Technical Communications

Yesterday knocked an open bottle of water and managed to grab it before the whole thing spilled into my NEW VAIO notebook computer. But a good splash landed on parts of the keyboard anyway. The computer was running.

I grabbed a paper towel and tried to sop up some of the water very gently from the keys, powered down, unplugged the computer, turned it upside down to try to let the water drip out.

When I went to my desktop, the advice I read on how to try to save the computer was very common sense. I'm writing this with my VAIO, and there seems to be no damage... I have touched wood! I used "spilled water on laptop" for a search term and got plenty of results. Here is the gist:

1. If you spill something, let it be water, pop or juice are much more difficult to clean up, they leave sticky residue after they dry.
2. After the spill, immediately turn off the computer, unplug it and take out any removable parts, including the battery and/or removable drives.
3. Dry the wet you can see (in my case my card reader was wet and the camera card in it)
4. Turn the computer upside down and sideways and check if any moisture is running out anywhere.
   
5. Leave it standing like a tent, half open upside down for a couple of hours, then put a padding of paper towel on the keys, turned it upside down and remove one of the panels in the back to check if there is any moisture visible inside. You may be in luck if you see none.
6. With the hair dryer, at low heat setting gently blow over the keyboard and into the openings where parts were removed. If there was a lot of liquid skip that step, you don't want to blow the water further into the computer.
   
7. Leave the computer upside down, with it's paper towel padding over the keys for 24 - 48 hours.
8. It is difficult to leave it alone. (I managed not to let my curiosity kill the computer.)

So, I turned it on just now. Everything seems fine. As I said, I touched wood... :-)

Lucky me! Luck has everything to do with it, and a bit of common sense. I won't have liquids near enough to have this happen again!

I came across some great examples of 'free' services that I would avoid like the plague. "Create free forms online", "Schedule your appointments online", and over 10 more of the same kind of 'free online services' are listed at the bottom of these pages. Why should you pass up a free service? Look at the site(s) more closely:

1. Site Design: Seems slapped together without much professional care
   
2. Contact Us: No real contact information, except an generic email address: info@...
   
3. Header/Footer: No company name shown anywhere
   
4. Terms & Conditions: There is an agreement document that outlines the 'Terms of Service', but is it valid? With whom do I agree or disagree?
5. Checking the page source: No comments that give a clue, extremely basic programming
   
6. Checking the domain registration: All of these domains are registered to the same company "Centranet On-Line Services Ltd.", through godaddy.com. All detail information such as address or phone numbers are blocked
7. Search Google: Google shows no result about Centranet On-Line Services Ltd. A company that offers all these online services and doesn't have a corporate website? A ghost company!
8. That can't be it, can it?: Google does show one result for CentraNet (Online Banking) Manager offered by the Central National Bank in Waco... But that seems to be a whole other story... Really, does this banking site imbue you with confidence, would you actually want to bank there, online yet?
   

Think about it. Why would you trust even a small part of your information to any site that offers free (or even paid) services but exists anonymously. What is the purpose of this service? Collecting your information to sell to someone else? How do you know if the service works? Where do you ask for support or complain if something goes wrong? The upshot of this article is: Free is rarely really free. Anonymous websites that don't give any kind of contact information, and/or a company name should be considered suspicious, treat them the same as spam, ignore them!