Snowulf - Stupid Companies

Thank you Apple for cleaning up the AppStore

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:00:00 -0800

# of Apps removed from App Store by AppShopper.com

In case you haven't heard, Apple recently decided to ban most "sexy" applications from the iTunes app store, nearly 6,000 in total. In brief, they removed anything that had any implied sexuality up to anything showing skin at all. CNN Money put forth the theory that they are doing this because of the upcoming iPad release (ah, the biggest flop we all know and love).
So I titled my post "Thank You Apple", and you might be wondering: why? Because this is fantastic news. The more stupid stuff Apple pulls like this, the more disillusioned developers will become. The more people that become publicly jaded by Apple's bible thumping antics, the less likely they will want to develop for it and the quicker Apple will die a slow, painful death.

No Bikini's, except if you're name is "Sports Illustrated"

Let's look at it realistically. Here are nearly 6,000 applications which were previously allowed, that no longer are, through no fault of the developers of these applications. Even if the application was nothing but gratuitous tits and ass, it cost money to make. Someone had to put in the time writing the code and compiling the application. Someone had to take or license the media used in these applications. Someone had to take the time to go through the app submission and approval process. It may not have been a lot of time to program; it may have been a lot of money to license the images, but it did cost actual time and money. Money these developers can no longer recoup, just because Apple woke up one morning and decided that's the way it is. Hell, even if you're marketing is a bit risque (and by risque I mean risque as used by the Islamic militants, or maybe the puritanical Amish) like in the case of Wobble, you get delisted.

Continue reading "Thank you Apple for cleaning up the AppStore"

Review: Safe Shot Indoor Range in Reno, NV

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:00:00 -0800

Safe Shot Indoor Range
9425 Double R Blvd
Reno, NV 89521
775-284-8984

Very short summary: DO NOT GO UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE. Ultra Expensive. Ultra Black Lung.

Continue reading "Review: Safe Shot Indoor Range in Reno, NV"

iPad. Biggest. Flop. Ever.

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:00:00 -0800

If you haven't heard about the iPad yet, you live under a rock on Venus. Even my mother heard about it. That being said, I think this product is one of the biggest flops in recent history. Sure, there have been massive flops in the past, but I can't think of anything this made of fail in the last year or two.

If you read the news or twitter, you'll see a number of articles for the iPad and (I feel) even more against the iPad. My vote is, of course, against. Gizmodo's "8 Things That Suck About the iPad" has the right idea but sort of whines, picking on it just to pick on it. Mashable has a very well written article "The Anti-Hype: Why Apples iPad Disappoints" which illustrates a few key points on why the iPad isn't "magical".

Continue reading "iPad. Biggest. Flop. Ever."

Carfax doesn't 'do' Motorcycles

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0700

"Carfax - Vehicle History Reports", "The most trusted provider of vehicle history information", "one-stop source for vehicle history information ... CARFAX has the most comprehensive vehicle history database".

You know what all these fragments have in common? The word vehicle (Noun) "A conveyance; a device for carrying or transporting substances, objects or individuals". What Carfax doesn't tell you, and I didn't know, is that Carfax doesn't do motorcycles. I found this somewhat surprising because motorcycle (noun) "An open-seated motor-powered vehicle with two wheels". Key point, a motorcycle is a vehicle. Now, I'm willing to accept that Carfax doesn't do motorcycles, I just wish they would make it clearer.

My story is fairly simple: I was looking online to buy a motorcycle.
I figured the smart thing to do would be to get an unlimited Carfax subscription for a month and check out the VINs. I tried out my newly acquired service on several of the bikes I was watching on ebay. Much to my puzzlement, many of them came back saying "Invalid VIN". I know a few could have been typo'd, or maybe even fraudulent auctions, but half or more did not work and at some point I said to myself "This is more than just a glitch". So I emailed Carfax. The next business day they told me the following:

The CARFAX Database contains over 7 billion records from over 20,000 data sources concerning cars and light trucks manufactured for the North American market since 1981. We're unable to produce reports on other vehicles at this time.

