So I’ve resorted to using email to communicate with HP about my failed laptop. I figure it 1) keeps my blood pressure down, and 2) provides a trail of documentation.
So basically I’ve made zero progress. According to HP they still haven’t even sent the return packing materials to me. They keep promising them though, in the next 2-3 business days. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that from these guys, I’d have at least 50 cents.
Meanwhile, the backup laptop I’ve been limping along on is acting up. This morning I awoke to find the machine with a black screen and just one line of text: Boot disk not found. Luckily I was able to power off and reboot, but how long will it last?
I ordered a Dell Optiplex for the short-term, something I can use for my consulting business, and a box that can be easily converted to a file server later on. Unfortunately it takes time for Dell to build the thing, and for the boxes to get here. Sigh.
Tags: hp sucks, presario v3000
Colin Powell has been on my sh*t list since he agreed to become Secretary of State for Bush’s first term. My opinion didn’t improve when he went to the U.N. and dutifully pushed the tissue-paper thin argument about Saddam’s WMDs.
When I watched his endorsement of Obama, I not only felt better about Powell, but I thought he made a hell of a lot of sense when he described the problems within the GOP. It was refreshing to hear Colin Powell say the GOP has moved too far to the right, and that the RNC’s tolerance for connecting Obama with Islam and terrorists is unacceptable. I’ve been thinking this for a long time. From my point of view, the Republican leadership has been moving toward fascism since the “Republican Revolution” in 1994. Yes, fascism.
Now I’m not just using the term “fascism” to be inflammatory – I’m using it based on what I learned getting my Political Science degree, and from the balanced article on Wikipedia. And obviously I’m not the only one connecting these dots. Many people will remember a PowerPoint presentation that circulated the Internet back in Bush’s first term. It was based largely on an article by Laurence W. Britt. Britt’s article and those by several others have found lots of overlap between current Republican policies and the tenets of fascism. The Project for the Old American Century’s page on the subject does a good job, too.
I won’t reproduce what’s been written on the pages I’ve linked to above, but it’s worth looking at if you’re interested.
Tags: Barack Obama, Colin Powell, RNC
The contents of this post will come as no surprise to many who read it, and some will have far worse experiences to share. But here’s my story.
As noted in my last post, my HP Presario V3000 laptop needs a new motherboard. HP Customer Service has agreed to pay for the computer to be returned and repaired at no cost to me. (The only ray of sunshine here.)
Five days ago I was told the packaging materials for returning the laptop would be sent to me within 2 days. After two ineffective phone calls – the most recent of which happened this morning – I’ve learned the packaging materials still have not yet been sent out. Both agents promised to take care of it.
I don’t have tons of money laying around, so my laptop is my primary computer. This means I need it to operate my consulting and web development business. But right now it’s just sitting there while I try to get by with a 6 year old laptop that isn’t capable of running most of the stuff I need.
Worse, I did some searching around and discovered that there are hundreds of stories far worse than mine that clearly illustrate HP’s criminal approach to customer service. There are some true horror stories out there.
Based on what I’ve read, I’m beginning to wonder how wise it would be to send in the laptop at all:
- Even escalating and complaining to a manager doesn’t seem to do much for you.
- It could take months, regardless of the time promises of HP agents.
- Even if it’s repaired, many repairs appear to be temporary.
- The laptop may come back in pieces.
- I’m not sure I want to put myself through such a frustrating experience.
It also makes me nervous that I wasn’t told that my hard drive would be wiped until I asked specifically about that. A friend of mine tipped me off about the likelihood of losing everything, so I made sure to check during one of my calls to find out where my return shipping box was. I asked the agent, who could not tell me any useful information about the status of my return shipping package, whether my drive would be wiped.
“Oh, yes. We must wipe the drive to ensure there are no conflicts with the new motherboard,” she said.
I said, “Do you realize that you’re the first agent to tell me of this, and that if I hadn’t asked, I wouldn’t know until my computer arrived here with a blank disk?”
“Oh, I’m very sorry sir.”
“Look, it’s not your fault, but I think it’s important that you tell someone at HP how critical this kind of information is to make sure you don’t cause someone to lose their data.”
“Yes sir, I apologize.”
The agent was friendly enough, and was clearly unhappy to hear that I’d been misinformed. But I doubt anything will become of it.
