Terminally Incoherent

If you look at all the mice and keyboards I owned over the years, you will see a trend: simplicity. All my keyboards are simple, generic 104 key devices that came with the machine. If I buy a mouse I usually get an optical, 2 button, scroll wheel, wired Logitech or Microsoft. I don’t think I ever bought a mouse that cost more than $30-35. The $20 mice I use work just fine, and they last forever.

But, there is a huge market for premium mice and keyboards so obviously some people out there buy them. Hell, some people swear by these things. But I always wonder: do I really need a $70 Sidewinder or a $90 G9? Does it really make that much difference?

I heard people claiming that accuracy, smoothness of the scroll wheel, reconfigurability and buttons are often well worth the higher price. But I’m not entirely convinced. So here is a question for you, the reader.

Do you use a fancy, expensive mouse? If you do, why? Do you feel it really makes the difference? What is your favorite mouse? Do you think that spending $100 on a mouse would change my life for the better? Same goes for the keyboard. I really want to know. Maybe I’m missing out, using low end products when I should really treat myself to something more luxurious. And I do spend most of my time in front of my computer. In fact, chances are that if I’m awake and not in the car there is either a desktop or a laptop somewhere within my reach. So if I was to invest something that would improve my everyday experience, I would be utilizing it to the fullest.

Dear Googel!

Where is my fucking IMAP access? Seriously! I’ve been a loyal fanboi for years. I use Gmail, Gtalk, Google Desktop, Adsense Ads, Google Analytics, Google Docs and your search engine on a daily basis. Now that I think about it, it’s actually kinda scary how many Google aps I actually use. And yet, despite all of that, to date I haven’t seen that coveted IMAP option in my settings. WTF Google? Am I not worthy? What else do you want!

Everyone on the internets now is like “ooh, look I got Gmail IMAP access!” So I’m asking - where is mine? I need you to like, get on it and get it done! I better have it by Monday.

okthxbai

And now for something completely different:

Faux Luddite (n) - one who vocally expresses their hatred of technology, especially computers, usually via their Live Journal or MySpace blog. Also known as tech-hypocrite.

Faux Luddites can be often found congregating around areas frequented by technology professionals, trying to solicit for free tech support. Giving into their demands is not recommended, as it is really an enabling behavior. When confronted by a Faux Luddite, it is recommended to kill it with fire.

Can you tell that this type of attitude annoys me? Just to clarify, I don’t think there is anything wrong with hating technology per se. If you are a real Luddite, you don’t use a computer and live in a forest with wild beasts and lumberjacks that’s fine by me. I will probably never meet you because I don’t visit forests that often. And of course you won’t be reading my blog, or asking me for free tech support, so really I have nothing against you.

There is also nothing wrong with being clueless, as long as you make at least a little bit of effort to learn. Some people just don’t use computers that often, and some just have a hard time figuring them out. It’s ok to struggle as long as your long term goal is to one day be proficient enough to get by without a lot of help.

Simply deciding that you hate computers and then using them for everything is not acceptable. It’s like saying you hate the beach and then buying a beach house. It’s an attitude problem that requires adjustment. You are going to tell me that you fucking hate technology while updating your myspace on your laptop, talking on your iPhone while watching a movie on your plasma in HD? Fuck off! You sir are a hypocrite and you need to die. Don’t even fucking dare to ask me for help if any of that shit breaks.

I’m horrified by how many people do not even consider backing up their data on a regular basis as something they could do. Someone begs me for free tech support almost every day and I get asked about all kinds of crazy things. I don’t think that anyone has ever asked me to help them develop some sort of backup plan or strategy for them. Even after they lose all their stuff in some catastrophic HD failure, most people are reluctant to even talk about backup. The most common excuse is:

“Well… I don’t really have anything that important on this computer”

Bullshit! This is a blatant lie, and you know it. If it’s not, then don’t come crying to me next time your computer fails to boot. There was nothing important there, right? I’ll just boot Ghost and restore it from the image then - the system should be ready in 20 minutes.