On rare occasion, we will have random records in our database for non-covered vehicles. This is only due to the fact that some of our data sources provide these records electronically and our systems will display these records because they have a valid 17-digit Vehicle Identification Number.

So there you have it, they don't do motorcycles, they only do cars & light trucks. Fine, but I still wish they would have made it clearer. So I requested a full refund. It took trading a few more emails to get them over than "canned response" crap, and they processed my refund. Took all of about 2 hours from when I received the quoted email above, to when I got the "we're processing your refund" email. So I'm happy, if I ever go to buy a used car, I'll sign up again. Until then, no more Carfax for motorcycles.

INVERTED CONTROLS - DO YOU SPEAK IT?!

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:00:00 -0700

Dear Game Design Companies,

Have you heard of inverted controls?

I'm sure you have, you put the option into all of your games. NOW PUT IT INTO YOUR GOD DAMN MOTHER FUCKING GAME DEMOS YOU STUPID FUCKS. It's one god damn fucking option, it really isn't that hard. I was raised on flight sims, and similar games that had inverted controls. In order for me to be able to play any video game, I MUST invert the Y axis. I, like many others, have it hard coded to "Pull Up". Recently, it was suggested to me that I try out the demo for WET. I couldn't get through THE FUCKING TUTORIAL. Why? Because the "Options" Screen for controls is A FUCKING JOKE. You tell me what buttons to hit on the controller, but don't let me change anything. Seriously, how hard could it be to throw in 1 token option for the demo; you could even throw in a few extras for fun. I know that programming up to equal down isn't difficult, I could write it in half a dozen languages right now. So because you fucks are so god damn lazy and can't put one fucking option into your demos, you won't have my money. I threw down the controller in frustration after trying to play WET after all of 3 minutes, I'm not going to re-write the way I play for your shitty ass demo. So instead of getting my money, how about I shove an Xbox controller up your ass.

Signed -
- Someone who's NEVER going to be your customer.

StarCraft 2: From Day One Purchase to Piracy

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:00:00 -0700

I think it is safe to say that Starcraft (the original) was one of my all time favorite games. It is one of those few rare games that I kept going back to playing time and time again (much like Planetside). If I didn't have it installed, inevitably it would be installed at the next LAN party. StarCraft was a mainstay of our college's video gaming experience events. We still had StarCraft tournaments, and I'm not afraid to say that we all lost to the Asian high school kids, but we had fun. Now that I think about it though, it's been a few years since I've played it. It's gotten dated, plus John and I replaced it with C&C:Generals Zero Hour, as our RTS of choice. For a LAN party, I wouldn't mind going back, if nothing else so I could set up my walls of photon cannons to piss people off with. Ahhh... good times... good times.

Then... there was StarCraft 2, and great excitement. Obviously with how much I loved StarCraft 1, StarCraft 2 was an immediate pre-order. Or... it was... until Blizzard decided to release some news about it.

Continue reading "StarCraft 2: From Day One Purchase to Piracy"

Review: Fandango iPhone/iPod Touch App

nospam@example.com (John) — Wed, 13 May 2009 10:00:00 -0700

The Fandango app (warning: opens iTunes) is a nifty free application built by Fandango, aka that site you use to check movie times and possibly buy tickets from. I have often used the site to check for movie times, but never for tickets (until last Friday when I used it to get tickets for Star Trek).

As I have found the site (and going to movies) interesting, I downloaded the free app. It is a very simplistic and easy to use application. It has 3 tabs: Movies, Theaters, and My Account.

Movies shows list of popular movies playing in your area (including those starting that week); it also has the option to show you those features coming soon.
Theaters provides a list of theaters near you, and shows you your favorite features, the latter being more useful to me, as there are a couple theaters that are equidistant from me, but in opposing directions to one another.
Lastly, My Account allows you to edit your Saved ZIP/Postal Code (something you can do just about everywhere in the app) either manually or by using your current location. Additionally, it allows you to store your Credit Card Info, so you can make purchases. Additionally, once you have made purchases, you can review them in the Purchases subtab.

