This week is has been uber bad for me and technology. So PayPal finally gave me back what spare change there is in my PayPal account. But a few more things got screwed up, affecting my efficiency as a tech worker. Two more booboos for the week – 1) my Google Account got disabled and 2) my lappie’s screen hinges are shot.

Not even a week has passed, then it was my Google account that got blocked. Yup. It’s the one where I keep some crucial messages and is linked to some other important online accounts. I don’t know what happened but for some reason I end up getting that “Sorry, your account has been disabled” message. I tried what was written in the help center to no avail. Even after 24 hours of waiting as stated.

I fired up my Yahoo! account to send Google a piece of my mind. After 6 or so hours, I got an apology reply from Google stating that my account has been re-enabled. Wee! Only if they told me the reason behind the issue.

So with one issue down, I move on to the other issue – my laptop.

My laptop has been a great sidekick for all of my personal and professional computing needs. However, horror struck me when last Thursday, I took it out of the laptop sleeve and notice a chunk of broken plastic fell from the sleeve. No one would like to see a chunk of plastic inside a laptop case.

Now, I’m pretty OC with my lappie (an ASUS A8Jr, by the way). Until that instance, it was in pristine condition. No scratches whatsoever save for a few dusty areas near the vents. I’m very careful when transporting it and never have I whanged it. So it was a puzzle why the heck would there be some broken piece of plastic coming from my laptop. Turned out it was part of my screen hinges.

I was alarmed since usually, by my experience, any physical damage that can be attributed to wear and tear isn’t covered by the warranty. And I was even a bit pissed off since that was exactly the reason why I bought an ASUS – all for the two-year warranty.

A bit of Googling led me to some other posts complaining about the hinges of the ASUS A-line. Apparently, there was a manufacturing issue regarding the case and hinges. I got a bit more alarmed since some people from the US wrote that shops weren’t repairing them under warranty.

So I called up ASUS World, the ASUS service center and showroom in Megamall. The fellow there was pretty helpful entertaining my questions. Apparently this was really an issue with the A-model laptops and they know what to do. And the best news – they’ll repair it under warranty, for free.

However, since this was a warranty issue, I prepared myself for weeks of not having a laptop. It takes a month for them to source the necessary parts. At least they said that I could bring the laptop to them so that they can verify if it was through their distribution so they can place the order for parts. They’d call me up when the parts are available so that I can go back and have it fixed. Repair would only take an hour or so. I can still have full use of my lappie for a month while waiting for parts.

Yeah, a bad week but things got resolved in the end. Maybe I should just believe in optimism once in a while. Being the obsessive-compulsive that I am, these things really rob me of sleep.

Now that I know that these things will be eventually be resolved, I plan to get some good hours of sleep tonight.