Life must be good - I haven't posted since my birthday on October 25. It's either that or all my complaints are so trivial that I can't be bothered to write about them. Either way - here it is Valentine's Day - another day just like all others and yet, every Valentine's Day brings back a memory of when I was very young and received a beautiful valentine's card from an anonymous admirer. To this day I have no idea who sent it to me and I will think about it every February 14.
Happy Valentine's Day to my secret admirer, so long ago, and to everyone. May your life be filled with people who love you and whom you love.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Poor Charley!
We have to make another trip to the vet this morning. We were there Thursday for a checkup and shots but because she needs numerous shots the vet recommended doing a few Thursday and the remainder Saturday.
She's such a good girl. Not one complaint when she was poked three times and examined by someone she has rarely seen. Kudos to the vet for his gentleness and kindness. I have no complaints.
The one thing we have to do now is put her on a diet as she's just under 7 pounds over her ideal weight. This may not seem like much but she is a medium sized dog and that equates into too much excess weight. We are giving a new brand of dry dog food a try. It's called Medi-Cal satiety support and it's designed specifically for overweight dogs and it's supposed to help make her feel fuller with a lesser amount of food.
I'll have to take her back in a few weeks from now to have here re-weighed in case we have to adjust the portions.
Windows Live Writer
I downloaded this program sometime ago and it's slick. Posting to my blog can't be any easier than this. It's setup to publish directly to my blog with one click. No more logging into Blogger and posting from there. Well worth the download.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Resurrecting the Dead (Laptop)
From a previous post you'll see that I had purchased a new laptop, which I eventually returned, as a replacement for my HP DV9535nr that suddenly decided to die. Well today it has come back from the dead. Hopefully it won't give up the ghost again anytime soon.
Sometime ago, either in late August or early September, I placed my laptop on the ground so that I could take Charley (my dog) outside for a trip to the bathroom. I ended up staying outside for quite sometime doing yard work and when I came back inside my laptop had shut off. I pressed the power button, the lights came on, the lights went out. No matter how many times I pushed the button nothing happened. No boot, nothing.
I started doing some research on line. I tried everything that was suggested. Remove the battery, hold down the power button to drain any excess power. Try using the power cord only. Remove the memory, swap it, reseat it, pull the drives, remove the dvd drive etc. Nothing I tried would work and so I took it into a local computer shop that has been around for many years to let the pros check it out. After a couple of days I was called to pick it up, they couldn't repair it. The motherboard was shot. At least they only charged $20+ for the diagnostic charge. I also purchased a 2.5" hard drive enclosure so that I could recover any data on the drives. I never did get around to opening the box the enclosure is in.
If anything, I am persistent. I like to tinker and I don't give up easily. I figured if it was dead then I might as well take it completely apart and see if some component might have failed other than the motherboard. I read a little more on the internet and came across some comments about a failed cmos battery and the possibility of no boot if it was dead. A cmos battery is cheap - around $5.00. I thought I would give it a shot. When I opened the bottom covers of the laptop to find the number on the battery, I pulled the wires off of the network card, and left it like that overnight. I picked up a battery yesterday and today installed it, replugged the cables on the network card, pulled the memory out and only put one stick back in. Flipped the laptop over and pushed power and voila, it started. Went into safemode and checked out the device properties to see if anythng was amiss. Everything looked good. Ran Vista's memory test - it was good. Turned off the computer, put the second stick in, turned it on and ran the memory tests again - all checked out ok. Turned it off, put the second harddrive back in and closed all the covers.
I'm really not sure what the problem was but for now I'm back in business and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Don't Waste My Time
Laptop and/or computer manufacturers that are too cheap to include software with the products they sell really piss me off.
I purchased a new laptop from Toshiba (Satellite A300-07G) that has Windows Vista 64 bit installed. I didn't want to buy a low end machine and this one had 4g memory, a T5750 processor, an ATI HD card, large harddrive etc. etc...
It was also to include MS Works 9 as an office program - and that's when and where things went wrong with this purchase.
After sitting through a 1 1/2+ hour setup installation procedure to find that MS Works 9 wasn't there (it had a trial version of MS Office but that's pretty pricey to purchase for a home system) I had to call their support line.
I called Toshiba's helpline and after listening to the automated teller I finally connected with the first of 3 techs (they must outsource their support to India).
This tech wanted me to run the setup installation from the setup DVD's that I was in the process of creating. He gave me a case number in the event I had to call back.
After running the setup again (another 1 1/2 hours later) nothing had changed. There was no MS Works 9. I called their support line again and spoke with another tech - he was adamant that it was there and wanted me to reinstall again with his assistance as I hadn't done it with a tech on the previous attempt. Well, that in itself pissed me off. I am not a newby who is unfamiliar with system software installation and I'm sure he got that message from the tone in my voice. I told him I was at work and could not spend the next hour and half on the phone with him. He said to call back in the evening.
