The Technology Buyer’s Blog

Smart Ideas for Thrifty Tech Shoppers

Local City Wireless Malarky

Bowling Green is still far behind the wireless revolution, with local city officials responding negatively to a newspaper letter-writer who wanted the city to offer local wireless city-wide service.  Not surprisingly, the city official claimed that the hundreds of tax-bought Cisco-brand wireless units seen all around the city mounted on telephone poles weren’t strong enough to handle any residential traffic.

If city manager Kevin DeFebbo (quoted in the local newspaper article as saying signal strengths just aren’t strong enough to enter local area homes) ever tried setting up his own home wireless network, he’d see the same thing as I show in the photo below–city signal strengths are indeed strong enough, and in fact most often overshadow your local wireless signal (especially if your home includes walls, doors, and floors).  In the photo you can see the wireless network named ‘BGFire’ is at 3 out of 5 bars, some neighbor’s signal named ‘NETGEAR’ (not us, I had ours resetting) is at 2 out of 5, the ‘BGIT’ (Bowling Green’s IT Dept.) is 4 out of 5 (which it should be, they need that no matter what), and another neighbor’s wireless network (I obscured the name) is also 2 out of 5 strength.  So, the two wireless city-wide networks are both stronger than the two local.

Hmm.

Sorry about the quality.

It’s legit–just took it with the cellphone while busy doing something else.

I just thought it pertinent to a growing community of internet users and taxpayers.

It proves my point, that being that we should, as local taxpayers, be able to enjoy wireless city-wide networking for a nominal fee.  After all, we paid for it already with our taxes.

Mr. DeFebbo was telling a DeFibbo.

Well, what do you expect?  After all, his name isn’t Kevin ‘DeTrueO’!

Plus, he’s a political officer–he’s biased to meet short-term goals, and trying to make budget.  Unfortunately, his misinformation will make us Bowling Green citizens miss out on a wonderful opportunity in affordable, long-term, local broadband wireless communications.  With all the talk of being ‘green’ here in town, I’d think it’s a positive thing.

It makes a good argument for ’separation of tech and state’.

If Kevin DeFebbo would like to deny local citizens our rightful wireless, then he should learn enough tech lingo to fool the truly nerdy like myself.

For example: Instead of his misquote, he could say more ‘truly’ that adding hundreds of home users to our citywide wireless would keep bandwidth down and skip the part about signal strength.

But then he’d have to admit they could have thought ahead and bought a better system that could be expanded later to include the entire population here in Bowling Green, with enough technology budget left over for our budding metro areas.

I’ve configured home networks with a Linksys wireless range extender (shown above) which worked in a private individual’s ‘McMansion’, so why not just install more Cisco relays and make the city ‘greener’ than ever?

We should charge ourselves a minimal fee for a local municipal wireless network, to maintain and improve it, and to generate more funds for the city funds.  This is the best plan.

We might even make enough to load our tax coffers with real money, instead of allowing ourselves to get duped into sugar-coated ‘Transpark-style Grand Designs’ of lesser minds–even a college undergraduate like myself sees that.

Heck, we could even pay off those Transpark taxes that never existed!

Bowling Green is in the midst of jostling for position for federal funds in the modern ‘green’ revolution.  We’ve already recently lost some federal major funding that would have helped minimize our current ‘brown’ status (run-off drainage problems that stink up a major intersection at the corner of Nashville Road and Campbell Lane).

The mayor and city commissioners were too busy arguing about nepotism (whose friends and relatives get what tax-funded jobs), and seem to have let our eligibility for federal funding for drainage projects lapse recently.

Before Bowling Green, and other smaller US cities ‘hoping’ to become metros in the future, truly makes that leap, we as citizens need to be more responsible for keeping our local politicians and public servants accoutable, and apparently also keep their priorities straight.

One more thing–we need to bury cable across the US.  I am sick and tired of seeing Kansas and other wind-broken cities always rebuilding without using modern technologies like buried cable that would help us all keep future wind-damage and repairs to a bare minimum.

We need to devote more time, resources, and cooperate to make sure our elected officials provide funding to those purposes, municipally, state-wide, and federally.

This, in concert with more municipal wireless networks, will keep our communities looking and working better, and leave us with lots more time to enjoy them.

MuniWireless.com

Communities with Municipal Wireless

St. Cloud Florida’s CyberSpot Service–A Model for Free Municipal Wireless  Network Service

“Where there is no vision, people perish”–Proverbs 29:18.

