Living-Deliberately.com

called, “why you shouldn’t buy a Dell”. Stick that in the search engine! If personal testimony on a product (and more importantly SERVICE) can vouch for anything, let future buyers beware because of my experience. The world is large my friends, and there are many other people to do business with.

• ruptured ear drums with infection behind them produce some truly nasty effects. On the bright side, they also hurt less.
• waking up to day that holds: our only commode not working, a late UPS plane, a meeting, a job offer, three family members with relapsed sickness, and the medication prescribed being “discontinued” without a substitute, can lead to anxiety. On the bright side, with a fantastic landlord, a helpful pharmacist willing to go the extra mile, and just doing one thing at a time can result in a pretty clear day by noon, and everyone ready for naps.
• it’s electric, boogy woogy woogy….spring color, that is! Popping everywhere: huge damp skies with heavy clouds, bright green grass, explosive color bursting from bulbs. It’s cold but *gorgeous*.
• Tostitos Restaurant Style Salsa with triscuits is addictive.
• Dell computers continues on a nasty streak, now wanting me to PAY nearly $200 in “shipping and restocking” fees to RETURN MY COMPUTER that not only never worked, but wasn’t fixed when I sent it back. Can we say, “not over?”
• Maynard’s reading a truly excellent book called Norms and Nobility, which has some awesome quotes, but I can’t get it away from him long enough to post them.
• W has finally named his bird: “His whole name is Paco Katrina G.” Because birds need middle names you know…

• So we know now why David’s wings were so hot…”Insanity” is Zaxby’s highest level of heat, not medium. And after two days of payin’ for it, he’s ready to think “wings” again. In response to Sarah’s comment on the post below, he says, “we’re going to have to get in that”
• The Dell is going back for good, money to be returned. It spent all week being “worked on”, only to be returned UNFIXED. Calling Dell Support was every bit the nightmare that it was last week only this time I cut it short. NO Sir…I will NOT turn the computer back on in safe mode and mess with the settings again. I will NOT contact my cable company and tell them it’s thier fault. I was very direct, which seemed to throw him into a total tizzy. Actually, make that FIVE “hims” with all the transfering to different departments. Finally Him Number Five said I could return the computer for a refund and gave me the Customer Care number. It was a phone sex chat line!!!! Back to Dell support, through the transfer line, to the “back door” of the company. Turns out, just as the customer is leaving Dell products, you get an articulate English speaking service rep who is sympathetic and eager to actually help. Should’ve put her up front. Anyway, lesson learned. This blog averages 10k hits a month: may all my readers beware of Dell!
• excellent little find of a violin repair shop here in town! The bridge repair cost only 10 bucks, included a new string, and was ready as I waited. Constrast that with the private muscian across town I had to use in Fl, leave it there for a week, and cough up 30 bucks and I think we’ve improved :-).
• Finch Report: We have Bruce and Jane and the so-far-yet-to-be-acceptably-named. They chit chat and play and are quiet at night only I dislike how two of them shun the third and won’t let it sleep in the nest.
• The Flu continues; we are all at various stages. But thankfully Wheaton’s ear is draining properly and fevers are staying fairly low. Hope it’s over soon. Seems it’s okay that it waylaid our gardening plans for the weekend; temps are suposed to drop anyway.

que the super hero music…..

Six Dell reps, all who eventually disconnected me when they got tired of not being able to fix the problem. Two Dell phone operators, one who told me I had software issues that would now start costing me more money (imagine a redheaded tempest over that) and one who told me it was Charter’s fault. One call to my Charter guy and rather than call me back, he drove right over.

Got on the phone with Dell and within 5 minutes convinced them of what he thought was the problem in the first place: hardware issue with the ethernet port. They are paying postage to have it retured, fixed, and sent back within 5 business days.

