06.02.08
Posted in Announcements, Media, News, Rants, Resources, Tech, Troubleshooting at 1:32 am by Administrator
Quick rants about HP Customer Supports.
I called HP to inquire repair cost for an LCD monitor which suffered from a physical damage. It’s about 3 weeks old, and had a cracked LCD. I know that the warranty would not cover such damage, I just need to know how much HP would charge to replace the LCD since the rest of the monitor is still fine. If the replacement cost is close to the retail price, I’d buy a new LCD monitor.
Apparently HP Customer and Technical Supports can’t even answer this simple questions. They asked me to provide the serial number, etc. To make it worse, they put me on hold while they’re doing some “research” about this problem. It’s a broken LCD and it is not covered under warranty. Tell me how much the replacement cost already!
After two separate calls, they were as useful as Windows Vista Ultimate on a Pentium II PC.
How useless can HP Customer Supports be?
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05.11.08
Posted in AVCHD, Media, News, Rants, Resources, Tech, Troubleshooting at 5:43 pm by Administrator
I usually buy memories (RAM, memory card, etc) manufactured by a well known company. For the past 6 months, I’ve purchased two SDHC card for my AVCHD camera from the same manufacturers. That was not a smart move because both cards are having problems. The first one is physically disintegrating, and the second one is plagued with writing errors. I tried contacting the tech support of the manufacturer, but I have not gotten any replies.
I paid the HDSC cards at a low-low price, and what troubles I get.
The next SDHC card I’m buying will be the one from a well known manufacturers.
to be continued.
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04.18.08
Posted in Announcements, Media, Microsoft, News, Rants, Resources, Reviews, Tech, Troubleshooting, Vista, Windows at 3:39 pm by Administrator
How in the virtual-world do you rename a Windows Home Server?
So far, I don’t see any options to do so. Even Microsoft Support site doesn’t have any answers remotely related to it.
The adventure with Windows Home Server continues.
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Posted in Announcements, Media, Microsoft, News, Rants, Resources, Reviews, Security, Tech, Troubleshooting, Vista, Windows at 1:35 am by Administrator
First, I am resurrecting 37primeBlog from 37prime.WordPress back-up because I had so much posted here previously. Since I have started a new WordPress blog (37prime.news), I’m using 37primeBlog for the “draft” of upcoming posts.
It takes a lot to write down an intelligible post which I am trying to do. This time I am using Windows Home Server HP MediaSmart Server EX475, and slowly piecing things together. I have found good things and bad things about Windows Home Server. Yet I still have to put all my notes together about this Windows Home Server.
This is the first one. By default Windows Home Server put all the drives install in Raid Zero. That worries me. Raid Zero is not a good backup solution. Come on Microsoft, at least give the options to set-up the Raid. Give me Raid 1 or Raid 5.
What if one hard-drive failed? What would happened to the data?
What about it, Microsoft?
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03.01.08
Posted in Announcements, Media, News, Rants, Tech at 1:16 am by Administrator
CNET’s “Buzz Out Loud” should change its name to “Bitch Out Loud” and join Fox News for their “Fair and Balanced” news reports. The least CNET can do is to smack some sense into Molly Wood, who apparently does not know anything about technology at all. Wood does not have the knowledge on programing, hardware design, nor logic. The best thing she can do is ranting on things that she personally doesn’t like. She is a menace to electronics, be it a mobile phone or a computer. She complained that she had been having problems with electronics in general, and yet she had the guts to blame some manufacturers instead of herself. Wood has been contradicting herself on Buzz Out Loud, unfortunately it is too painful to listen to back catalogue of the podcast to point out which episodes Wood has been doing so.
Buzz Out Loud is off my subscription list. There’s no need to listen to such biased news reporting.
Buzz Out Loud, you can BITE BENDER’S SHINY METAL ASS! That’s you, Molly Wood.