Bowling Green Broadband Customers:

Compare your Broadband Speed Test Reports

See if you’re getting the speeds your ISP is advertising by comparing what various online speed tests report for your connection:

SpeedTest.net

SpeakEasy.net

DSLReports.com (Flash-Based)

ConnectKentucky Broadband Speed Test

Insightbb.com Speed Test

DSLReports.com Worldwide Speed Test Listings

Do-It-Yourself Upgrades

Poor Man’s Multimedia Upgrade

Almost every computer has a sound card giving output to speakers of some kind. Many older cards can give great sound, even if they are over 10 years old! If you have some smaller speakers that don’t have their own power supply, then sometimes your sound can be a little wimpy. If you enjoy playing your CDs and music files on your computer, but want bigger sound without overspending, try this cool ‘poor man’s mini-upgrade’ (less than $10) to biggie-upsize your sound!

Thrifty-Shopper Update

Check at your local Big-Lots for the newest lowest price on the patch cable described below–I found they had them for $2 locally.

Travel to your nearest Radio Shack (Wal-Mart may also have them) and buy a 6 ft. long, 1/8″(3.5mm stereo mini-plug)-to-RCA stereo adapter cable(as pictured below, priced at $7.99). You will be hooking up the little end where your computer speakers are now–or, if your sound card has a ‘line-out’ connector (usually blue in newer cards), hook the little end up to this. Then find the AUXiliary ‘RCA-In’ plugs on your home stereo, and plug these in there. The only steps left now are to 1) activate the ‘line-out’ feature on your sound card (if necessary–some cards automatically put sound out to the 2nd line), and 2) set your home stereo unit to play the ‘AUX’ input. To activate the ‘line-out’ channel on your sound card, first note if your taskbar (at the bottom right of your computer screen–to the left of the clock) contains the little ’speaker’ volume-control icon. If so, just double-click it and ‘un-mute’, or turn up the volume on the ‘auxiliary out’, or ‘line out’ (the blue) connector. To set your home unit up correctly, just turn it on and select it’s AUX control to send any PC sounds out through your home stereo’s speakers.

Some people never really get into playing music on their PC’s due to budget limitations. If your computer’s hard disk drive has more than 10 Gbytes, here are some keys to using your computer for listening enjoyment.

‘Sound’ Advice Shopping Tech-niques

Money-saving shopping ‘tech-niques’ to multiply your buying power and enjoy your electronics purchases without losing weight through your wallet:

Keep these ideas close by and you’ll save $$$!

1. Save money by shopping yard sales, flea markets, pawn shops, second-hand, and consignment shops for retail compact music discs.
2. Look around, and you’ll probably find one or two local small second-hand shops that throw some kind of yearly sidewalk sale. Locally, we have CD Warehouse and The Great Escape to fulfill your fantastic flights of frugalism.
3. Second-hand CD’s that were carefully-handled will do well, as long as they have no scratches. For valuable music or data discs that have scratches, take them to a local vendor who can perform scratch-removal services (I go to CD Warehouse–they charge only $1 per disc for repairs.)
4. Practice using Windows Media Player (or favorite media organization program) to learn how to categorize and organize your media files. With music file management experience you will find yourself enjoying your current music more, learning more about your favorite artists, and maybe even singing while you mow the yard! (It’s better than singing in the shower, since no one–not even you–can hear you.)
5. Ask around and look online at independent web reviewers for advice on the best mp3 players. Preferable mp3 player features are:
   • Operating System compatibility. Windows users will want to memorize this logo. If it’s on the mp3 player packaging, it means the mp3 player will work easily with Windows Media Player, Media Center, and ’sync’ (transfer) music files to the player using Windows Media organization settings with some degree of automation.
   • Storage Capacity–These days manufacturers of mp3 players are selling more large-capacity units. I have a SanDisk Sansa Express which comes with 1 Gigabyte of storage (250 mp3’s or 500 wma’s), FM Radio, Voice or FM Recorder, is fully Windows Compatible, and has a MicroSD card expansion slot that will work with the MicroSD cards up to 2 Gigabytes, giving you 3 Gigs total–and SanDisk is developing software updates to make the unit go higher by mid-year 2007!
   • High-Speed USB 2.0 Compatibility–Basically this makes it transfer music 2X faster than older units. Newer PC’s have high-speed USB connector ports–usually any computer that came with Windows XP will have USB 2.0.
   • Good web support–do a little homework by searching the web for the name brand you are looking at. Our local Best Buy has a computer online in their PC department that you can browse to do your shopping research.
   • Price–The Sansa Express 1 GB Mp3 player I bought, described above, wasn’t even available at Christmastime–the 512 MB version was over $100, so I couldn’t even afford it with the $100 gift cards I got from friends. This week the 1GB version of this model player went on sale at Best Buy for $49, so, thanks to yet another gift card, I went in and got it! Prices of these are following the usual technology trend of drastic reductions very quickly, so wait and splurge on the one you want when it comes down.
   • Storage Options–Many USB flash-type mp3 players actually double as storage, so becoming a portable storage option. You can throw files over to them easily by selecting them then right-clicking (in Windows) and choosing to ‘Send To’ your drive. My experience is that all USB Flash Drives with both music and non-music files will play on compatible car stereos with proper connectors, hiding the ‘other’ files so they don’t botch your listening experience in your car.

