It's the Ides of August!

In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Roman general Julius Caesar is given an ominous message by the Soothsayer.  The message is a simple warning:

"Beware the ides of March!"  The ides means the first fifteen days of the month and, come the third month, Julius Caesar is stabbed to death in those first fifteen days.

However, it seems that the ominous month for electronics is not March, but August.  In 2015, I had shared the story of how Nixie Pixel's cellphone, laptop, and desktop broke as soon as August started and how some people believed that this eighth month seemed to bring the death of beloved electronics. I even had to replace my laptop screen that month!

Well, today I woke up to the battery indicator of my ZaReason Strata 7140 sending out an intermittent red flash.

It was the laptop's way of saying to me "Aye, the ides of August have come!"

I turned on the machine and discovered that the battery is at 20% health and needs replacement.

This is pretty expected since the Strata has been working since the first half of 2014. 

Getting a replacement battery for this machine is not going to be easy, though... much less now that the government has shut down many commercial activities due to the Covid-19 emergency.

So, I took out the battery and connected the laptop to the backup power supply for the time being.

While I was doing that, I can swear I almost heard the voice of the Soothsayer delivering the ominous reminder: "Aye, the ides of August have come, but not gone!"

Brace yourself!

On August and Broken Electronics

Some days ago, Nixie Pixel shared this image on Google+.  Unfortunately for her, August started with her cellphone, laptop, and desktop computer breaking.

One follower replied to her that he has seen that something always breaks in August and, therefore, he has learned to save money ahead of time, destined to the fixing expenses.

I was amused by the post until yesterday... The screen of my ZaReason Strata displayed a blue vertical stripe that eventually extended from the top to the bottom into a full line.

Blue line...

 
This happened because I was moving the laptop while carrying some books and I almost dropped it.  Not to let it slide to the floor, I exerted additional pressure on the lid against my leg and, surely, I damaged the screen.

The good thing is that there is a place nearby where I can take my laptop to have the screen replaced.  I trust the technician, too.

It turns out that I am the first client that brings him a Linux laptop.

He fixed the Strata fast and, as I tested the KDE effects on PCLinuxOS, he was impressed by the beauty of Linux. He also praised the solid construction of the Strata. He said that other clients have cracked the screen of their laptops with less than what I did to mine.

That confirms my decision.  I will keep buying from ZaReason. :)