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02.13.08
Posted in Announcements, Comedy, Entertainment, Futurama, Humor, Microsoft, News, Rants, Resources, Tech at 2:21 am by Administrator
As I have previously stated before that the Microsoft bidding for Yahoo! reminds me of an episode of Futurama titled “Future Stock“. I am such a Futurama geek. The (evil) Momcorp was going to buy out Planet Express, Inc. and the stockholders of both companies must approve the take-over.
Are there any relevance between this Futurama episode and Microsoft’s bid to take-over Yahoo!? (That’s a bit tricky, the exclamation point in Yahoo! and the question mark at the end of the sentence which is a question.)
- Futurama is great, just like Bender, who is great.
- Shareholders from both Microsoft and Yahoo! must approve such take-over; similar to what shareholders of Momcorp and Planet Express, Inc. had to do.
Now, after a poor excuse for mentioning Futurama over and over again, let’s see what went on so far.
Microsoft says to borrow money for Yahoo deal
Microsoft’s cash on hand was estimated at 21 Billion Dollars, and they were offering Yahoo! 44.6 Billion Dollars in cash and stocks.
Yahoo! rejects Microsoft’s takeover bid
Yahoo! shares rose from $19.18 to $28.38 on February 1st after Microsoft announced their take-over bid. Meanwhile, Microsoft shares dropped from $32.60 to $30.45 on the same period.
Yahoo! Board of Directors Says Microsoft’s Proposal Substantially Undervalues Yahoo!
Yahoo! Board did not explicitly reject Microsoft’s proposal.
Now let’s see here. Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo! shares at $31 per share. It was a sweet deal when Yahoo! shares was still at $19.18 per share. On February 1st, Microsoft’s offer is only 8.45% higher than the value of Yahoo! shares. There has been some whispers that Yahoo! is holding out for $40 per share to approve Microsoft’s take-over bid.
Major Yahoo investor urges Microsoft to raise offer
Yep, a major Yahoo! shareholder wants to see payday, at $40 per share. Who doesn’t like making profit on the stock market?
Hypothetically, if Yahoo! shareholders wanted this take-over to happen (like this one), there would still be a lot of hurdles for Microsoft to make it happen. Microsoft would have a tougher time to convince their own shareholders to approve this take-over. Yahoo! take-over seemed to be a bad financial move for Microsoft. Can Microsoft actually afford Yahoo! without breaking their bank? What are Microsoft’s shareholders saying regarding this Yahoo! take-over. SmartMoney says that “Microsoft Shareholders to Pay High Price for Yahoo“.
I am not a financial analyst, but I am a huge Futurama fan. Based on what I learned from Futurama’s “Future Stock”, shareholders from both company must approve the take-over. If that held true, then maybe Microsoft shareholder might be the one who would stop Steve Ballmer and his pals from driving Microsoft over the cliff, metaphorically.
Let’s see how this play out.
Disclaimer: I do not own a single stock because I don’t have the cash or the guts to gamble, but I make stupid stock predictions for other people.
Known Fact: Bender is Great! So send email to Bender - bender@ilovebender.com
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01.08.08
Posted in Announcements, Applications, Apps, Media, Microsoft, News, Rants, Resources, Tech, Vista, Windows at 1:34 am by vondiggity
This pretty much sums up my experiences with Microsoft Word:
The way it works isn’t the problem
I read TFA, and these guys seem to be worried about the wrong thing. Word menus, etc, are easy enough to deal with. What makes it a god-forsaken piece of s**t are all the bugs. Documents are always getting corrupted, figures don’t do where you want and stay there, can’t save sometimes for no apparent reason, the entire thing just bombs out, etc. We had a “Platinum Support Ticket” or some similar nonsense open on Word for a few years. The upshot, direct from a Microsoft senior support line, was that if we wanted documents to not get corrupted, was to print it out on paper, make sure it was right, then use a scanner and save it as a TIFF. Thanks, that’s good advice.
What is so pathetic is that I have ordinary technical documents from the late 50’s and 60’s that are laid out better, have better graphics, and are still perfectly readable today. While at the same time, a Word document I saved last week either can’t be opened, or has all the symbols corrupted.
