my latest conspiracy theory

A few weeks back, we had a pretty extreme lightning storm which resulted in one fo my hard drives going bad. Fortunately, the drive was still under warranty and I had enough time to back everything up before it quit working altogether. From what my neighbors have been saying, lightning storms (and fried electronics) are a common occurrence in this area, so we are going to try and make a regular habit of unplugging our computers when they are not in use.

Unfortunately, protecting our PCs from random acts of God doesn't seem to be enough to keep them running efficiently. My wife's laptop is already acting very sluggish, and it is less than a year old. It has become our primary internet PC, which I suspect is the reason for it being so slow. I have already tried a memory upgrade, and I have installed the latest software and driver updates available. I removed unnecessary start-up programs and tweaked the performance and page file settings. I've got a good firewall, virus protection and anti-spyware software running, too. But nothing seems to help. So I have a new theory...

I am starting to believe that computer manufacturers use the internet to slowly make our computers obsolete. It sounds silly, but there is a reason why I think this is possible. I have another laptop that is about six years old now. Strangely enough, it functions flawlessly. All of the programs work, and it doesn't ever crash on me. It is as fast as the day that I bought it, too. What's my secret? It has never been connected to the internet. It isn't exposed to viruses and malware, and it doesn't get any of the "recommended" software updates that we see from Microsoft and the hardware manufacturers. So if these updates are so important, and they fix major problems with the OS, how can a laptop continue to run so well without them?

The major difference between my two laptops is that one is connected to the internet and the other is not. When I worked for a large telecom firm, I also noticed that the computers that didn't have access to the internet (or those that were restricted to intranet only) also ran better and lasted longer. Could it be that some of these software updates that claim to better protect our PCs from internet bad guys are actually bloated updates to make our computes run slower, to convince us that our systems are now obsolete, and therefore in need of replacement?

the pc case fan conspiracy?

Is it just me or are the screws that they send with case fans just too large? I just spent a half of an hour trying to torque some screws into a new case fan for my pc, and it was a pain. The AC8 fan, by Arctic Cooling, is great - it "floats" on rubber mounts and is as quiet as I wanted it to be (unlike the Masscool fan that I had purchased and will return to NewEgg soon). But the screws that they sent are huge, and I was afraid that I was going to break the plastic mounting base of the fan.

Believe it or not, the cheap Masscool fans (I bought a case of 10) had smaller screws, but I need to return them with all the hardware to get my full refund. Otherwise, I would swap them out with the clunky screws form the Arctic Cool fan. I'm really not sure why they feel the need to send such large screws. Are they worried about them getting loose or something? Like I said, I think it may be a conspiracy so that you break the mounting base when you go to install it, and have to buy a new one. And of course, the screws are an odd size and I'm not sure if I could pick some up with the correct thread pattern at a regular hardware store like Home Depot. All I can say is that this new fan better not break or quit working, because the screws are so tight that I'm not sure if I can unscrew it from the case anymore.