So, he saved the day, in a way. The integrity of Dell products still remains to be seen; I’m willing to supose that this inicident isn’t indicitive of the whole line. We’ll see. On customer service though, I believe I’ve gotten a very fair represation of what that is like. Unreal. Absolutely unaccepatable in a field as competetive as computer products and services. Consider me a spokesperson on why, at least women who are average computer users and not techs, should never, ever, ever, ever, ever buy a Dell.

Yesterday was the most beautiful day we’ve had in months. Daffodils and flowering trees of all kinds are in full bloom. C had a mother/daughter party last night and we had a blast, girls playing Twister and putting on plays, moms chatting and connecting. I met three new women and had fantastic conversation. We did groceries together at 11 pm and got home to tuck in all our boys. Today looks gorgeous too and I won’t be stuck staring at a screen!

I am totally taking a break from this computer CARP to rant on my experience. If you are uncomfortable hearing an angry redheaded woman, I kindly suggest you skip this post.

Now! Onto the reason for my total inflammation!

As back-to-the-land as I want to be, we don’t live in that world. We live in an increasingly technological age, one where it’s not quite possible to keep up, but where following behind at a fair distance (think wandering 4 year old behind mom as she shops here) is attainable. Or at least advisable. I like blogging and I like my forums and for cryin’ out loud we’re trying to set up two internet based businesses. So while we don’t have BlackBerries or palm pilots, phones that take pictures, or nano-pods inserted into our clothing, we do try to have a running, reliable computer.

For years, as long as we didn’t require much of them, hand me downs have been adequate. But this year it became evident that we needed to pay a little more attention to speed. To reliablity. To capability. So after months of homework and receiving our tax return, we made this purchase.

Homework told us to get a MAC. Friends told us to get a MAC. Other business owners told us to get a MAC. Our bank account and family told us to stick to Windows. “Everything comes loaded”. It fit into the budget, which is something in these Dave Ramsey days, that I pay close attention to. So off to Dell.com I went, to buy a name brand new beast with warranties and support and bells and whistles. I upgraded. I bought accessories to go wireless. I did cable and DSL homework. I even dared to imagine myself working over a cup of coffee out in the wi-fi world.

Well not so fast granny. You already know that the thing sat in the box for a few weeks while I convinced myself to go through the torturous excersize of change over. Once that began, you heard about my sore fundament from sitting so long, of the obstacles and brick walls I hit trying to transfer seemingly simple things such as identical versions of Thunderbird, Juno, and Firefox, of the neglected babies and unvacuumed floors. What you haven’t heard of is the tons of minutes spent on a hot cell phone with my patient brother in law, helping me for HOURS and trying to maintain his own day at the same time. Of all the “hmmmm…that is really bizarre” puzzles we’ve run into. And like truly naive hopefulls, we dared to pin our sights on the charter guy coming today, as an answer to some of the problems.

Sike!! To use a word from by-gone days. Try this on for size: two modems, the first one that I had to buy especially for this, didn’t work. Two cables didn’t work. The ethernet port doesn’t recognize that it’s plugged in (no light). The computer wireless card (yes, the one I paid to upgrade) doesn’t work. The hard wire doesn’t work. He thinks the whole lap top needs to be returned.

Well, no way does Dell just rush out to do that. Super kind Charter Man left me with a laptop with an ethernet cable hanging from it (we couldn’t get it out) and a modem and router fully functioning, should I ever get a computer to recognize that I’m paying for this nice service. Onto Dell.com, since they no longer offer phone service.

But they have live chat right?! Well kind of. Maybe it’s my old computer, maybe it’s dial up, maybe it’s alot of things. But it was s-l-o-w. And while Dell reps might have differing levels of patience, they all seem quite arrogant.

Service rep number one: Heard my discription of the problem, told me to plug it in with the hardwire and tell him what color light came on. Well… I CANT plug it in because it’s ALREADY plugged in and there is NO light. ( I did not use caps with him). He disconnected me, “Because, Tia, you are already using broadband wireless”. I’m no computer whiz, but I know when I’m using dial up or not. I know when my laptop says, “server not found” and “media disconnected” that no, Dell-jerkface, I most certainly am not USING wireless!