Brett
I have seen too many tech articles talking about how great the new Office 2007 is with is “Innovative” new ribbon interface. For gods sake, Microsoft fix Word from being the piece of crap that it is. If Microsoft could fix the program from mangling long documents, then maybe I’d be more excited about their lame new ribbons.
The Article where the comment was quoted from:
Slashdot.org - Goodbye Cruel Word
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09.27.07
Posted in Announcements, Apple, Applications, Apps, Mac OS X, Media, News, Rants, Resources, Tech, Windows, iPhone, iTunes at 2:41 pm by Administrator
UPDATE:
iTunes Store is back up again. Scared me a little bit!
AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Too many iPhone update requests…….
My iPhone is not working right now!
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09.06.07
Posted in Announcements, Apple, Media, News, Rants, Resources, Tech, iPhone at 12:00 am by Administrator
UPDATE: Steve Jobs has posted an open letter to iPhone early adopter. At least Apple is doing something right.
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/openiphoneletter/
Some hours after Apple’s “The Beat Goes On” Special Event, I went to visit an Apple Store. Upon learning the $200 iPhone price drop, I was a little bit miffed at Apple. It’s only been 60-something days since the much hyped iPhone release, and now Apple in a way “screwing” the faithful early adopters. Prices drop all the time, but not by such drastic amounts in such a little time.
Upon entering the Apple Store, I was greeted by an Apple Store employee. He asked me if I needed some assistance. For some reasons, I blurted: “I am here to get my $200 back, for the iPhone.” Yeah, that blurb was responded by an uneasy “umm” and silence.
Anyway, I don’t think that it’s a good PR move for Apple to do such thing.
It’s time to call Apple Support and tell them how you feel.
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08.08.07
Posted in Announcements, Apple, Applications, Apps, Mac OS X, Media, News, Rants, Resources, Reviews, Tech, iMovie at 9:39 pm by Administrator
I finally had the time to go to an Apple Retail Store to pick up iLife ‘08 and iWork ‘08 today. Well, it’s because all the Apple Retail Stores nearby, about 7 of them didn’t have iLife ‘08 in stock on Tuesday.
Anyway, after playing with iMovie ‘08 for 30 minutes or so, I missed iMovie HD (iMovie 6.x) already. Apple is apparently aware of this.
First, iLife ‘08 installer actually preserves iMovie HD application and moved it into “iMovie (previous version)” folder inside the Applications folder.
Second, Apple has made iMovie HD 6.0.4 as a free download for any iLife ‘08 owner.
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/imovieHD6.html
About iMovie HD 6
iMovie HD 6, previously distributed with iLife ’06, is available for download for those who have purchased and installed iLife ’08
System Requirements
- Mac OS X 10.3.9
- Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later
- Mac OS X 10.4.4 recommended
- iLife ‘08
UPDATED (08.09.2007 09:50AM)
So far, I don’t like using iMovie ‘08. Actually now I prefer using Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro (because there are a lot of things that I can’t do in iMovie HD). Don’t get me wrong, I still need to sit down and use iMovie ‘08 for a while and figure out a way to get comfortable with it. Previous versions of iMovie HD are a lot more simplistic, and yet lacking many editing features. Apple has made such drastic changes to the interface, it takes time to get used to it.
iMovie ‘08 runs fast on my MacBook Pro Core Duo (early 2006). I can easily scrub scrub movie clips without any slowdowns at all. One thing I really hate about iMovie HD is the titling options. Sometimes you want to have a subtitle to last 6 seconds, and iMovie HD only allows maximum of 5.
-
My colleague found the iMovie HD 6.0.4 link in Apple’s own Discussion Board.
I will use iMovie ‘08 to see if it is a worthy upgrade, at least for myself.
UPDATE (08.14.2007)
Next: iMovie ‘08 to iMovie HD ‘06 Comparisons (coming soon)
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