SOUNDING OFF!

I am using this section of my site for personal consumer comments I think will help electronics customers choose where to shop based on how people are treated at various stores. I am dividing my buying experiences into two sections I call ‘peeps’ and ‘perps’. As you may guess, the ‘peeps’ are local retailer technology dealers who offer good buys as well as effective customer service. I think we all need more smart people doting on us at technology sales outlets, since everything is so high priced, sophisticated, and potentially confusing to new buyers and experienced ones also.

The ‘Peeps’

Making consumer technology purchases can be a more nervous event than shopping for a home or car. Electronics items are pricey and often seem to be marketed by savvy individuals with a habit of forcing consumers mail-in rebates that may never come. It’s hard to use a product knowing you overpaid for it in a complicated and messy exchange where you feel more profiled and duped than a lemon used car deal. Many stores think we’ll feel better thinking we have a chance in a million winning some gift card offered on the very receipt we need to validate our purchases for warranties and returns.

I am reserving this first section of my technology vendor reviews for sellers who win the battle to be human in the difficult field of tech-sales. I rate them on qualities I grew up hearing to be positive–character traits like patience, kindness, honesty, and helpfulness.

Patience

If a salesperson can’t afford the time to attempt to assist someone in need of some help, seems pushy about selling items of poor quality or high price, and wants to conclude the sale in order to hurry to another bigger one, we get the idea they are seeing us as a number. Funny thing about feeling like a number–when you’re way down the list of someone’s priority, you feel like a ‘zero’, and like going somewhere else to spend your time and money. Impatient salespeople give the impression that they are using the customer for awhile only to abondon them after they get paid.

On the other hand, a salesperson who listens, offers intelligent and insightful suggestions shows they plan on treating others like they would want to be treated if they were in the position to buy something. If they can find a way to mirror our needs instead of mocking or mimicking them, they have something unique and valuable to their field, and their future.

Patience is a virtue and a valuable character trait. In sales, the patient floor salesperson can win mighty points with everyone in view of them, often overshadowing manic managers and politically-motivated sellers who are never satisfied with even the biggest sale.

Kindness

Kind people can seem like true friends, and even if you don’t know somebody in a large store, you’ll return if you see someone acting on behalf of another customer’s best interest. Especially when you see the floor salesperson who understands that they can affect your decision best by merely being available nearby when you are making your choice of purchase. A gently-worded, sincerely intelligent suggestion can help you decide to make a purchase that will make you glad you came across the nicer salespeople, who often seem to just know how to be nearby without feeling like they are lurking, waiting for the ‘kill’.

Honesty

Singer/Songwriter Billy Joel put the famous phrase to his song entitled ‘Honesty’–”Honesty is such a lonely word”. Lots can be said about having an honest side to your personality. Those who give it some thought find that a non-confrontational, quietly helpful approach to being honest grants you respect of total strangers in sales. Vendors don’t have to water-down their opinions of products, and, in fact, many find excellent, effective ways to sincerely communicate their suggestions by listening to various customers and learning to promote products based on customer reviews or reports. Our gritty American industrialist spirit was born of people who didn’t even have money to buy the products they sold. Learning to balance incoming and outgoing finances is a difficult process, and sellers with good educations go far if they understand that their clients and customers are listening hard when they talk about other customers’ experiences. Above all, the honesty of a seller regarding his/her product or service is remembered when we decide to return to them for something else. Many times I can’t even remember the things a salesperson suggested to me, but I do know you can make quick friends by their level of honesty when speaking about things we’ve never bought ourselves. The entire integrity and future of a store, no matter how large, relies on the level of honesty its’ salespeople garnish, not the amount of commission they garnish from overall daily profits.

The ‘Perps’

New Zealand police and the FBI have ‘netted’ an online hacker who planted online ’spies’ on millions of computers around the world.  Reports say an 18-year-old was arrested and his computer equipment seized when authorites learned he was setting up a global theft network using computer spyware to load during users’ MySpace sessions.