Of course, knowing what I know, I was naive not to expect they would wipe the drive. But a huge majority of other HP customers would have no idea of the possibility of losing everything on their disk. As for me, I borrowed a friend’s handy universal drive adapter, took out my hard drive, and imaged it for use when I get the laptop back. But I’ll still have to reinstall all the software I had on the laptop, which will take me quite awhile.
So I might go ahead and have HP try to fix the laptop, and simply write it off in my mind. The laptop is worthless to me now, and I have very little confidence that it will be returned in working order. So maybe I’ll just move on. Here are my options as I see them:
- I could buy another basic laptop, possibly a Dell, and get going on rebuilding a system for my work.
- I could build my own PC, which I’ve been contemplating anyway.
- I could switch to Mac, though that would be relatively expensive for a laptop.
I’ll ponder and post an update when I have one. Meanwhile, if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.
So it turns out that HP is recalling my laptop and several other models because of some problem with the graphics card. It requires a full motherboard replacement.
This explains the problems I’ve been having with my notebook failing to boot after sleep or hibernation, and the blue video signal being sent to my external LCD monitor. The startup problem required multiple power cycles in order to get the damned thing to boot up.
So it’s good that HP is owning the problem. The problem, however, is that I need to figure out how to get along for 10 days without my laptop, which is the primary computer for all my consulting work. I have an old Dell laptop that I use for testing web pages on older browsers, but I don’t think it will handle much of what I need to do. It has only an eighth of the RAM my current laptop has, and a quarter of the disk. Maybe I can swap the disks, but I can’t do anything with the RAM (except to buy more for a notebook I pretty much never use).
So this seems like a good test for me as I consider starting my own computer fixing business here in the North Fork Valley. I guess I should be able to fix my own problems before I start expecting others to pay me to fix theirs, huh?
UPDATE 10/12: Before I had a chance to do much with my hard disk, the laptop just stopped working. Can’t reboot. So now I REALLY have to find a way to get at the files on the hard disk before I ship it to HP.
Tags: blank screen, blue video, hp recall, motherboard replacement, presario v3000, presario won't startup
Some of you will remember the song we performed at Rob and Emily’s wedding. Rob asked us for the lyrics, but we decided to do better than that. We recorded it in our home studio. The quality isn’t super great, but I think we get the point across.
Rob & Emily
Here’s the audio file (MP3): Dirty Girl and Fancy Boy
If indeed Rob and Emily come by our place on their way through the area, we’ll have a CD ready and waiting.
Our trip to California was a lot of fun. We saw lots of familiar faces and places, and hung out with some great people.
After spending a couple days with Thea’s folks in Las Vegas, we headed to Los Osos to stay with our old friends, Bryan and Molly. We always have a great time with these two. Soon after our arrival, Bryan said it best: "It’s like no time has passed." That’s what good friends do – they pick up where they left off regardless of how long it’s been since last they met.
Bryan has been busy in the back yard. Witness:
We had multiple meals that featured fresh veggies straight from the garden, including potatoes, beets and chard. And Bryan is a helluva cook!
While we were in the area we visited several of our favorite places, including:
- lunch with Craig at Pete’s on the Pier
- a couple hours hanging at Shell Beach
- checking on the status of the SLO Botanical Garden – looking good!
- Big Sky (of course) for lunch with the parents of some of our Paonia friends
- Montaña de Oro State Park
- A tour through "north county"
One of the places we wanted to go by was our old house in Santa Margarita. We were surprised to see that it’s up for sale again. We’d always been told that we sold the house at the perfect time, and it was a confirmation to see our old house for sale for $35k less than we sold it for. It was also a bit sad to see the house in the condition it was in. Sigh.
After a great evening of catching up with friends who dropped by Gus’s and then sushi with Bryan and Molly, we headed for San Francisco.
While in San Francisco, we stayed with some of my old colleagues from TrueCredit – Jill and Peter. It was great to see these guys again after so many years. They have a great old flat in the Castro, where they’ve lived for several years now.
Unfortunately, Thea picked up a case of food poisoning (or something) in SLO and spent the entire San Francisco portion of our trip feeling really terrible. It was quite disappointing for her, and I wish it hadn’t worked out that way.
I went with Jill and Peter to the rehearsal so I could check out the situation and help out if possible. Poor Thea remained behind.
Another of my former colleagues who now lives in Salt Lake (Nicole) flew in with her boyfriend (David) Friday night. Jill, Peter and I took the Muni (subway) down to the Embarcadero to meet Nicole and David for drinks. We weren’t there long, but it was good to hang out with them!
