My angry vent about a certain computer company (starts with a G)

So, I confess. I’m computer literate. Actually met my hubby while taking a basic computer programming class in college on the vm (yeah, it predates the internet – I’m as old as dirt, dig it). Now a few of my coworkers have caught on to this…

So, my coworker brings in his computer (hereafter called the anchor) saying he has a virus. He brings in all his software, including “the recovery disks!” (He says with a smile!) I take the thing home and start working on it over the weekend. Bet your cookies he has a virus/worm/evil monster, and not a nice one at that – it ate part of his recovery disk. Hubby and I do a destructive reformat on this thing, and it still has the little bugger on it. O.k. We pull out the “recovery disks” only to find them totally blank. I call coworker-turns out he didn’t make them when he first bought the computer. He calls the company that starts with G.

I end up ordering them for him and get stuck in customer service purgatory for half an hour, finally ending up emailing the requests for the disks because I am not about to pay for service on a computer that isn’t mine – I just need the freaking disks. No problem – they can have them out in 2-3 weeks. They give me a link to give them a credit card number, which I promptly do on the day they give me the link.

3 weeks go by, with every day my coworker asking if the disks arrived. On the last day of 3 weeks, I email the company that starts with G and ask where the disks are. I get this as a response:

I have created order number ….. for the Restore CD to be shipped to you. Please allow an estimated 2 to 3 weeks for the Restore CDs to be sent to you depending on the availability.

I am looking forward for your satisfaction with our service.

I respond with:

You are stating it will take 3 more weeks? I’ve already waited three weeks – I went to the secure website on receipt of the secure website address and paid. Didn’t anything get initiated once I did this?

The response I get is this:

I do apologize but you need to notify us once the information has been submitted for us to be informed that we need to use the information submitted in processing the order. In this case, we are only notified when the order has been processed.

Umm, huh?

So it is my fault that THEY didn’t process the order? I used the link THEY sent me to have the order submitted on THEIR system – can’t THEIR computer tell THEM I submitted an order – they had the case number and everything. It just blows my mind to see customer service like this in a day and age when everything SHOULD be automated.

So here I sit, waiting ANOTHER three weeks for the stinking disks, being asked on a daily basis if the disks had come.

Please, for your own sanity, avoid the computer company that starts with a G and uses a cow motif, at least if you want customer service that doesn’t use paper cups on a string or telegraphs for communication…

I’m pulling the soapbox back to the corner now.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! (insert sound of head banging on wall here)

In the transition of my computer over the last two weeks, I had a sudden realization that I couldn’t find the last 3 months of pictures. AAAARRGGHH! I’ve got nothing from October to December 27!

I found a file called My Albums on my external drive that I moved, but no My Pictures.

Please learn from my mistakes and make SURE that you have everything before you reformat your old computer drive.

I’m off to my photo host to retrieve my pictures now – thank goodness for that at least. I’ve got all the decent pictures that I managed to save at the very, very least. After that, I’m backing everything up onto a dvd. That will teach me, right?

Sigh, dreaming of tie-dye, colorways, and Vista…

The weather has been unusually warm. So much so that I actually thought about going out into the garage and doing some LWI dying – I owe R&M a dyed chair cover to make their couch; my winter wardrobe doesn’t have enough color in it to keep me sane over the winter months… The problem is that I’m not prepared to bring dye powders into the house. There is too much chance of them getting onto other things, like carpeting, my fabric collection, or my grout in my tile floor.

I’m ready to branch out a bit on my dye adventures for myself and go to new color combinations….  I have found a few websites, more intended toward the web developer, that have led my mind to try a few new options:  Color Combos, and the Color Scheme Generator are a couple that are great fun…  This one inspired me to try raspberry and orange together for a new shirt…

Even though the weather gods had blessed us with warmth in January, my mind was distracted. S agreed to let me get a new computer, as mine has had sluggish performance issues in the past. His parents were looking to get something new, and quite frankly I didn’t see them managing to figure out windows vista too easily. So, since I needed a less sluggish computer anyway, we’re opting to reformat my existing machine for his folks. I found a new machine on Sunday, picked it up last Monday, and have been fighting the reinstallation of my software ever since.

The glitter glue princess appreciates that she can have her own screen instead of having to share, and she has taken to it like a fish to water. I’m just having to bear through little burps and hiccups that come with trying to reinstall everything we need back on the machine.

This whole vista compatibility thing is driving me nuts too – I can’t run my old Nero software, can’t run a few of glitter glue princess’s old games (that I must admit to playing more than her now – shhhh!).  At least, for now my embroidery software and pattern drafting programs still work.  Those are the ones that matter most….

Then…. there is the black screen of death, as I’m now calling it.  I’m in the midst of discussions with HP and microsoft on how to handle a little problem that Vista is having.  When my computer goes to “sleep”, it actually goes into a coma and won’t come out till I unplug it.  I get no reaction at all from restarting the computer.  This has monopolized the majority of my time of late.

So, if you are wondering why I’m not around, give a little pause and send good thoughts my way while I try to hold my temper with this transition….