CNN.com has pulled the original video from its’ server, but the article, at this link, is still available for anyone who wants to see what a hacker can do if he sets his sights low enough.

A current trend involves ‘rogue spyware’ coming over MySpace, and a Facebook bot-generator that starts sending Spam to all your Facebook contacts.

The MySpace problem begins with a warning of some type which prompts users to click to ‘register’, etc. (the usual method to install spyware on PCs), after which one of several similarly-named fake antivirus programs (with names like ‘AV360′, ‘XP Antivirus 2010′, ‘Professional Antivirus’) load and begin causing trouble.

So far these programs aren’t particularly difficult for me to remove.  However, they do take hold of systems relatively quickly, and slow computers significantly within a month of activating.

All these similarly-named virus-loading, system-slowing, fake antivirus programs have one thing in common–they all utilize a logo that looks extremely close to the Microsoft Windows ‘Security Center’ logo (see the pictures to compare).

Latest Best Buy / Circuit City Scams

A recent article published online originally at PCWorld.com and reprinted by ABCnews.com shows more scamming attempts by Best Buy’s Geek Squad and Circuit City’s Fire Dog computer service technical personnel.Shoppers at both stores were told by salesmen that they should pay for the in-store recovery disc set that either store could create for 1/2 the price currently offered by the manufacturer’s of Hewlett-Packard or Acer computers.

In reality, HP encourages PC owners to make their own in a simple menu driven process in which users just burn discs with burning software already built-in to each HP computer.  Also, many times prices for HP’s prices for CD recovery sets were misquoted by ‘Geeks’ & ‘Dogs’, in order to con customers into paying them for the unnecessary disc sets.

See the articles here (ABCNews.com Story)…

and here (PCWorld Story)…

Catchy Ads vs. Consumer Reports

Peace of Mind ‘Cost Increases’

Last Christmas several television news agencies aired various consumer reports mentioning the optional warranties offered at the point-of-sale at most department stores, saying consumers could save by just keeping their receipt for the manufacturer warranties that come with most new electronics products. If you get something big, though, look at the option at Best Buy for the ease of worry-free maintenance. Usually they give you 30 days to decide if you keep your receipt and bring it back in to pay for that optional warranty later. If you opt for their additional warranty, you’ll be able to bring the item back in if and when it fails, and for more time, too. Otherwise, you may be stuck shipping the item to a manufacturer directly yourself, and you may not enjoy packing the gadget to avoid worrying about it’s safety during the shipping process. Also, you’ll start thinking about the cost of insuring it through various shippers. You may wish later that Samsonite offered shipping service, or at least a product to box everyday shipments in for repairs.

Catch That Smo-o-o-oth Sales Pitch

Those geeks are looking really slick lately with ads that show them saving their customers from themselves, and frankly, I think they’re hitting their target market well by showing every ‘type of person’ who needs PC support–from the ‘basic home user’ who hits the wrong key and loses everything to the blue screen of death, the ‘tired & poor (and slightly deranged–check out the hatchet-job PC one guy carries in for drop-off)’.

So judge for yourself what you want based on “WYSIWYG” (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get), not just looking at something to buy but looking into what went on at the company that makes it, how they’re doing financially, and, most of all, how they treat people after they buy the product. After all, PC and electronics equipment is the most expensive stuff for it’s size, and you want to enjoy it for a long time to come!

‘Beastly Buy’ Experiences (Best Buy ‘Pro’ Cons)

Bad News First–The Cons

Best Buy Gouging Complaints: from “The Consumerist (Original Report Link)” Online Consumer Reporting Magazine…

an excerpt [click the link above to see the original article including embedded source and research links]

Best Buy

Geek Squad Gouges

The number one rule of responsible consumerism: know more about what you’re buying than the guy selling it to you. But it’s a counterintuitive one. After all, you buy based on someone’s pitch to you, that you need what he’s selling. You get something repaired with the understanding that you don’t have the knowledge to fix a problem yourself. But it’s the number one rule of consumerism for a reason: you just can’t trust the guy taking your money to be honest.

And here’s a reminder why. We got a great email from an ex Best Buy Geek Squad service department member, who confesses to having gouged customers time and time again for trivial repairs. Why? Essentially, because if he didn’t, he faced immediate termination.

Our Ex-Geek-Squad mole is repentant. Best Buy? Not at all.

In response to the video segment “Jiffy Lube Scam Revealed (Again)” I would like to point out that the Best Buy / Geek Squad service departments are guilty of the exact same offense.

