jonathanhickman.com

Proud of myself

We’ve been having problems with the wireless internet in our office, so this morning I bit the bullet and changed the firmware on the cheapo Linksys router.

I’m still amazed that I was able to do it without breaking it.

w00t.

Not a fan of time changes

I don’t like that it’s getting dark and I haven’t yet left work.

Why haven’t I left work, you ask? Because I accidentally broke Katie’s blog, and I can’t leave while trying to fix it.

How did it break? Well, I was in the middle of upgrading it when - by pure chance - the server crashed.

Not cool.

Thank you spam filter

I couldn’t figure out why my local email lists - all three of them - suddenly went quiet in the middle of a heated discussion.

It turns out, my spam filter decided that they’re all spam. Nice.

Dear Dell: I’m really irritated with you right now

Dear Dell:

I just bought a brand new Latitude D830. I’m really happy with my purchase, and I’m really excited about the potential increased productivity with my new purchase. I am especially happy with its speed, RAM, and security features.

But I can’t express how annoyed I am with your choice to cripple the sound card.

My old computer, a Dell E1405, met an untimely death just a month after its warranty expired. And I’m not bitter. What gets me is that it had a fully working sound card, one that was nearly identical to the card in this machine.

So why did you have to cripple this sound card? Why won’t you allow me to use the stereo mix features? Without it, you have rendered my nice, newish Roku almost completely useless. It is now almost a paper weight.

There is some question as to whether you crippled the card via hardware or software, but I have now wasted too much of my time trying to get this card to work as I expected it to when I bought it. And I am further dismayed to read in your forums that I am expected to go out and throw more good money after bad and buy a new sound card just to get basic functionality right after buying the computer. You could have at least warned me of this on the product page. Shame on you, Dell.

I for one am disgusted.

New computer questions:

So it looks like I have to get a new laptop. Here’s what I want to know:

• Does anybody have any further thoughts about whether Excel & Word are worth it?
• What kind of warranty would you buy?

The warranty question is really bothersome. I had a two year warranty on this computer, and it lasted about two years and a month. I’m sure that warranty cost at least $150, and the only thing I got out of it were several new optical drives, because the cd/dvd burner kept breaking. Essentially, that means I paid an extra $150 to get a working cd burner.

My boss’s laptop, otoh, is a cheapish Gateway with the standard one year warranty. We didn’t put anything special on it, and it’s 2 1/2 years old without (knock on wood) having had any problems. It does get less use, but now that my awesome wife has given me an itouch, I have - and plan to continue - taken my computer home only on the weekends.

All computers come with a standard 1 year warranty. Is it worth $150 for an extra year? $200 to ensure it makes it to three years?

No wonder it took so long

I’ve been waiting for a part for my computer for a week and a half now. A few days ago, I even emailer the seller (eBay) because I was so very ready for the part to arrive. Well, it finally came today … all of the way from Hong Kong.

No wonder it took a while!

Argh!

There’s no way this (work) day is almost over.

And if my new computer part doesn’t arrive soon, I’m going to go nuts. Having to work completely off of a second monitor is very frustrating, especially because I never know when the new part will arrive and whether the part will work.

I wish so much that I’d had it shipped to the office instead of to my house, which makes no sense, so I would know by lunchtime if the part is here instead of having to wait till quitting time.

Argh!

Running away from open tabs

I have so many tabs open in my browser that I actually downloaded a new browser today to avoid looking at the open tabs in my other browser. 

This is not the first time I’ve done this. Or the second.

Does Microsoft Office still have value?

Because my laptop doesn’t have a working screen at the moment (thank goodness for my second monitor), I’m researching repair versus purchase. I have looked at *a lot* of computers in the last week.

I’ve had the impression, thanks mostly to Dell’s barrage of emails, that laptops are getting cheaper and cheaper. Now that I’ve done the research, I can spot the scam.

The stores (online or offline) are filled with computer deals - mostly laptops in the $500 range. But now I know I could never get one that cheap. What do you get for $500?

• 1 gig of RAM, when Windows requires 2.
• 1 year of service, when you need a minimum of 2 (I’d recommend 3).
• No so-called “productivity suite” when most of us still need a word processor and a spreadsheet program.

I also can’t imagine getting a new laptop in 2008 without putting in it an extra $50 for the best wifi card available, and I wouldn’t buy one with less than 100 gigs of harddrive space. And then there’s the “Vista” issue: do you really want that junk on a computer you rely on?

When it’s all said and done, I can’t see buying a computer today for less than about $1100.

So I’m wondering which corners can be cut. For $150-$250, do I really need M$ Word and Excel when I can get pretty much the same thing for absolutely nothing? Are there really any benefits of paying for the same thing? What do you get for your $?

I need some serious computer help

My warranty just ran out on my Dell laptop, so it broke.

The main problem with laptops is the wires connecting the screen to the cpu wear out over time. In my case, “time” was two years and a month.

I really don’t want to deal with sending it back to Dell (at a cost of about $350 plus shipping, handling, and insurance). Does anybody know if there are any better options?

I know there’s Geek Squad (which won’t quote me any prices over the phone). And Circuit City has their stupidly named ripoff, although CC doesn’t exactly inspire confidence these days. Computers, Etc, and Computer King don’t do laptops.

Any thoughts?

Doug?

Because it’s always something

I got to work this morning - still with a sore stomach - and discovered that my laptop’s screen won’t work.

I’m pretty sure the warranty expired less than a month ago - we bought the computer the same week we bought our house - two years and a month ago.

At least it’s not tax season, I guess.