Enter service rep number two: much more patient. Actually waited to perform a ping test (yes, now I know what that is!) to get confirmation that there is no IP connection before concluding that my wireless driver needs to be reinstalled. Just download it and it will fix the problem. But wait!! I’m not ON that computer. I have to download it onto this old computer (which takes forever) and then transfer it to my external hard drive, then transfer it onto the laptop, and then how to install it? Well I haven’t found out yet because Dell-jerkface number two said I was too slow to respond and disconnected me. WELL I’M SO SORRY! SPEED IS AN ISSUE FOR US AS WELL, WHICH IS WHY WE BOUGHT YOUR STUPID COMPUTER AND ORDERED HIGH SPEED SERVICE! Oh wait..sorry. Before leaving she said the whole problem just might be that Windows XP is corrupted and will have to be reinstalled. Oh…the whole operating system in the first three days out of the box. I’m so delighted.

So who to believe? Charter man who says the hardware is screwed up? Dell Doofusses who don’t really listen? My gut, who increasingly wants to box it up, return it, and go get a MAC I can’t really afford? Dear Brother in law, who is going to be wonderfully sympathetic but lives so many miles away?

While waiting on downloads, there was one good thing that happened. I had plenty of time to fantasize about a computer company for WOMEN. Girl techs who speak in normal language that even housewives can understand. Products that are guaranteed and a support staff that really listens instead of giving the idea of a bunch of pale faced gamers in cubicals joking around about “this idiot I got here who doesn’t know if her computer is online or not! Dude!”

pardon the common vernacular of a 5 year old. It is, after all, the language of those I spend most of my time with!

I was not avoiding this computer transfer because I’m scared of technology. I don’t have intelligence burn spots. I don’t think this cute little laptop (or Microsoft) is really out to get me and I don’t think computers have some kind of AI that is going to soon take over the world.

Nope. It sat in it’s box for two weeks because I was procrastinating the major obstacles I knew I’d face. I knew that my inbox and email program would be hard, yet completely necessary, to figure out. I knew that the new keyboard would make blogging slow. I knew that nothing would go as we thought it would. I knew that I’d have to spend hours upon hours giving my kids a mere fraction of me, that the house would suffer as a result, things on our to-do list would get pushed back. Worse still, other people on the outside looking in would not understand and just wonder why I was so incapable of getting my job done.
So I ignored it. I checked to make sure everything got here in one piece and then set the pretty new computer aside. I made jokes about how I was too intimidated to face it. I let other people think I was silly and clueless. I called the cable guy and secretely rejoiced when they indicated the nearest appointment was weeks away. I whinned about computer problems to my dad because that was easier to talk about than saying the truth that I miss him so badly it’s painful.
And then all at once, like a broken tooth and the dreaded dentist visit, I knew it had to be done. We have business time lines that are stagnated. I knew the problem wasn’t going to go away the longer I put it off. Ironically I get angry when I hear others parot back my own goofiness…I don’t really want to be that person I was portraying in avoidance of a frustration. I am bigger than this darned computer!
So here we go. It’s every bit as difficult as I knew it would be. I constantly wonder if the homework I did was true and that a MAC would have avoided alot of this headache. The fridge has no milk, the laundry isn’t folded, my butt’s asleep from hours in this hard chair, family members wonder why I can’t orchestrate enough contact between kids and them, my inbox lies in jeoprady of not being transfered which later becomes an organizational nightmare. Thank God the weather has been nice and the kids have been able to play outside. That we have a nice stack of library books and the kids are actually interested in them. We have some excellent puzzles that have come out this week. I can look past floors badly needing to be vacuumed if the kids are at least busy and happy. They need me and as soon as I get this techno jungle navigated I’ll be back full-time. I’ll just have to smooth out the wrinkles of everything else later.
A little son just brought me buttery daffodils from the woods. Priorities are beautiful things.