Here's a quick rundown of some of the Pros and Cons of the app:
Pro -

Favorite Theaters
Easy to check what's playing at favorite theater
Easy to check what time a movie is playing at all nearby theaters

Con -

Stores a Credit Card, NOT an account
Doesn't allow you to password protect your CC, so if/when you lose your device or it gets stolen... guess who gets movie tickets on you?
No way to print - Have to use screen capture (which I _had_ to use last Friday as the theater was unable to scan the credit card I used to buy the tickets, instead I had to enter the confirmation number, which I could NOT have gotten without access to the internet
Doesn't save state on exit - so if you are on a Touch and you hit menu instead of power when you leave your friendly wifi, you won't be able to access the movie times any more

Con #2 and #3 bother me the most. Specifically, because I ~~lost~~misplaced the device once before. Once I realized that it had become misplaced, I changed the passwords on all the accounts I accessed through this device. That way, if someone else (with less scruples) found it, I wouldn't have to worry about strange purchases.
I don't understand why the Fandango app doesn't allow/force you to create an account, rather than storing your Credit Card. To me that is just beyond stupidity.

As I mentioned in Con #3, I highly recommend you take a screen cap of your confirmation number, just in case it can't read your credit card (as was the case for me), and most especially if you are using a Touch, and thus dependent on friendly wireless signals for internet access.

In the end, I will still use and recommend the application, though I doubt I will use it to purchase tickets again.

BART costs $300 million a mile to build?! WTF?!

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Mon, 04 May 2009 10:00:00 -0700

As a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area I ride BART from time to time. I know many people who ride it every working day as their sole mode of transport to/from the office. I luck out in not having that sort of commute, but it is still a great mass transit system in my opinion. I'm always hopeful that they'll extend it more (680 corridor or San Jose), but said expansion is generally a very slow process. So I was very excited when I received last week's "myBART weekly" newsletter and read the following:

BART moves forward with $1 billion in extension projects
The BART Board of Directors has just moved forward with bringing Bay Area residents $1 billion in transit expansion projects. Board members voted to construct a 10-mile extension into eastern Contra Costa County and approved two significant elements of the funding plan for the Oakland Airport Connector. Watch this BARTtv feature on the Contra Costa County extension.

This extension doesn't help me at all, but any extension makes me happy. After some digging around I finally found the eBART website with more details. That's when things went from happy to yelling.

The second sentence on the front page reads: "The eBART Proposed Project would extend the BART system in the median of Highway 4 approximately 10 miles". That's pretty much where I came to a screaming halt. It doesn't take a a comp sci major to do that math. $1 billion / 10 miles = ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS A MILE. What. The. Fuck... are they building that costs $100 mil a mile? They better be installing fucking gold plated tracks for that cost. I realize they are building two stations, but even if those stations cost some fucking asinine number like $250million a piece, you're still talking about track that costs $50mil a mile to build. What. The. Fuck.

We're talking about land in Pittsburgh, Antioch, & the median of Highway 4. The last of which is not exactly highly desirable land. Frankly the cities in the area aren't terribly expensive by Bay Area standards. With all that, the cost can't possibly be in the land. While I'm no train expert, I am fairly sure that the transcontinental rail road didn't cost $100 million a mile, nor do modern rail roads. I know the track gauge of BART is specialty stuff and expensive to build equipment for, with recent track resurfacer engines costing $1 million each. We're not talking about ordering a thousand engines though, nor is this project even standard BART. They are using DMU's instead, which aren't compilable with the rest of the system. I could probably find some numbers somewhere in their hundreds of pages of documents, but I enjoy ranting more than researching. So where in the fuck is $1 BILLION dollars going?!

BART Map

That brings me to my final point, and the subject of this post. On the Project Facts page it states "Conventional BART trains would require special engineering for tracks and hardware, with a cost three times that of the eBART solution.". If standard BART would have cost 3x as much, that means it would have cost THREE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS A MILE. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. What. The. Fuck. To put that in perspective, BART currently has 104 miles of track. Or at the going rate of $300mil a mile, it would cost $31.2 BILLION dollars.