I was originally hired in October 2003 and later ended my employment in April 2006 working as a Geek Squad part-time employee than the Geek Squad Senior and later as just a full-time Geek Squad employee. During my employment practices of the Geek Squad grew far more deceptive even enough to the point where I was embarrassed to be an employee and didn’t want to put that employment on my resume.

As a Geek Squad employee you are expected to meet certain budgets regardless of hours worked and complete x number of units in a day or risk immediate termination. In order to meet the budgets I constantly found that my coworkers, my senior(s), my managers and I regret to admit myself were deceiving customers. Often times I would review tickets and find that units were being checked in that suffered only from minor Windows problems that might take less than 30 minutes to complete however on the ticket they were charged for an OS repair, malware removal and tune-up which at the time cost $118. The units often only had one tracking cookie or some temp files and there was no sign of a malware problem and no need for a tune-up.

I also found that many of my co-workers would intentionally remove the customer’s anti-virus or tell that customer that in order for us to guarantee the work completed our anti-virus had to be installed. In addition to trapping many people with the threats of stolen data and virus infections causing further damage we were instructed by our managers to specifically target older customers, first time computer owners and the lesser educated.

In addition to meeting budget goals we were expected to meet total turn times of less than 24 hours and often far more units were checked in than could be completed in 24 hours. As many computer technicians know completing a malware removal takes more than 24 hours just for scans. In order to meet turn times of less than 24 hours we were told to complete work quickly, not double check our work and not complete full scans. I would say that maybe 1 outta 10 computers were completed correctly and more than half the units came back with the exact same problems more than once.

Geek Squad is guilty of many of the same infractions that plagued Jiffy Lube. As a loyal Consumerist follower I feel that I need to repay many of the favors / warnings that Consumerist has helped me with. I would be happy to provide you with any more information you need.

“Taking the ‘E’s Out of E-Repair”

PC World Consumer Reporting on PC Repair

from an online article entitled “PC Repair Undercover” dated June 16, 2000 at PC World online magazine:

“We surveiled the state of professional PC repair from deep cover and found that the knowledge–as well as a mass of ineptitude–is out there.”

See the article for the best online report of the extravagant unnecessary charges levelled at average consumers needing simple PC repairs.

My Own Personal ‘Beastly-Buy’ Report

Last year I became interested in the new car stereos (like the one pictured here) with USB ports to play music. I had thought for a while that car stereos would eventually migrate the USB technology and make us able to listen to music with better portability and much more convenience. I could put a few of my mp3’s on the flash drive I use to store hardware drivers and bring it along on jobs, sticking in the car stereo to hold it while listening to the songs on it. I went to the local Best Buy, expecting the usual indifferent treatment offered by college-aged hirees who ace the 40-page psychological profile they pass off as an application. ‘Best Buy’ seems to pride themselves in marketing the claim that their floor-people do not work on commission. Strangely, though, the salespeople behave as if they are advanced employees on the pay-scale, who do not think of informative sales assistance as part of a sale, whether it’s product availability, price, or any other buying issues such as compatibility or warranty. It’s a pet peeve of mine that consumer electronics sales clerks have a well-practiced response to any attempt at human interaction with customers–who seem to get in the way of their on-the-job play and professional interaction with each other. I call it the ‘TMI’ response–’Too Much Information’–you overqualify if you meet the following profile conditions:

• You are over 18 (or however old they are)
• Your will to survive is mistaken for the energy and enthusiasm to conduct a store-wide search on your own
• You are paying with cash
• You have a personal comment about a store employee’s apathy, or
• A simple grievance of any kind
• You know more than store employees about the product you bought

At the Best Buy here in town, I tested my 1 GB Ativa flash drive on a JVC stereo like the model shown above, at a local Best Buy, it would not read the songs. I took my drive over to their computer department, where a salesman allowed me to check whether my songs were correctly loaded on the drive. When he learned what I was attempting to do, he waited for me to return to the car audio section of the store, snuck over to the ‘Geek Squad’ counter, and borrowed one of their USB drives. He then followed me back over to car stereos, and watched while I spoke with the stereo salesman about the chances that they would place future orders for better stereos that would play larger capacity flash drives. While I was finishing up my comments to the stereo salesman, the computer deptartment guy shoved his arm between me and the salesman I was talking with, smugly announcing that my Ativa flash drive was in poor shape, a ‘piece of junk’, and too old to work with newer stereos like the ones they sold. He put the Geek Squad 512MB Ativa unit in the JVC stereo, and smirked as it came up and started playing the songs on it. It had worked because since it had half the storage capacity of mine.
When I informed him that my drive was the exact same manufacturer, just too big for the stereo they were selling, he continued with some snide remarks about the fact that my dad had actually found my USB flash drive while out walking one day.

