Kungfuice.com

I’ll start this story at the very beginning. My girlfriend was in need of a laptop, she’s a school teacher so she was not in search of anything too fancy. I tried my hardest to get her into a Mac, but she was looking for something cheaper since she had just finished school.

We went to a couple of different places, ultimately coming across an Acer laptop from Staples Business Depot. They had a very good deal on, so we decided to buy right away. My girlfriend decided to get the extended service plan from Business Depot just in case anything happened to the laptop. Although I knew these were bogus tricks, for the extra $50 I figured why not.

We took the laptop home, and I set it up with the usual Spyware and Virus software so that it wouldn’t goto hell too quickly.

My girlfriend was so happy to finally have her very own laptop, but this happiness would not last very long. After about a week the laptop would not power up, my girlfriend brought it to me to have a look and even I was unable to get the thing to start up. We took the now broken laptop to Business Depot where they told us that we had to take it to Acer. My girlfriend was enraged since she had paid the extra money for the extended service plan and expected Business Depot to honour it in a more appropriate fashion. After causing a bit of a fuss they finally decided to take the laptop and told us they would call us.

Business Depot called us, and they informed us that they would be replacing the laptop with a new one, which was fine since it was basically brand new and didn’t have anything of importance on it. My girlfriend got her new laptop and was in love all over again.

The next problem started when her keyboard began to stop working. Rows of keys would stop working, and she wouldn’t be able to do her work. Again we took the laptop back to Business Depot, and again we were faced with them trying to get us to take it to Acer, ultimately we convinced them to look at it, and they did, replacing the keyboard.

Once we got the laptop back everything was fine until about a week later when the keyboard started to malfunction again. I realized that there must be a deeper issue causing this, so we decided to talk to Acer this time instead of dealing with the idiots at Business Depot.

I got on the phone and after waiting about an hour on hold was greated by a very friendly support technician. He informed us that they would pickup the laptop from us and would take a look at what was causing the keyboard failures. He explained that they would replace whatever it was that was causing the problem. I was very happy that they were going to finally fix this problem, and that they were going to pay for shipping there and back, and that we would get the laptop back within 1 week.

The technician set everything up for us, and told us that purolator would by the next day between 1pm-4pm to pickup the laptop. Although the pickup time was somewhat inconvenient we managed to be there for 1pm the only problem being that no one ever showed up. We were a little upset that we took the time to be at home for the purolator man to come, and he never showed.

Nevertheless we were leaving on vacation and decided to leave it till we came back.

Fast forward a little bit and the problem has been delegated to me. I schedule another pickup and again the same thing happened, except this time I was on the phone right away with Acer, who then informed me that they were scheduling the pickup at the place of purchase. I found this to be quite odd since no one had ever mentioned that to us, and even more odd considering they were taking my personal address information. After dealing with the technician for a little while i was then informed that I could have the laptop picked up at my personal address by request, which I requested immediately.

The pickup was now set for the next day, again I was at home for 1:00pm, and the purolator man showed up at around 2:00pm, finally I thought we are going to get this piece of junk fixed. I proceeded to hand the package to the purolator man who informed me that I needed a waybill. “What waybill?” I asked.

Long story short, he informed me that he had no idea who had setup the pickup, or even that there was someone who had scheduled a pickup. So instead of Acer scheduling a pickup at my location and attaching thhe pickup address and drop off address they merely just scheduled purolator to come to my house to pickup and package that could be going anywhere.

This is ridicolous, So now we still have this broken laptop, and I have to get back on the phone with Acer again, and wait no hold for another hour, only to fix something that many manufacturers would have already replaced with far less effort.

So ultimately what can you take away from this

• Don’t Buy An Acer Laptop If You Ever Plan On Dealing With Their Support
• Don’t Buy A Laptop From Staples Business Depot
• Don’t Purchase Extended Warranties From Your Place Of Purchase They Are Garbage
• Don’t Trust Anything Unless You Have It In Writting

Now if anyone needs me I’ll be on hold with Acer for the next hour

kungfuice Computers

Well I came across this article and found it rather intriguing. Apparently your inbox is a reflection of your real life and how you manage it. According to the article it is a direct reflection of how your parents raised you. The funny part is, I can totally relate with this. My parents are neat freaks, that love organization and hate clutter.

Now I have always wondered why I can’t stand to see email messages that have not been filled away in a folder, responded to, or outright deleted. I now have my answer, the answer I have been seeking my entire geek life, It’s because of my parents!

You see everything can be blamed, I mean traced, back to your parents and apparently your email habbits are no exception. So if you are having problems locating that email your boss sent you a couple of weeks ago, pick up the phone and give your parents a call and let them know that it’s their fault your inbox is such a mess.

Here’s a link to the article, Hoarders vs. Deleters: What your inbox says about you

kungfuice Computers, General

I was opening up my almost brand new Dell 600m laptop, to replace a broken PCMCIA slot riser on the motherboard. As soon as I got the keyboard off, I noticed a small cable running from the keyboard connection underneath a piece of metal protecting the motherboard.

I really wonder if this is in my own Dell 6000d. I still can’t believe that Dell would be doing something like this, however I am not surprised that the Department of Homeland Security is helping to protect them. I wonder how many PC manufacturers are using this type of hardware keylogger as well. Perhaps this is something that is part of the US Governments war on terror, if they have the right to tap phone calls now without any just cause, could they also have the right to monitor all or most of what you are doing on the computer as well?

Makes you really wonder what big brother is up to.

read more | digg story

kungfuice Computers, Technology

This PC system is cooled by a turbocharger @ 3500rpm!. Now I wonder what would happen if we took a GT40R and strapped it to that sucker?

This honestly has to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of, could you imagine the amount of noise that would come not only from the turbo, but the drive as well? I guess on the plus side you could find a way to rig up a blow off valve for kicks and giggles.

read more | digg story

kungfuice Computers, Technology

I found this article in business week discussing the process which Google uses to release new products to the market.  I found it somewhat interesting that the author talks about all the failures that Google has produced using this model, and they Google should be finding wasy to diversify it’s business model from its current base of Advertising.

I think the author of this article is far too focused on the idea that Google should be trying to expand its core business, when I believe that Google is focused on finding new places for its core business to operate.

Most of the “new” services Google is offering are nothing more then ways to extend the reach of their core business. Take for example Gmail, an amazing free mail service that has allowed Google another outlet for its advertisers to place ads. Through the beta we have seen more advertising, and better ad targeting due to information being collected about you through Gmail.

Another example of this strategy is Google Video which is now placing targeted advertising in videos in order to provide their advertisers with yet another venue to attract consumers. To me it just seems that Google has been looking for ways to increase how much money it can make from its core business, which of course is advertising.

These “new” services that Google releases, in my opinion, are just extensions of this core business model. So in the end isn’t Google doing a great job?

kungfuice Computers, Technology