==Brain Expodes...Transmission ends==

MP-FUCKING-THREE

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:00:00 -0700

This is one of those topics that truly make me angry. I don't know why the record labels don't get it, but all you have to do is sell your products at a reasonable price and with reasonable ease and consumers will buy it. Of course, all the big record labels are fucking retards. So let me make it really simple: SELL YOUR MUSIC IN MP3 FORMAT AS SINGLE TRACKS. None of this DRM crap, none of this "album only" crap. Don't fuck with us and we'll GIVE you money for your music.

Why does this come up? I recently went hunting for some songs that caught my fancy for one reason or another. It was stupid what I had to go through to actually get the songs. But I recorded what I found and where to make a point. Below is a list of the songs and where I found them (FOUND them only. Remember kids "Piracy" is "wrong").

Kid Rock - All Summer Long
Found it on on Amazon MP3 but in "album only" and costs $8.99. Fuck. You. I'm not going to spend $9 for one damn track. Found the track on The Pirate Bay.

Kevin Rudolf - Let it Rock
Not on Amazon. Actually found this song on iTunes. It was the first purchase I've made on iTunes in a long time. Ever since Amazon MP3 grew to contain a reasonable collection of music, I've refuses to use iTunes on the grounds of DRM. I figured it was a good time to test iTunes now since their library is supposed to be "DRM-free". This song was indeed DRM-less but in stupid .m4a format, I know I can convert it, but seriously - no one fucking uses m4a. MP-FUCKING-THREE.

September - Can't get over you
Not on Amazon or iTunes. Found it on Mininova.

Daddy DJ - Daddy DJ
Not on Amazon or iTunes, but it is an older song so I'm less surprised I didn't find it there. Found it on Mininova.

DJ Sammy - Follow my Star
Not on Amazon or iTunes. Found it on The Pirate Bay.

Just for fun I pulled out Limewire and gave it a try. It is completely useless now and filled with crap. It doesn't surprise me that the music companies are flooding it with shit, but P2P like Limewire hasn't been popular or useful for many many years. It was on my machine though so I figured I'd give it a shot and see how badly flooded the network was.

The one thing that really surprised me was that not a single track above is available on Amazon MP3 (as a single). But this is this most perfect example of why the record labels are losing out. I'm willing to throw down $1 per song, that's $5 for the tracks I mentioned. Not a lot, but multiplied by millions of fans... it adds up (which is the whole point of the $1-a-song business model). Instead, how much money did the record labels make off of me? $1. Yup... not much. Could have made 500% more money, but no... they've got to be money grubbing whores. But that's ok. The music industry will be the next to bankrupt and everyone will celebrate. There ain't gonna be a bail out for you fuckers.

Let's rebrand 'Internet' to 'Entirnit'

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:44:00 -0700

They obviously sound completely the same, and "Entirnit" is obviously much cooler and can be text'd easily as "ent" rather than "int" which obviously makes no sense because why would you be talking about Integers.

All mockery aside, I've lost the last of the remaining respect I had for the Sci-Fi channel, which truth be told, wasn't much (wrestling...). I loved the Sci-Fi channel in general because I love Sci-Fi shows. Some of their big budget B movies were awesomely hilarious, especially since they loved to recycle the same dozen actors into every movie.
So why the loss of respect? The Sci-Fi channel is rebranding itself to Syfy. That's right, it is rebranding itself to a homophone. It sounds exactly the same, but it isn't actually a word at all (which means they can trademark it). Additionally, as it is no longer a specific genre as a name, people can't get upset when more wrestling takes over the network.

They also published a press release which was spectacularly stupid. So much so that I'll leave it to you to burn at the stake. My personal favorite material to use to skewer these idiots is an interview with TVWeek. While attempting to describe why "Sci-Fi" as a name is bad, they bash their core audience "The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that". But what about their core audience... they've got a wide spread appeal with shows like Eureka. Sure! You're spot on... and by "spot on" I mean that you are wrong; they even provided a quote to back themselves up: "When we tested this new name, the thing that we got back from our 18-to-34 techno-savvy crowd, which is quite a lot of our audience, is actually this is how youd text it," (emphasis added) the President of Sci-Fi (Dave Howe) continued with, "It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip, which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise."