The wedding was the following day, and much of the day was devoted to it. Jill and Peter were involved in the setup, so they left early for errands, etc. I walked to the corner store and picked up some non-volatile food to whip Thea up some breakfast. Nicole and David met us at the apartment and we hopped in our car and drove up to Sausalito for the nuptials.
I’m glad we arrived when we did, because we had only really just sat down when they started the ceremony. And it was a very nice ceremony – short and thoughtful.
The reception started immediately thereafter, just inside the building next to where the ceremony took place. It was a great venue – a Julia Morgan structure with just enough room for 10 tables and a raised stage for the talent show. We’re glad our friends (the two who married that day) chose to skip the dancing, and instead feature musical acts by their friends. It was very entertaining. Plus, I had a job as "the roadie," running the sound for the various acts. Peter and I collaborated on this, which made it ten times more fun.
Our own performance was not up to our standards, but everyone seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. Thea is a gifted writer of comedy songs, and I help her out with song structure and stuff like that. (We’re going to prepare a recorded version of the song when we get over our respective diseases.)
After the wedding we loaded a bunch of Peter’s gear into the back of our car and followed them back to their place in the city. Thea naturally went straight to bed, but I stayed up with the others for a nightcap and our last chance to socialize.
Jill and Peter made us a lovely breakfast the next day, and then we headed out for Las Vegas. Bryan and Molly had highly recommended a scenic route through Yosemite and down highway 395 through Bishop, but Thea was still feeling quite bad. So we high-tailed it down I-5 (ugh) and made it there in 9 hours.
After a day of resting in Las Vegas, we headed home. I had just come down with a cold so Thea did most of the driving.
All in all we traveled about 2,560 miles on this trip. It was fun and exhausting.
Thanks to all the folks who hosted us, bought us meals, and were otherwise nice people! Hope to see you all again before too long!
This whole $700 billion bailout thing has me riled. I do think there is a time and place for the government to step in, but I don’t believe this is it. These banks got greedy. End of story.
I heard a great Fresh Air interview with a NYT economy writer last night, and it really helped me understand a few things. The writer said that if indeed we do pursue a bailout of these irresponsible banks, a couple things should be set up in the agreement:
- There should be a specific price for these "toxic" assets. Say, $0.25 to the dollar. No open-ended deals.
- If, for some reason, the assets prove to be worth more than that, tax-payers should get ALL of the profit on their investment.
The administration is screaming for this to all get done immediately. I haven’t trusted these guys for a minute since they got into office, so I can’t imagine that there isn’t some kind of benefit to them or their cronies if we rush the job.
It also made me wonder if this isn’t a last run at massive corporate welfare for all of Bush’s buddies. Plus it has the advantage of seriously limiting the next administration’s ability to implement any new initiatives. Obama has already said as much.
We had a great time at the wedding of Rob and Emily. Well, I did. Thea did a great job on the song we prepared, but she didn’t feel very good most of the time.
Saw some old friends and was drafted as the sound guy/"roadie." It was good to contribute to the frivolity. Many thanks to Peter for his excellent partnership and copious stage experience.
For those interested, my friend Mike Soliman took some typically excellent and creative photos when he and his wife weren’t performing.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/michael_soliman/sets/72157607406061547/
Now we head back to Vegas to pick up the dogs, and then home!
We made it to San Francisco, but we suffered a 50% casualty rate. Thea somehow picked up a bug – probably food poisoning – and she’s feeling very low. She missed out on the get-together we had last night with some old friends, which I know she was looking forward to.
Today is the wedding, and we’re going to go for it. Because Thea’s feeling better than yesterday, we believe she’s on the mend. So she’ll take it easy and we’ll do our best when we perform in the talent show. We (especially Thea) put a lot of work into the act, so I hope we can pull it off!
We’re winding up our visit to San Luis Obispo this evening and rolling out of town tomorrow. It’s been a great visit with old friends.
Walking around SLO today was fun – perfect weather, the students just arrived, and everything is gorgeous. It was a beautiful place to live.
We came half-expecting feelings of regret for leaving 3 years ago. But those feelings never came. The truth is that California is not our home. Nothing against California – we just feel more at ease in the dry, oxygen-poor air of the Rockies.
Tonight will be entertaining – beers on the patio at Gus’s (hope we can find a table), then back to our hosts’ place for carryout from Tsurugi (great sushi). Tomorrow we head north to San Francisco for the wedding.