I didn't call back that evening and actually waited until Saturday when I had more time and so this morning I plugged the laptop in, gathered all my materials, and called.
Once again the tech wanted me to run the setup from the DVD's I had created. Okay, I had already told myself before the call to be patient and so I did as instructed. As it was in the process of installing again for the 3rd time he asked me a few questions regarding what and where I had checked in the system. Finally, before the installation was even complete, he advised me that he couldn't help and to take the laptop back to where I had purchased it. Staples was an authorized repair depot and they might be able to install a copy. Before hanging up he gave me another Case number.
I packed everything up and drove the 30 minutes into town to Staples. I explained everything to their computer sales clerk but, I'm guessing because I'm a woman, he had to power it up and see for himself. He asked if I had checked their support site to download - I told him that you can't download MS Works from the support site and if you could the Toshiba Tech would have instructed me to do so. Had I downloaded all the updates as it might be included in that. I told him that I doubted Microsoft would include it in the Windows Update. I think at some point he even wanted to rerun the setup again.
I've already wasted 4 1/2+ hours with the setup not including the time I was spending in Staples. I asked for an exchange - they didn't have any in stock and even then there wouldn't be any guarantee that the next one would have it included. I asked for a credit - by this time I had had enough. Thankfully, they came through with a credit.
Perhaps this sounds chintzy on my part - but I'm tired of being complacent and just accepting things without complaint. I paid good money and damn if I will pay for something that doesn't have all it's advertised as having.
I should have stuck with Dell. I've worked with a lot of Dell's over the years, and not only did they continue to include actual disks when others didn't, I've only had to make 2 calls to their tech support and that's with 20+ machines in my care at work.
I pity the inexperienced user who has to put up with this type of thing! Shame on the manufacturer.
I purchased a new laptop from Toshiba (Satellite A300-07G) that has Windows Vista 64 bit installed. I didn't want to buy a low end machine and this one had 4g memory, a T5750 processor, an ATI HD card, large harddrive etc. etc...
It was also to include MS Works 9 as an office program - and that's when and where things went wrong with this purchase.
After sitting through a 1 1/2+ hour setup installation procedure to find that MS Works 9 wasn't there (it had a trial version of MS Office but that's pretty pricey to purchase for a home system) I had to call their support line.
I called Toshiba's helpline and after listening to the automated teller I finally connected with the first of 3 techs (they must outsource their support to India).
This tech wanted me to run the setup installation from the setup DVD's that I was in the process of creating. He gave me a case number in the event I had to call back.
After running the setup again (another 1 1/2 hours later) nothing had changed. There was no MS Works 9. I called their support line again and spoke with another tech - he was adamant that it was there and wanted me to reinstall again with his assistance as I hadn't done it with a tech on the previous attempt. Well, that in itself pissed me off. I am not a newby who is unfamiliar with system software installation and I'm sure he got that message from the tone in my voice. I told him I was at work and could not spend the next hour and half on the phone with him. He said to call back in the evening.
I didn't call back that evening and actually waited until Saturday when I had more time and so this morning I plugged the laptop in, gathered all my materials, and called.
Once again the tech wanted me to run the setup from the DVD's I had created. Okay, I had already told myself before the call to be patient and so I did as instructed. As it was in the process of installing again for the 3rd time he asked me a few questions regarding what and where I had checked in the system. Finally, before the installation was even complete, he advised me that he couldn't help and to take the laptop back to where I had purchased it. Staples was an authorized repair depot and they might be able to install a copy. Before hanging up he gave me another Case number.
I packed everything up and drove the 30 minutes into town to Staples. I explained everything to their computer sales clerk but, I'm guessing because I'm a woman, he had to power it up and see for himself. He asked if I had checked their support site to download - I told him that you can't download MS Works from the support site and if you could the Toshiba Tech would have instructed me to do so. Had I downloaded all the updates as it might be included in that. I told him that I doubted Microsoft would include it in the Windows Update. I think at some point he even wanted to rerun the setup again.
I've already wasted 4 1/2+ hours with the setup not including the time I was spending in Staples. I asked for an exchange - they didn't have any in stock and even then there wouldn't be any guarantee that the next one would have it included. I asked for a credit - by this time I had had enough. Thankfully, they came through with a credit.
Perhaps this sounds chintzy on my part - but I'm tired of being complacent and just accepting things without complaint. I paid good money and damn if I will pay for something that doesn't have all it's advertised as having.
I should have stuck with Dell. I've worked with a lot of Dell's over the years, and not only did they continue to include actual disks when others didn't, I've only had to make 2 calls to their tech support and that's with 20+ machines in my care at work.
I pity the inexperienced user who has to put up with this type of thing! Shame on the manufacturer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
