Category: Modern problems

Posted on

Huh, First time I’ve seen that in a while.

About three months ago, I replaced the hard drive in the other half’s computer. I fought with the system to get a functional operating system on the drive but was finally successful and the other half’s computer was suddenly faster and stable.

I thought, “Cool,” and assumed that I wouldn’t have to deal with computer issues for a while. 

Think again! 

This morning, the other half was sitting there in front of the computer with a very puzzled expression. Innocently, I asked, “what’s wrong?”  There are times when you shouldn’t ask questions!

The other half said they’d tried to use the computer just now and were presented with a white screen and that the computer seemed very warm to the touch. I figured it was nothing, a simple hard reset would bring everything back up and then I could go back to beating my head against the wall in the heinous job search.

This was not to be, no amount of cajoling (a.k.a. swearing), incantations, or holding keys down during the boot up process gives me anything but the white screen. I can’t even get to the built-in diagnostics of the system and those are supposed to be in ROM and therefore independent of the hard disk. In other words, I’m wondering if the computer itself is dead because I should be able to get to something that would aid me in the diagnosis of the problem.

Generic SSDAn hour later I’m holding the nifty new SSD drive in my hand, wondering why it “sings” when I try to mount it on my computer. This is a solid state device… There are no moving parts and yet when I plug it in to my system the device very clearly makes a high pitched sound.

At the same time, the device refuses to identify itself to my computer at all. Placing the old hard drive in the other half’s  computer confirms that there is nothing wrong with the computer itself and in fact the machine boots happily.

I contact the manufacturer of the SSD and after a brief discussion am directed to please box up the drive for replacement.  The person I was speaking with (an American) recognized a kindred spirit and was pretty forthcoming. Instead of leading me through all sorts of useless diagnostics (which I’d already done) they responded to my question, “Did I miss anything,” with a laugh and said not that they could tell. 

It was refreshing to not have endless apologies and kow-towing. This was two professionals having a technical discussion about a piece of hardware that had died during what we used to call the infant mortality period. They weren’t defensive and I wasn’t angry sometimes shit like this just happens. It’s inconvenient on both sides but it’s reality and nothing is going to change that reality.

A new drive should arrive on Monday. 

Aside from a slightly long wait on hold dealing with the company was a real pleasure. The long hold time was due to lots of people upgrading their computers who probably shouldn’t have been inside their machines in the first place.  Apparently, a lot of “average” people failed kindergarten blocks and are unable to correctly put oddly shaped plugs into equally oddly shaped sockets. The tech & I had a bit of a laugh over that.

Now, the only problem is getting the OS back on the new drive… 

I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it!

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Hate to say it

Watched the Apple Event today. There wasn’t anything announced that caught my interest.

That’s not to say that there aren’t interesting products and that were I in the market to update something that I wouldn’t be oohing and ahhing. But I’ve got mostly current products and I saw nothing that was compelling that I just had to have.

I think I like the woven Apple Watch Bands. But the Apple Watch v6 isn’t substantially different from the v5 I currently own. I saw nothing that was a stand out about it. I did notice that they’ve discontinued the one watch band I was looking at. Typical! About the time I’ve got my mind made up they snatch it away!

The new iPads are a lot more powerful than my venerable iPad Pro but still not enough to make me want to plunk down the cash. They haven’t updated the iPad Pro line with the latest chipsets so I’ll hold on that for another year or so.

I’ll tune in again when Apple announces the iPhone 12 Pro just to see what they’re adding. My iPhone X is still working just fine and it may be that the 12 doesn’t provide a compelling reason to upgrade. I could see myself getting an 11Pro perhaps, just for the camera and dual sim capability. Possibly the 12 Pro depending on what features it actually has, but I’m not terribly motivated, a lot depends on the pricing.

So 2020 may once again be a bust as far as my personal technology.

They claim that IOS 14 will be available tomorrow. That should be interesting when my phone gets around to downloading the update. I’m curious about Watch OS 7 too.

It may be that I can delete some applications from my phone and watch since those applications functionality will be included in the base operating systems. That may stem the battery drain caused by those applications. Or the battery drain could increase because the OS is doing more work.

Only time will tell.

I did think the Fitness + subscription was of interest, but at the price per month it might be out of my budget.

Overall, I’d call this apple announcement a “meh”

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It’s Due to COVID…

“Due to the ongoing pandemic crisis we have made changes to our enterprise systems to protect your health and the health of our employees. This may cause longer than usual wait times. For faster service please use our voice prompt system or our website. If the answer you’re looking for is not available please continue to hold…”

Alright, I call BULLSHIT!

First of all I as a customer don’t care. Whatever you’re doing to protect your employees is your business. It’s between you and your employees. This is especially true if I’m calling someone like a credit card service or my insurance company. I DON’T see you people in person EVER!

Second of all, I’ve been noticing that there are a lot more errors. Errors in Billing, Errors in shipments, Errors in services rendered.

And when I call folks on those errors, the response is “Oh well with COVID, blah blah blah” The problem is, computers don’t get COVID. COVID doesn’t suddenly and mysteriously change due dates, causing late charges on credit bills. Someone commanded that change but it wasn’t COVID.

COVID doesn’t add two days to shipping in the one second between the time I click on “Checkout” and the time I press “PAY”. If you’re going to quote me a delivery date on my whole order, then split that order and space it out of 4 days after I’ve pressed PAY and entered my credit card info just quote me the real date not some fiction.

“But it’s due to COVID”

NO, IT ISN’T!

You know what’s in your warehouses and you also know how long the shit I order is going to take to get to me.

Somewhere in the billing systems for credit cards there’s an algorithm that says, “If customer pays bill two weeks ahead of schedule, then adjust Due Date to three weeks earlier.” Deposit collected late fees in account marked “Profit Skim”.

A second algorithm says note in customer account for representative. “If customer calls to complain reverse charges and allow customer to choose new billing date. Blame it on COVID”

The hope in the case of the credit card companies is that most people won’t call ‘em on it and will just pay the late fee, assuming that they (the customer) made a mistake.

The best case scenario for the credit card company is that the customer won’t notice it at all, and is an auto pay customer. If they pay a fixed amount monthly, then the unpaid late charges generate another full amount late fee that continues to add up month over month until the entire monthly payment is consumed in late fees but nothing is applying toward the actual debt. 

Once that happens the late fee cycle resets causing the customer to essentially make no headway towards paying off their debt.

My plan is to pay off all the credit cards and not have more than one. I prefer CASH or debit card transactions. I’ll keep one credit card for those weird life emergencies. But I’m cutting up cards as quickly as I can. 

COVID has become the Catch All phrase that is supposed to be the acceptable excuse for whatever someone has screwed up.

I’m sick of it. 

Own your screwups, don’t blame your mess on a virus that appears to be 99% survivable without intervention.

Yeah 1% of the population is a big freakin number. But to date, less than 1% of the population has died and the financial computer systems are still running.

It’s funny that for all the mistakes I’ve been seeing, I’m still getting the bills. You’d think that at least one of these institutions would have an outage that takes out their billing wouldn’t you?

Grrrr!