1. Not using a case with your smartphone.
Stare into the face of regret.
We love our smartphones. If you paid hundreds of dollars for a iPhone, spending $5 on a case would probably be a wise investment. People have always told you to use protection in college — listen to them. It’s a bit mind-boggling that we see so many people on campus using their iPhones or Galaxy smartphones without a case at all. (Coincidentally, we also see a lot of our fellow Bears using cracked phones.) You can find them literally anywhere: Daiso, Amazon and even at Caltopia.
2. Buying a way more powerful computer than you actually need.
This doesn’t make you cool. It just means you wasted money.
We’re not going to lie: We love technology in a way that most people wouldn’t consider healthy. And we, like many students at Cal, felt the urge to go out and buy the nicest computer we could for college. Blazing fast processor? 10 terabytes of storage? Beautiful HD screen? Built-in ice maker? Check, check, check and check. But before you go out and drop $2,000 on a Facebook checker, you should ask ourselves if you really need to. Powerful (and expensive) computers are great, but you probably don’t need to blow next month’s tuition on a machine that has enough brain power to fire a missile. Despite what Apple, Lenovo and HP want you to believe, the average user isn’t going to see very much difference in day-to-day use from a mid-level computer to the very top-of-the-line laptops. Any $400 Dell or Asus will serve your needs just fine, unless you’re a mech-E major who needs to run serious 3-D modeling software. Go buy another computer with that extra $1,000. Or three.
3. Putting your laptop on bedding or carpet.
This could happen to you. And then you’ll definitely panic.
It always irritates us when we see ads for computers with smiling people using their laptops in bed, because the companies that run them know this is actually the last thing you should do with their product. We know it’s tempting to sprawl out on your comfy pillow with your laptop in front of you and work on that essay that was due last week, but there’s a pretty compelling reason you shouldn’t. Flip your laptop over, and you’ll be able to see its most critical part: the fan. Placing a laptop on a soft, fluffy surface like a bed or carpet means that those fans and vents end up more clogged than Paula Deen’s arteries, making your laptop far more susceptible to overheating. Your baby is essentially cooking its own guts.
Image Sources: grilled_cheese, alexik, bfishadow and sarabbit under Creative Commons
Contact Sherdil Niyaz at [email protected]