Fantasy Romance
There was an incident.
Involved a small child. A 25lb cat. A nasty-tasting bottle of carbonated water. And an iMac.
The Apple Care specialists have a three day wait list.
I am really starting to think I’m being haunted by technology ghosts.
Not sure if I need to make offerings to Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or both. Probably both, and I hear they both accept plastic.
How often do you hear that? I know, right? But honestly, Alienware’s customer service was amazing!
As I mentioned here, my computer has been acting up since I downloaded the April Windows 10 update. Yeah, I didn’t do it until June, but I wanted them to work out all of the bugs first.
Stop laughing.
After the Microsoft Help Desk told me it was a hardware issue, and a trip to Geek Squad confirmed it was a hardware issue, we decided to call Alienware and see if they’d stand behind their product.
The computer is just over a year old, so technically out of the warranty period, but it’s one of their better models. I had opted for an Alienware as they’re known for quality. The laptop has never left my house, never been dropped, and I don’t eat near it.
I’ve also never come close to taxing the abilities of this machine as I’d bought it because I thought we’d start gaming again now that our kids were a little older.
Yeah, I know. You’re laughing again, aren’t you?
Anyway, my husband called them. Yes, it’s my machine. But he’s also the one that took it to Geek Squad. For better or worse, help desks treat men differently than they do women. As we both wanted this solved as quickly as possible, he agreed to take the lead on it.
So, he called Alienware and told them what’s going on, then gave them all of the details of the computer. They said, yes, they’ve seen this before, and it was the Windows 10 update. The update broke the Tobii eye tracking software on my model of Alienware. This is what’s causing the issue, not a broken keyboard.
Uninstalling the Windows 10 update, which we had done, was not enough to “unbreak” what the update had done to my computer.
Because of course it wasn’t. Thanks Windows!
As it’s a software issue, they could walk him through how to fix it.
At first, I thought it was too good to be true, but Alienware customer support walked him through how to deactivate the software even though he couldn’t really type anything. He then uninstalled the software completely as he now had control of my computer, and Alienware then directed him to where to get the fixed version.
At the end of the call, my computer worked beautifully.
I will not need to be without it for a month.
I did lose a weekend, but I think I can make that up and still be on track.
If I ever buy a Windows machine again, it will be an Alienware.
I am writing this on my phone as my very expensive Alienware laptop is currently unusable.
After restarting it for other reasons, it is impossible to open apps on it as it types 4 over and over again in the Windows screen. When trying to type anywhere else, it keeps backspacing, making it impossible to write a coherent word, much less a coherent sentence.
I have taken it down to Geek Squad, and they are telling me the “4” key on my number pad is broken. One my one year old Alienware computer. That has never left the house until its trip to Geek Squad.
Now that’s some quality right there. #sarcasm
I am in the process of trying to get it fixed, but it will have to be sent back to Dell as it’s pretty specialized and no one has the parts. Dell has yet to decide if they will stand by their top-of-the-line computers, and if they don’t, we’re looking at hundreds of dollars to repair.
I am trying to move things over to my Mac, but it’s going slowly. The learning curve seems less steep when you aren’t stressing out about it.
If I can’t get things all transferred to the Mac, I’m looking at being a month behind on everything as Geek Squad said they’re seeing four weeks or so for this kind of fix.
Fabulous.
I can promise one thing, though. Once I get switched over to my Mac, I will never, ever buy another Windows machine again.
I’ve heard a lot of retail stores are ailing, and as I was doing research on purchasing a Mac, I decided to stop at Best Buy to do some of my shopping there.
In our house, I’m the researcher. I peruse websites, look up reviews, and otherwise try to figure out the best way to spend our hard earned dollars.
As such, I’ve been responsible for over 90% of the electronics purchases over the last fifteen years.
I haven’t shopped at Best Buy in a couple of years. We bought our plasma TV there, but I bought our last TV and laptop directly from Dell.
My husband decided to stay home with the kids instead of dragging them an electronics store and trying to make them behave, so I was on my own.
Taking what I’d already learned about a Mac and my small list of questions, I drove to the nearest Best Buy.
I was somewhat surprised at how empty the parking lot was. Last time I was there, I had to park in Famous Footwear’s lot to get a spot. But, I was in the front ¼ of the parking lot, and that was just pulling in. Granted, this was on a Sunday afternoon, but even Sundays used to be so packed you had to walk far enough that your Fitbit thought you were exercising.
Shrugging, I enter the store, get my bearings, and head back to the computer section. There are two couples in the entire computer section. Two. No one else is there.
The first couple appears to be in their twenties, and they’re shopping gaming keyboards.
The other couple is probably in their sixties, and they have two salesmen helping them with a third watching the other two salesmen help them. There are two other Best Buy associates strolling through the computer area.
