IT Insights Blog — PC Pro

Lots of things in life have expiration dates. Food and drink items that you buy at the grocery store, for example. The expiration date is printed right on the side of that carton of milk in the back of your fridge. You don't even have to take a sniff to know whether it's still good. (Once in a while, of course, you should probably still take a sniff anyway.) Can't remember when you bought those hot dogs in the cheese drawer? Just check the package.

Almost exactly six years ago, British researchers announced the creation of the first crash-proof self-repairing computer. We know what you're thinking: A "self-repairing" computer could either manufacture or correctly identify needed replacement parts, remove failed hardware, and properly install new components. As often happens, however, the headlines announcing this groundbreaking scientific leap forward exaggerated the reality somewhat.

There's a pretty good chance that almost no one who stumbles across this blog post will have ever read, or even heard of, the 19th-century English novel Paul Clifford by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Let's face it, there are probably plenty of people who teach English literature who have never read or heard of Paul Clifford. Bulwer-Lytton's novel is not quite so lost to time that it's out of print altogether ... but the current paperback edition is ranked No. 1,890,901 on Amazon.

Once upon a time one might have supposed that flamboyant singer and songwriter Elton John, 71 and still not letting the sun go down on he, would someday be best-remembered, years after his death, for one of his soaring rock ballads: "Candle in the Wind," "Tiny Dancer," "Rocket Man." Then in 1994 the energetic performer and eyewear pioneer collaborated with Walt Disney Studios on an animated movie about animals roaming free on the African savannah and "Circle of Life" was born.

In my last blog, I bragged about my nascent IT repair skills and offered three reasons why Average Joes should tackle computer repairs themselves. What do you do, on the other hand, when your best-efforts just aren’t good enough? Or when you don’t have time to tackle the job? Or maybe you just don’t want to deal with it.