It could be worse

Talking about the dramatically increasing number of traffic accidents in general, a friend of mine was recently saying: “Given the way some people drive it is actually a wonder there are no more accidents on the road”; which sent both of us thinking of computer failures.

The majority of private computer users complain about the lack of reliability of their desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone machines. Along the same line as my friend’s statement, I would say that “given the complexity of digital and computer-like devices today it is actually a wonder that they don’t fail more frequently”.

Perhaps drivers and IT users are equally lucky breeds, perhaps “someone” is looking after them.

If in the big business and corporate world there are armies of IT technicians to address and to take care of the daily woes of the users, the home or small enterprise user often is left helpless, with no recourse than a charitable tech-minded friend or the usual, painstaking Google search to turn to. That is if the problem itself is not an Internet disconnection, in which case a Google search is out of the question.

You have to take into consideration a large number of critical factors. These are: the variety of the devices’ hardware platforms, the different operating systems (Windows, iOs, Mac OS, Android, Linux, etc.), the old and the new versions of each, the nightmare-provoking compatibility issues between them all, and the fact that most software is less-than-perfect and often bug-laden, especially when just released. Add to that the fact that things move so fast that very few have the time or the necessary resources to get properly trained and to get to know any new product well enough, whether machine or system, and you end up with a doomsday scenario just waiting to happen.

The question is not about the probability of digital devices to fail, but more about when they will fail and how quickly, how well the failure will be addressed.

While consumers thank the heavens for protecting them and causing fewer break downs that would theoretically happen in the extremely complex IT world, they have found at the same time ways to overcome the difficulty, to be better prepared for the doomsday scenario when it happens.

It is the time-tested old recipe that consists of multiplying and diversifying devices and resources, of keeping copies of data and files. Since you cannot fully depend on one device, make sure to have many. Naturally, it comes at a cost but in most cases this additional cost will still be less than the cost you would incur by being total cut off, left helpless and losing data.

Most of us today operate at least one laptop and one powerful, smart mobile device; sometime more. When one fails the other is here to take over. With data and files saved in the cloud the still working device will do the job as well as the one that broke down. Internet connections are also diversified these days. Private users today not only have subscriptions with more than one Internet Service Provider, but they also count on pure mobile telephony networks (3G, 4G) to compensate and to cover for more traditional ADSL services whenever they let them down.

We learn to live with the risk. It could be worse.