The computer sales guy had put a lot of effort into proving me wrong, actually following through with his plan to humiliate and embarass me by leaving his area for over five minutes to slam my intelligence and hardware in front of his fellow empoyee.

I discovered later that my drive did work. It has given me no problem with any other storage application before or since. As a matter of fact, it has always been a reliable 1GB flash unit even after accidentally going through the wash (and yes, the dry cycle also) twice since I’ve owned it.

Later I found that my little drive worked quite well in a brand-new Kenwood car stereo with USB capability–I then realized that my flash drive was twice as big as the ones the Best Buy ‘Geeks’ used to demonstrate their mainstream commercial car stereos. The interesting things was that this guy knew me, and just thought he’d have a little fun at my expense to show me up. To this day I still don’t understand the joy in working at a place that openly advertises its policy of not giving salespeople commisions on sales, making prospective employees go through a 40-page online application process, then losing every sale related to technicalities because they want to show off?

Mail-in Rebate Risks

In these next actual personal experiences I will try to relate to the ‘average’ (in other words, un-eccentrically, normal-income level) reader the hazards of believing the ‘mail-in’ rebate sales-pitch so-often fettering our every tech-expenditure with enough messy legal malarky to render our tech-economy senseless within a few weeks.

Report #1

‘Senior Citizen Snooker’ — The New Sales-Con Game

In my first report, some senior citizen friends of mine go to a local technology store (we’ll call it ‘Best Buy’ for reasons of honesty) to purchase their first new computer. I recommended they find a model sensibly priced with just enough features to adequately handle their small storage needs (family photo downloads off dial-up internet), and also backwardly-compatible with all their older peripherals (an ink-jet printer, a monitor, etc.–real simple stuff, a no-brainer for an honest caring salesperson). I went in with them to help them pick out their machine.

As usual, a pushy ‘non-commissioned’ floor salesman conned them into buying an inexpensive PC with all the modern features. Here’s the catch–the computer was actually cheaper than newer models only because of it’s advertised $50 rebate, which the salesman hard-sold them into choosing, in a pushy, rushed, forced-niceness that made me immediately suspicious about the sale.

I took my friends aside, warning them about the inconsistencies inherant in the whole process of mail-in rebates, especially on technical items. However, the young salesman, standing guardedly nearby, cast some doubt on the legitimacy of my concerns, assuring the couple that there would be no problem, and they could keep all receipts and bring them in should any arise. He won them over with some simple cadenced patter and lulled them into a false sense of thrift and trust in his store selling the computer.

Meanwhile, I ground my teeth to the roots watching the age-old method work on these two friends who had been around long enough to know better, but had never seen the ruse played out in the confusing modern technology sale method, which infuses savvy, wit, and even remote intellect to win even the most Solomonistic of us into sheer mad poverty-ridden nervous breakdowns later.

Enough catchy word-play, here’s what happened to this 65-year-old-plus couple:

They never got their $50. Just like other scams, after waiting an inordinant amount of time (2 months) their numerous contact attempts were run through an endless mess of forwarded emails, virtual run-arounds, bad contact telephone numbers, babbling overseas contacts, supervisory ‘gaffes’, and dropped web links, until they gave up, never really understanding what had happened to them, their trust in these people, and their hard-earned money, which someone is probably smoking right now–or maybe cruising through some neighborhood with an extra $50 worth of car audio equipment.

Now they were hurt financially by this corrupt game played on them, and so was our friendship. When I took up the shield for them, angrily phoning the computer manufacturer, I received lots of dead silence, forwards to voice mailboxes, and more of the same. Finally, we went back to the store and began to ask managers, customer service people, and even the store ‘Geeks’ about what had happened. They told my friends ’sorry’, that they weren’t actually responsible for honoring the mail-in rebates, just a ‘vendor’.

I told them this sounded like a simple scam to lure people in to buy stuff, with shades of the old shell-game, the good-salesman/bad-salesman played out perfectly in time with a newer, market-savvy, highly unethical techno-theme. The ‘hapless vendors’ are actually modern-day billion-dollar-per-quarter earnings cappers with more and more technology holdings every single day. So this makes them see more like ‘middle-men’ to me, and the worst kind–the kind that misrepresents their public image and treats return customers like garbage while flocking to new customers who want to buy in to their store-credit franchise.