But anyone who ever did tech support for clueless relatives or friends knows that there is always that sad story of stuff they really don’t want to lose. You always have to listen to whimpering, and sobbing about the precious vacation pictures, that video of uncle Bob that was taken 3 days before he passed away, all the irreplaceable emails and chat logs, that huge mp3 collection, all the saved games, the unfinished novel and etc. All of a sudden the unimportant shit, becomes very, very dear to your heart.

It seems that most people assume that backup is something that only paranoid geeks do. After all, if their computer fails, they can always bring it to the “computer guy” who will more often than not be able to recover all that unimportant shit. Try to convince them to set up some kind of a backup, and they look at you like you are crazy. After all it’s your job to do that - now you are just being fucking lazy, trying to make them do work now, so that you don’t have to do it next time their computer fails. Sigh…

It’s really sad. Especially when less than $200 for an external hard drive and 15-20 minutes of setup can buy you a piece of mind, and allow you to preserve all your unimportant garbage even if your primary hard drive dies a horrible death.

I’m not saying everyone should be running RAID-1 array, and have at least 2 external backup drives, and always keep one of them off site. That’s indeed an overkill for home use. But a single external drive of the same size as the one in your system, and a weekly backup script is not. That’s something that everyone should invest into.

Let me clear this once and for all: having a backup strategy doesn’t make you a geek. Reading this blog however, does. So now that you have read this post, and you are officially a geek, go and get that backup situation worked out. What may seem unimportant to you now, will become extremely important once you loose it.

Every time I call Dell (and I do call them quite often) about a problematic laptop I feel like they follow a call flowchart that looks something like this:

If the machine doesn’t boot, they will give you a new mobo. If the HD is not bootable, they will replace that. In any other case, unless their automated diagnostics produce an error code, or you can make a very convincing argument for hardware issue, they will claim it’s a software problem.

And there are two ways that Dell deal with software issues:

1. Uninstall Offending Stuff
2. Reinstall Windows

They do this little trick where they make you un-check everything in msconfig, and if your issue doesn’t resurface immediately they will claim one of the 3rd party applications is causing it and tell you to uninstall everything - including all your AV software. If you call back after that, they will just suggest choice #2.

Seriously - I can’t tell you just how many times Dell told me to re-install windows. And at least half of the time it turned out to be a hardware issue in the end. The problems ranged from a obviously faulty Wifi card (but of course Dell does not have diagnostics for it), to a failing DIMM socket (which would either cause the diagnostics to pass or freeze while trying). In each case it took a lot of effort on my part, and escalation to 2nd or 3rd tier to actually get the problem fixed.

An average Dell user probably does not have enough know how, time and/or patience to go through all of that. In fact, most users are terrified by the concept of reinstalling the OS, and confused about backing up their data. It’s also not a valid troubleshooting step - it’s a last resort. And yet it’s the very first trick that Dell techs are instructed to use when faced with an odd issue that can’t be easily classified as either hardware or PEBKAC.

Unfortunately reinstalling windows is not really a magical panacea for all problems. It’s a huge pain in the ass, which won’t solve anything and leave the average user with an unpatched, unstable system with missing drivers. Imaging done on the newer Dell machines helps here, but guess what happens if your problem resurfaces after you rolled the OS back from the factory ghost image on your HD? Yep, dell will tell you to format the drive and install Windows from scratch killing the nifty imaging functionality.

How pissed would you be if you had to do all of that, and in the end find out that it was for example a shitty internal Wifi card that you can actually purchase on their website replace yourself bypassing all this bullshit? But hey, that’s Dell for you.

Please post your rants about shitty tech support by major computer vendors in the comments. What are your experiences with Dell, HP, Lenovo and etc? Who has the worst tech support? Who has the best one? Let me know!