Seriously, if you, as a company, think a name is cool and "hip" in this day in age (and the 'Syfy' execs do) then it probably isn't. It is a fair assumption that almost anything a 50+ year old network exec thinks, is wrong. Whoever came up with this 'Syfy' idea, should take themselves out back behind the shed and shoot themselves.

Related Note: Real Life Comics for today also talked about SyFy. I concur with their comments about alienating Sci-Fi's customer base. Of course, I do everything in an angry way, whereas RLC does everything in a much more humorous, and some would say hilarious manner.

Unrelated Note: The Jo(h)ns will be traveling for the next week-ish. Which means I'll be extremely tired, and possibly have time on my hands to write. Tired = Angry. So expect some good rants... Or nothing at all, depending on how motivated either of us are to write/review/rant/etc.

Comcast sells you cable internet for $12 an hour

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:00:00 -0700

I recently caught a press release from Comcast that I thought was interesting, "Comcast to Roll Out Extreme 50 Mbps High-Speed Internet Service in Bay Area". It really caught my eye because, I live in the area, so theoretically I could call them up and have 50 Mbps internet by the end of the month. Cool... or is it? We all remember that Comcast isn't the best ISP in the world because they love to use Sandvine to tinker with your internet (namely disable anything they don't like) and they think it is a "good idea" to cap bandwidth. Though since this service is something like five times faster than their previous offerings, it is possible, if unlikely, that they changed or removed the cap. Curious, I went into the Comcast live chat system and asked them.

What they said: "the service is still under the cap".

This reminds me of the old AOL days, when they started sending out CD's offering you 1000 free hours a month. Cool... except there are only 731 hours in the average month, so you can't use it. Comcast is doing the same thing, "Here is THE FASTEST home service ever!!!! Except you still can't download any more than you could previously". Wow. How fucking useless is that? And for this "honor"? You pay $139.95/month (not including any fees or taxes).

Why is this service so amazing? Well according to Comcast, you can download an HD movie in just 16 minutes. Of course the service is "ideal for households or businesses simultaneously using several computers". Say you have a family of 4, all of whom have their own computers, and with this blazing fast service they start downloading (or streaming) HD movies (say from Netflix). Congrats, you each get to download 10 movies a month. That isn't a bad number per say, but it is easy to watch more than that. Of course if you do that, you can't use your internet for anything else. No VoIP, no email, no surfing, no music, no streaming radio, no Xbox Live.

Let's take a quick look at the real numbers though. 250 GB * 1024 * 8 = 2,048,000 megabits / 50 Mbps / 60s / 60mn = 11 Hours 22 minutes. If you max your line, you get internet for 11 hours. That's it. Not a few days, not 3/4ths of the month, just 11 hours. Oh and don't forget, you are paying $139.95 month / 11.37 hours = $12.30/hour. Why would you pay that, when you can pay less per DAY at a Starbucks.

I'm sorry, but we're moving into the internet age. More and more content (and media) is being provided over the web, sites are getting "richer", downloads are getting bigger, and bandwidth requirements are getting larger. The genie is out of the bottle, so to speak. Comcast is trying to put it back in the bottle by capping net usage. Maybe I have a valid (and legal) reason to download (and/or upload) large quantities of data. I download Linux distributions over Bittorrent; I have to update them often (alpha's and all that); I regularly download tens of gigabytes from Microsoft (MSDN); I stream legal TV shows (thank you Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, and all the other providers, like CBS and ABC who let me watch from their own page); I have 4 computers running (at the very least); the list goes on. I'm just one tech enabled person. Imagine the family of four with two teenage kids who are technically competent. Frankly, if I want to saturate my connection, I'm going to do it as often and for as long as I want, especially if I am paying for it, which I do with my 6 meg DSL line.

Comcast can go screw itself with their fool's promise of fast internet. I'll keep my DSL line and sleep well tonight knowing that I can download 2 terabytes a month if I needed to.

