement in Bangkok. I wasn't worried since I had an extended warranty that included accidental damage. Since the system was still working (albeit with a distracting crack across the screen), I wasn't in a huge hurry to get it fixed. On the 20th of May, having backed it up, I got authorization to return the tablet back to the service center. UPS confirmed they delivered it on the 22nd. Read more »

May has proven to be a hard month for hardware here. I've had two desktops (their future is uncertain) and two notebooks (one permanently) go out of service.

I have to confess they weren't as well backed up as I should have, proving my theorem from college "back up religion is inversely proportional to the time since the last crash."

The good news is, many of the other systems in the network are being backed up daily or weekly, I think it was karma that the two systems with the weakest backups failed. Read more »