So ends the story, and who knows where the money actually went?

To quote an old Tootsie Roll TV commercial… ”The World May Never Know”.

Report #2–”Warranty Schmarranty”

I was called to a friend’s house to look at his less than one-year-old Compaq laptop, which he purchased at Best Buy along with an extended one-year warranty.  He’s from Bosnia, and told me about his problem with Best Buy’s service department, which had replaced his hard drive under the warranty, but gave it back to him 3 weeks later with a BIOS password installed that prevented him from using the computer at all.

I asked him if I could look at his service info, called Best Buy’s toll-free # on it, and prepared to go through a long wait asking for the certain tech responsible for this tricky behavior, in order to clear the password without actually opening the case and voiding his warranty, which had almost 3 more weeks left on it.

Imagine my surprise when I not only did not get to speak to the tech, but my call was handled the same way they’d been handling their responsibility to my friend–a terse, unfriendly, dismissive reply that they were going to have [personal] problems with handling the request over the phone.

That was IT!  I told the phone rep ‘off’ and even scolded them a little for their treatment of my buddy, his problem, and assured them that no corporation was too big to be shut down for issuing warranties they didn’t intend to back up.

After a brief discussion with my new customer of my fee for straightening out the ‘Best Buy’ problem, I went ahead and performed the repair, including a complete system recovery, which Best Buy had not done, and probably the reason for their stubborn little trick.

I had it done by the end of the day, and my customer was, of course, very happy with his ‘new’ PC.

Folks, learn a lesson our country learned with the car–it took us over 50 years, but we’ve developed a healthy ‘love’ of the auto, complete with thousands with encyclopedic knowledge of the muscle car genre, the Corvette, and the DeLorean.  All these type cars came with lessons learned–some expensive, some highly sobering…but one of the most heartfelt and profound is self-reliance in learning what we drive.

Compared to cars, computers can be a different ‘animal’ entirely–sometimes we rely on them for a larger variety of things than we have cars, but overall, it helps to have a basic knowledge of them, so that, when the salesman falsifies documents or gives you attitude over a warranty, we’ll be ready to a) respond by fixing it ourselves, and b) do the follow-up necessary by giving that salesman his ultimatum–there’s no sense adding ‘insult to injury’ by giving any respect, much less glorifying or adoring, our little local thug who wants to make his stash by ‘hitting your cash’.

Some Pro’s (for balance)

The latest purchase I made at Best Buy was okay, mainly the fact that the mp3 player was available, a better model, and at a lower price than before. I appreciate Best Buy’s store policy to maintain a minimum number of items in stock for sales, and the overall quality of unopened, regular sales items sold there seems to be a little better than some other stores…

And Now, Back to Reality

…even if sales service there suffers from inexperience. Wal-Mart is about to start selling Dell computers, though, and I’ve never seen them at Best Buy, so you may soon want to start shopping www.walmart.com/ for both computers and accessories. Keep in mind Dell products are good quality also, and I will be updating this site with information concerning their recent problems with outsourced laptop batteries and the recent New York City class-action lawsuit filed by Gov. Mario Cuomo against Dell citing Dell customer support failures and problems caused by Dell misleading over 700 NY City citizens about their Dell Computer Product warranties.

The BAD Guys

Set Your Sights…

… on Knocking Out Pirates!

It’s the End Of the World!

(The Obligatory Rant)