In the extended body (IE "Continue Reading") I've included the entire (unedited) chat transcript.
Continue reading "Comcast sells you cable internet for $12 an hour"

Dell Community Forum Terms of Service Violation

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:01:00 -0800

I know I'm an angry person and I can rant and rave a good bit when in the mood. Though when I was posting on the Dell blog I honestly wanted an answer so I was trying to play very nice. I never even swore! Here's an email (Verbatim) I just received care of Dell. Was I that far out of line? Or are they just grumpy because I'm pushing for answers they don't want to give? ~~Maybe~~ I pushed their buttons because they know full well they are yanking around their customers.

Dear: ShakataGaNai

We are writing in reference to your post in the Dell Community, described as follows:

Board: Direct2Dell
Date: 2/18/2009
Title: Dell's Mini 10 Packs a Punch

While we value your participation in the Dell Community, we have removed the comment described above because it violates the Dell Community Terms of Service. You may remember that you agreed to abide by these Terms of Service when you registered with our website. If you would like to review the Terms of Service, you can find them at the following link: http://en.community.dell.com/content/TOS.aspx

In order to assist you in reposting your message, we note that your post violates our Terms of Service for the following reason(s):

Your post contains language that we believe to be harassing, unlawful, or otherwise objectionable. Use of such language violates the Terms of Service, and must be deleted in order to allow your post. Prohibited words and phrases include those in which certain letters have been replaced with alternate characters. Unlawful language may include any statements that might reasonably be interpreted as a violation of the intellectual property rights of any person, including a trademark, copyright or patent.

For your convenience, a copy of the original post also appears at the end of this message. Please keep in mind that continued violations of the Terms of Service may cause you to lose your posting privileges.

Thanks for cooperating and participating in the Dell Community.

Sincerely,

DTE15154
Dell Community | Administration Services

Copy of original post:

What does "Initially" mean? First day? First week? Six months? Only on QVC? How about you stop yanking our chain around and give us a real date. Also what about the rest of the features, like GPS and Bluetooth?

I've been waiting very very patiently for this new device. Dell anounced it ages ago, but never gave a date or even hints, just some rumors from a loose lipped customer service agent. I actually ordered a Mini 9 but canceled it because I heard about the Mini 10.

I'm also going to be really honest here. I _DO NOT_ want Windows on my netbook, not now, not ever. And I fully understand that you have to gimp the machines to install XP on them because of MS and it's BS about licenses for XP. That being said, a non-upgradeable machine?! Come now, You (Dell) are better than this. Some of us are more than capable of taking a little machine like this and installing Linux on it and getting it working just fine, without your pre-install. But I, like many, will NOT buy a machine that is not upgradeable.
-----------

This message is a private communication between the Dell Community and you and should not be posted to the message boards. Public posting of this message may result in immediate banning of your Dell Community account.

Dell Mini 10 punches like a 2 year old

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:00:00 -0800

Dell posted a blog entry titled "Dell's Mini 10 Packs a Punch", but this punch is the punch of a 2 year old. Don't get me wrong, some 2 year old's can punch very decently for their age, but that's nothing compared to a grown man, not to mention a professional boxer. Dell is a respectable company in the computer industry, well know for its customization (in fact that was why Michael Dell founded the company). Which is why it baffles me that they are releasing the Mini 10 like this.

If you read over their blog entry, you will see that it is the official announcement of the Mini 10. Awesome, right? Not so fast... They are releasing the Mini 10, but you have a total of ZERO (0) upgrade options. Even the RAM is fixed "which means it will not be upgradeable". Please, this is no $250 sweet netbook - this is a cheap piece of shit that costs $400.
Do you want Linux on it? Not available initially.
Do you want an SSD? Not available initially.
Do you want GPS, Bluetooth, TV Tuner, or Mobile broadband? Not available initially.
Do you want upgraded RAM? Not available initially.
Catching the theme here? So the next logical question is "When will it be?". Which is exactly what I asked. Here's the response I got from Lionel Menchaca, Dell's Chief Blogger:

ShakataGaNai: Thanks for your comment and for your patience. I tried to provide a good overview of the kind of options that will ultimately be available on the Mini 10. I will provide updates to this post as new information is available.

