October 5th, 2007
Friday Rant - TGIF
I’m a pretty calm person overall. I rarely shout at a PC, kick inanimate objects or lose it with people on the phone. I’m glad that I’m like this because if I wasn’t a tranquil person at heart I’m pretty sure that I’d have transformed into a mass murderer. However, there are some weeks which challenge my patience to the point where I could start seeing myself sitting at the keyboard typing “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” and start dreaming about owning a collection of ax collection.
My problems this week all started with deciding to make some changes and relying on others to deliver what you need in order to carry out the changes. This week I decided to finish upgrading the network at the PC Doc HQ to 1Gbps Ethernet. The main part of the network is already 1Gbps but there are portions that are only 100Mbps (I’ve already completely banished 10Mbps). At the same time I wanted to extend the network and add a little more capacity, so I decided that I needed two 8-port gigabit switches with jumbo frames support. But one change leads so easily to another, and that’s where things start to go wrong.
For some time now I’ve been looking at ways to get more screen real estate on my desk for some time and the other day I came up with a way that would allow me to replace my 17″ LCD panel with a 22″ widescreen panel and still keep my 19″ panel (I like the dual screen layout and have become partial to having two screens of a different size). Getting a new screen has taken on a new level of urgency because the other day I found a crop of stuck pixels on my 17″ monitor that wouldn’t go away - JScreenFix didn’t help, massaging the screen didn’t help, and trying to punch out the stuck pixels definitely help either. I’ll keep the screen but move it to workshop duties where the stuck pixels won’t annoy me … much.
Then I noticed that my SATA DVD writer have disappeared from my PC. Odd that since apart from being a SATA drive, there’s nothing special about it. I found it on another PC in the workshop that was being built for a project we are doing. The build is being photographed so if I try to steal the drive back, there will be photographic evidence of the theft. I’ve got plenty of PATA DVD writers but I can’t be bothered changing the cabling. Since these SATA DVD writers are now dirt cheap I added a few to my order (and an extra 22″ panel for good luck …), entered my credit card details and was given a delivery date for Friday. I should have known better. A Friday so easily slips around to Monday, which is so close to Tuesday as not to matter.
Now I’m old enough to realize that the purchasing experience has changed considerably over the past few years, and that this change isn’t always for the better. Cash transactions, even though you usually paid over the odds, meant that you walked out with the good there and then. Internet shopping changes all this and the pattern that is now becoming all too familiar is of handing over money to a company in exchange for a delivery date pulled out of a random number generator that has little to do with when you’ll actually get your stuff. And today the delivery date slipped. In the middle of emails relating to XP SP3 (nothing interesting to see there … move along) and to pharmaceuticals promising to make me “feel bigger, wider and fuller” was an email telling me that my order had been delayed. And unless I’m wrong, it’s probably slipped round to Tuesday. Brilliant. Why not tell me earlier, like maybe yesterday. My plans for today now have to change. I’m not even going to bother phoning up the company because they’ll just give me another number from the random number generator.
I guess it’s not all bad news. I’ve just opened a box that contains the new Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop 8000 keyboard and mouse … I guess playing with that will tide me over until my order comes. Stay tuned for a review.
Thoughts? And remember, since it’s a Friday, you can vent your spleen about anything tech-related that annoys you!
Adrian is a technology journalist and author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology. He also runs a popular blog called The PC Doctor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations
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