Despite the fabulously popular Disney films, we should know by now Pirates are NOT NICE. Take a gander at what the Discovery Channel’s Rogue’s Gallery and THEN try and convince the kids that pirates are funny little clowns that just travel around adventuring for the lifestyle… Yeah, and if you believe that, I’ve got a specialist YOU should be seeing, too! Disney cutes-up the ‘Pirate’ image for the swashbuckling aspect of it, and the best on-screen indicator warning of the type of person who ‘pirates’ is when Johnny Depp gets to say, simply ‘Pirates!’ (the ‘Duh!’ is understood) when Orlando Bloom’s character learns the simple fact that pirates cheat at swordfighting (among other things). Every now and then I need a reminder that local hackers are as adventurous as common thieves, just a little smarter, more cowardly, and lots more sneaky! So, with this in mind, and personal events I won’t call ‘adventures’ per say, I am keeping up on what’s being pirated locally, as applied to DVD copyright laws, software copying, and all else you can imagine. Here’s a Disney Film it’s more comparable to–Pinocchio, where the bad brats fool Pinocchio into going to Pleasure Island where they turn into ‘Donkeys!’ He barely escapes, but many of the bad bratty little kids don’t. Say what you will, it applies, and ethics come into play whether people agree with the allegory or not. I’ve seen pirated software at some local vendors, and eBay is full of it (literally)! So far, the internet is prone to sponsor eye-candy vendors when honest ones are few to be found, and authorities are trying to catch up with the fraud rate, as we all well know. As a PC repairman, I can’t even speak with the pirates who are obviously selling counterfeit junk software at local flea markets, yard sales, etc. So there is where the warning ‘Caveat Emptor’ does apply, sincerely. It will be a brutal nightmare with no PC ownership in the repeat offender’s future when they get caught, once our court system catches up with technology and current trends. See the image below for the graphic results of such guilt-by-association with such ‘assinine’ behaviors. No question, the ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots don’t need much clarification, and even critics of the validity and correctness of Al Gore’s global warming slideshow can figure many kids who fancy themselves ‘pirates’ would better invest their time jumping out of trees and cavorting like Captain Jack Sparrow than languishing in some future tech-prison where they certainly won’t be accessing the internet, even as in-prison telemarketers. Therefore, practice strict money-saving guidelines when shopping for anything, anywhere, anytime. Whether it’s eBay, with the various scammers offering great deals if you’ll only send a Western Union wire transfer immediately, or the local ‘modder-turned-pirate’ who learned to ‘reverse engineer’ a software package, then sells it bulk to anyone he can trust, or even the shady ‘pirateer’ latching onto a friends’ fleamarket booth for sundry and various purposes (in that order). Don’t purchase suspicious-looking pirated software at flea markets and from casual sellers when you can download, install, and enjoy fully compatible software at no expense or obligation, without worrying about licensing and legal issues! If your budget forces some thrift, then look around for alternative solutions to pricey retail software, like freeware (go to Download.com) and search for programs licensed freely), or the more honest yard sale, flea market, and sidewalk sale vendors you see all the time! When we keep our noses clean, maybe they’ll stay the correct size also. As a result, more marketers will make those sacred allowances for their increases, and we’ll see more relaxed coorporate standards regarding mp3 downloads (we’ll actually get to listen to the songs we purchase online (‘ooohs’ and ‘aahhs’ from everyone who’s tried downloading Wal-Mart’s WMAs for 88 cents apiece, then learned you have to convert the files before they’ll work in many older ‘dedicated’ mp3 players). Maybe someday we’ll all have what we want and get to dance around with Gepetto as an added bonus, instead of the legal minutiae of Sonny Bono’s Copyright Act of 1976, too! I mean, I’d rather dance with some old German puppeteer than this guy’s legal tactics, right? How would you like to have to trust Disco Duck here’s legal judgement while in front of a less-than-state-of-the-art judge?

No, thanks! I’ll be using my virtual Kleenex to avoid shopping places I’ve seen pirated stuff. The regular stuff is available cheaply now anyway, at places like CD Warehouse, The Great Escape Used Record & Tape Store, Blockbuster Video & Hollywood Video’s used stacks, and there are still honest eBay & Amazon vendors listing good prices on used stuff all the time.  Plus, there’s our thrifty little shopper known as The Country Peddler, who will place your classified ad for FREE for items under $100!

Personal ‘In-sites’

Snoop out the truth behind those trendy-but-bothersome forwarded emails: Snopes.com

How-NOT-to-Design-Website Advice: The Worst of the Web

What-Is-Most-Unethical-On-The-Web: Ethics Scoreboard’s ‘Unethical Websites’

Anti-Spamsite: SpamAlert.org

Local City Wireless Malarky

Bowling Green is still far behind the wireless revolution, with local city officials responding negatively to a newspaper letter-writer who wanted the city to offer local wireless city-wide service.  Not surprisingly, the city official claimed that the hundreds of tax-bought Cisco-brand wireless units seen all around the city mounted on telephone poles weren’t strong enough to handle any residential traffic.

If city manager Kevin DeFibbo (quoted in the local newspaper article as saying signal strengths just aren’t strong enough to enter local area homes) ever tried setting up his own home wireless network, he’d see the same thing as I show in the photo below–city signal strengths are indeed strong enough, and in fact most often overshadow your local wireless signal (especially if your home includes walls, doors, and floors).

Well, what do you expect?  His name isn’t Kevin DeTrueO, right?

If Mr. DeFibbo would like to keep us hicks down, maybe he can learn enough to say more ‘truly’ that potentially many home users would keep bandwidth down and skip the part about signal strength.  I mean, I’ve configured home networks with a Linksys wireless range expander (shown here) which also worked with