Does that answer your question? Cause I know it doesn't answer mine. I don't give a flying fruitcake if it is available for free with 24kt gold coating, eventually. I want to know WHEN. Might as well rename it from the "Dell Inspiron Mini 10" to the "Dell Inspiron Not Available 10".

My answer to Dell's jerking around of it's customers? I went and bought an ASUS Eee PC 1000. It's got: 1.6 Ghz Atom, 10.2" 1024x600 Screen, 40GB SSD, 1GB RAM (Upgradeable), Bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n, Webcam & 5+ Hr battery life. That's everything I want, except 2GB of RAM, and more, for less than the "Not Available 10". It cost me only $387 from Amazon, and it will be here Monday. So next week, stay tuned for a review.

Don't buy from PCMall.com

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:00:00 -0800

Normally when I'm posting a blog about not buying from someone, I'm seething with rage. Today is an exception. I'm here to warn you against the use of PCMall.com; now I don't remember when I last used there services, which is why this little story worries me so much. Last night, I got an email from them with the subject "PC Mall Order Status", it went on to inform me that my order of a 256MB compact flash card, to the tune of about $54.95 (after s/h & tax) had been canceled. Now... I didn't place this order, so I was a little confused. I assumed that it was a phishing message of some sort, but it was to a legitimate alias (through my proper email naming scheme). So I went to their website and plugged in the order number and my zip code from many years back (just happened to guess right the first time) and it did indeed show me the order. Right about then, I got a lot more concerned. It said that I placed an order on 2/16/2009, though it had indeed been canceled.

This occurred last night (on President's day) so I figured I'd wait till this morning and do the next logical thing: Call Customer Service. Which I did.
I call up the 800 number listed on the bottom of every page of their site. I get the standard options, I press "2" for home/office sales. As soon as I get someone and tell them my order number, he says that I've got a web order (no shit) and that I need to talk to another department. Soooo... their sales people won't actually deal with sales, just the sales _they_ want to, apparently. He transfers me and I get another menu, except this one only has two options and wont take any input. I stabbed the keypad of my phone repeatedly and nothing worked. Eventually it took an entry, or just gave up and let me through. Someone picked up (after a total of 12 minutes of waiting) and the instant I told them I had a question about an order, you could hear the utter displeasure and loathing in the rep's voice. I'm fairly sure the one word that crossed their mind at the time was "fuccccckkkkkkk", cause that's what their voice sounded like. "Great", I think to myself, "they've got some of the most displeased call reps, ever."

Moving along, I explained to the rep my situation and order number, to which they put me on hold to investigate. They come back some minutes later to inform me not to worry and that it is just a generic email and an error at that. I tried to explain to the rep that I can log into their website and pull up the order. Hell, it even has my address on it. The rep has none of it and just repeats that it is an email error. I thank them and hang up because obviously nothing I say to them is going to alter their view of the situation. The fact that their rep is so audibly pissed off (that I noticed it, and I'm fairly dense when it comes to these things), and that they claim that an order placed in MY NAME to MY ADDRESS is just an "Email error", yea... scary.

In Short: PCMall obviously has no idea what is going on; their customer service is a joke, their phones are broken; if you can get through, they are slower than hell to answer and frankly it is startlingly overpriced. 256MB Compact Flash for $39.99? Shit, I can get a brand name 8GB Card on Amazon for less than that.

Averatec & ATI

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:13:08 -0700

Aparently Averatec & ATI are in cahoots w/ each other. ATI refuses to provide any drivers for the Mobility Radeon 9600 I have in this machine. I'm sorry, even if the machines are specalized, they should at leave have a generic copy of their mobility drivers. Basically what ATI said to me is that they'd like me to shove it - and go buy an NVidia card. Thats fine with me that they don't want customers - but can't they at least maintain their own hardware?

Averatec has also blown me off - but thats ok - I found in the BBB that they have a C raiting. Thats... bad.. really bad, for a "young company". Also intrestingly enough, ATI has a D raiting.