The Construct

Being that my lappie is already two and a half years old, it’s really high time to consider retiring it. But goodness what a workhorse this ASUS A8Jr is. Left on for 16 hours a day for those two and a half years and the only hitch I ever encountered was the hinge issue (a physical issue) which ASUS covered under warranty. And because of that I’ve developed a brand loyalty to ASUS.

I’ve actually been meaning to replace it last year but I had to re-channel some of my budget for other reasons that I gave up on purchasing a laptop after that.

I was meaning to get the ASUS F81-Se (all because of the beefy ATI HD 4570 video) card but even when Risha tried to buy one last year, she ended up with the K40IN thanks to limited stocks. The ASUS sit still lists the F81-Se as part of their product line, but alas, can’t seem to find one locally.

Because of that experience, I’ve been constantly looking at the product offerings to check if ASUS is coming out with a new model.

If I were to buy one now, I’d probably buy the same one but I’m trying to hold out just in case ASUS decides to come out with one that has better specs. The K50AB – a larger 15″ screen and the coveted ATI HD 4570 video card – looks promising but it seems that it isn’t offered locally as well.

Our trusty (relatively) old television set just Kurt Cobained on me. It might as well have left me with a note saying, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” Burn out, it did.

It was one of those last of Sony’s Trinitron line. First ones of the flatscreen CRTs. It was a real trooper – enduring long hours of broadcasts from noontime TV to primetime telenovelas, recording hours upon hours of anime, displaying more than a year’s worth of movie, TV show episodes and even brief stretches of Nintendo Wii gaming.

In terms of sentimental value, it’s packs a lot. It’s one of the first few luxury indulgences of our family after our father passed away. It’s also one of the last few items that we got to hold on to after losing almost everything when our mother died. Those are why it’s one of the few things we bothered to haul from our old residence to our current one.
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On to more personal concerns here. I’m really, really suffering from a bad case of GAS. Or maybe not. Perhaps “investing” on work-related technology would be a worthwhile move. Then again, I already have the functional tools to do my work so investing on new tech is quite unnecessary.

My ASUS A8Jr’s finally fixed but not after waiting six months for the parts. To top it off, it’s only a couple of weeks before the warranty lapses. I always hate it when any piece of electronics I own ages past its coverage. I hate knowing I legally won’t have anyone on whom to place the blame if it breaks down.

So I went out (with Rish) yesterday to scout out some possible prospects. Narrowed them down to two – the Lenovo Y430 and the ASUS F81Se.

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As of 6:35-ish this evening, people have started to report that P2P speeds are now spiking to more decent speeds.

I’m still getting sub-par speed and is quite erratic but something definitely has changed since it’s now breaching the 44-46 kB/s speeds of the past three days. I still can’t say that everything’s back to normal but any change might be an indication that the issue has been resolved.

If speeds finally get back to the way they used to be, then that’s when an appropriate denouement should be written (or maybe an update to this post). Quite honestly, four posts on the issue is already going overboard. For now, everyone’s just hoping that this is not a fluke.

Now only if Globelines will be gracious enough to explain themselves. While we may have jumped the gun assuming all sorts of things, it’s just that their silence has fueled the speculations (conspiracy theories?) as to why the speeds were limited. If the speeds hold, I just hope Globelines provides a decent explanation as to why. If they do, then that’d be good customer service.

Globelines Broadband subscribers are really pissed off. Many of them are threatening to jump ship and not at all threatened by the lock-in clause. If only class action lawsuits aren’t that foreign in this country, I’m pretty sure that Innove/Globelines would be facing one right now.

Rumor has it that Globelines will be making a statement by tomorrow and I’m one who’ll be anticipating what that news will be. Are they really placing a cap on P2P download volumes and throttling our speeds?

One issue that I am really curious about is Innove/Globeline’s business case for throttling bandwidth. What’s the point in sneaking this provision in the new subscriber’s service agreement. This just makes me rethink the basic ideas regarding business (and reminiscing my days as a management trainee reading Drucker).

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