Interestingly, no one offers to help me or asks what brought me to the store.
I eventually find the Macs, and I take a few minutes lifting them (3 pounds in really light, by the way), and trying to decide how they’ll fit on my actual lap. As I’ve mentioned, my Alienware is a powerhouse, but it’s heavy. More of a portable desktop than a laptop.
After a few minutes perusing the stock, I still haven’t had a salesman help me, and I can’t figure out how to buy one. Is there a slip I take to the front? How do I get the configuration I want?
Finally, I chase down a salesman to ask the few questions I have. Like will Word documents play nicely between a Mac and Windows if both machines are running Word.
The salesman, who is literally doing nothing else, acts like he’s super busy and says he’ll see if he can get someone to help me.
I let him go and left the store.
I called Apple, asked them my three questions, then proceeded to order a computer and have it delivered to my home.
Not entirely sure what happened at Best Buy. Maybe the guy was genuinely busy. Maybe he didn’t know Mac products. Or maybe he was on his way to break, and I was interrupting him. Not sure, but if I can’t get a better experience in person, I’m going to enjoy the convenience of online shopping and buy stuff that way.
Just an FYI Best Buy. And based on your parking lot, someone needed to tell you that.
How about you? Ever had a frustrating experience at a retailer? What happened? How’d you handle it?
Or am thinking about it, anyway. At least, that’s how the Mac users I’ve talked to describe themselves. They’ve all told me once I buy my first Mac, I won’t ever buy another Windows machine.
I’m skeptical, as is my nature, but I’ve never known anyone who has a Mac that hates it.
Ever.
Yeah, they’re more expensive, but everyone I talked to who owns one was more than willing to fork over their hard earned dollars to get another one.
And this includes some very frugal finance professionals.
So, I started to research more about operating specs, performance, etc. You need to know all of this on a Windows machine. When I bought my Alienware, I had an array of processors to choose from, video cards, hard drive space, RAM, screen size etc.
It’s less daunting to order your computer from Dell than to build your own, as I did on my last machine (where then you have to worry about motherboards, cases, power supply, etc.), but there’s still a lot to sort out to make good decisions.
Not so on the Mac. You have desktop or laptop. Once you choose laptop, there are only three options. A bit of research showed me the MacBook Air was probably the best choice for me in terms of functionality. I am not a high end user, and using Pages and maybe some ebook creating software is not a big deal to a Mac.
Once I chose MacBook Air, I basically had three choices left to make. Which of the two processors did I want, 8MB or 16MB of RAM, and 128GB, 256GB or 512GB for the solid state hard drive. That’s it.
I should be in awe of the simplicity. Instead, I’m wary. Can it really be this easy? Can it really work as well as the Alienware?
We need to replace my husband’s computer so we can each have a machine to work on at the same time. But this is a commitment. A big one.
Am I ready for it?
How about you? Ever make a big change like this from one system to another? How’d it go? Any tips or advice?
I have been struggling with technology lately. I told you about new laptop frustrations. And my ongoing saga with my “easy to use” website developer. And Windows 10.
Then, there’s my Fitbit.
I was dealing with health issues this past fall, and the doctor wanted me to get a heart rate monitor that I could use while exercising. He wanted me to track my heart rate and make sure I didn’t exceed a certain level, so I bought a Fitbit Charge 2.
About a month ago, the Fitbit just stopped resetting each day. At one point, it thought I’d taken 95,000 steps in a single day. Yeah, about that.
I tried rebooting it. I tried letting the battery run down to nothing. Not only wouldn’t it restart each day, it stopped syncing to my phone or computer, even if I directly connected it. So it wasn’t a Bluetooth issue.
Yes, the heart rate monitor still works. And yes, I can put together an Excel spreadsheet to see what my steps were. For $150 and less than six months of use, I shouldn’t have to do that.
So, I chatted with Fitbit support. They tried everything I’d tried, and several more things. After over an hour, they diagnosed it as a firmware issue, but the Fitbit would NOT accept a firmware update. And we tried. Both through my phone, and through a direct dongle connection to the computer. For an hour.
Finally, the support technician was out of ideas, and he checked to see if the Fitbit was still under warranty. He offered to have Fitbit send me another one, and I agreed.
It’s currently on its way to me. I was pleasantly surprised that they stood by their product.
Still, I’m leery now. I haven’t tried to format my book into an ebook yet. I haven’t tried to load it to Createspace.
I feel like there’s this vortex of bad tech energy surrounding me, and anything I touch is going to go wrong.
Clearly, I have to get over myself. But I’m still nervous.
How about you? Ever fell like technology has turned against you? Or maybe this is the law of threes and my three bad things have happened?