Compocalypse '09: Treading water

[cleolinda]

So. We returned everything to Best Buy--laptop, Geek Squad contract, Microsoft Office disk--and got a full refund, no questions asked. (Say what you will about their stock or their tech support, but their customer service desk has been a treat.) So we're done with them now. They could be the best store in the world (...), but it was to a point where I just started to feel like they or I or both of us were cursed. So: done.

But I've fallen in love with that Dell Studio 17 laptop (yes, I will build it on the Dell site), and here is the artwork I want to splurge on because after THREE WEEKS OF COMPOCALYPSE I am pretty much beyond impulse control:

The screencap has a ton of extra white space around it because I can't figure out how to crop in freakin' MS Paint. OH GOD I WANT MY OWN STUFF BACK.

(particle_person : "Of course it's purple.")

Anyway. I'm probably going to end up spending a lot more than I intended to, but when I sell something, that'll pay it off (like kings, Caroline! KINGS!). I'm to a point where I want to max out the service/support contracts--people have spoken very highly of those, and since it's a laptop and perhaps more prone to damage, I'll probably need it; also, I'm told that if you order through "business" instead of "home user," you get to talk to tech support in the US rather than in India. (Which is nothing against India; if I were Indian and I got routed to some American whose accent I couldn't understand, I'd be equally pissed.) My point is, if I max out the service contracts, I ought to be okay, they'll come out to the house in a timely fashion, they'll replace things, good times. But that's going to cost a good bit. And I want to upgrade a few options here and there, because while laptops do not last as long as desktops, generally speaking, I intend to keep it as long as it'll work, and I want to buy ahead on the technological front. Which will also inflate the price. And then, my completely gratuitous custom artwork. So... shut up, is what I'm saying.

(LIKE KINGS!)

Our current problem: data retrieval from Betsy. Because I'm going through my backups--which were helpfully saved on three different sites online and a thumb drive--and apparently I didn't back up THE STUFF I ACTUALLY NEED. I mean, the Black Ribbon stuff and the poetry (THE POETRY?!) are okay, but somehow I neglected to actually do anything about THE SHORT STORIES, which are what one might actually be able to sell. GODDAMMIT. And I've got to have my music back; the un-backed-up files just make data retrieval a bit more urgent than before. A friend of mine in town has recommended a local IT guy, so I'm going to try him--I mean, yes, I hear that you can get an external casing and put the hard drive thinger from the actual CPU into it, but... I ain't touchin' that. With my luck and inexperience? Hell no. I'll get someone to transfer the hard drives from both Betsys--I've been holding on to Betsy 1.0 all these years for that reason--and then we'll be back in business.

(Oh God. I hope we'll be back in business.)

Meanwhile, the iPhone's doing pretty well. I really don't want to spend a huge amount of time on it--the battery tends to run down like whoa--so I'm not putting a ton of recreational apps on it. But it's nice to have a way to look at Twitter and my email now and then, especially since I don't have a computer of my own at the moment. I hate "typing" on it, though, because I'm wordy and not used to expressing myself with just two fingers. I mean, it's still a shitload better than "press a number key four times for the letter D," but I can't write the kind of emails I'm used to writing, you know? So it's good, but it's not my life. I did remember that I have a little woven blue purse--from Delia's, I think, way back from college--about the size of a 5"x8" index card, so it's perfect for toting the iPhone and its little charger cord and headphones around. I mean, not that I'm doing this oh-so-fashionably 24/7, but it's good to put the phone in while it's charging, or to chuck in the thumb drive as well while I'm moving my work stuff around the house.

(Can I just say? I looked at the thumb drive and it has a capacity of 64 MEGABYTES. WHAT IS THAT. THAT IS LIKE A FINGERNAIL PARING OF FILE STORAGE. I mean, I know it's five years old, but WHAT DO YOU EVEN PUT ON THAT? [Not the backups I actually need, apparently.] I just saw a three-pack of 2GB flash drives for $26 at The Cursed Store the other day! What the hell, people! WEAK.)

So. Anyway. Things are looking a bit up, and I would dance the dance we dance when we have our life back if I could retrieve my files off the Betsys. Wish me luck on that account.

Comments

[faded-ribbon.livejournal.com]

Well I am definitely crossing my fingers for you -- after all of this curse business, maybe you should make some sort of offering to the technology gods?

Anyway, the computer artwork is really nice -- I didn't even know they could do that! My dad has that computer, and he really loves it. It actually saved my ass while I was writing my thesis and my laptop crashed.

As for the iPhone, I find that listening to the iPod function takes a ridiculous amount of battery power -- I have a little nano that I carry around instead of relying on the phone. It's an awesome function, but not so practical -- you can't even flip or turn off the music without unlocking the screen, opening up the app, etc.

Good luck! I'm praying to the technology gods for your safe file retrieval.

[mermaidkween.livejournal.com]

Double click the home button to get pop-up audio control!

[karintheswede]

I like the purple.

The Boy's computer broke over the weekend. He managed to get it going, in the end, but it took him nearly 20 hours of solid work, and he has a MSc in computer engineering. I'm just sayin' it sure isn't easy, even for the geek squad.

[mermaidkween.livejournal.com]

If you have Wi-Fi at home, turn on the phone's Wi-Fi! Saves a ton of battery. And learn to trust the keyboard and you'll type a lot faster. :) it takes some getting used to.

[plazmah.livejournal.com]

GOOD LUCK! Glad to see things are moving forward, finally. :)

[soleta-nf.livejournal.com]

Good luck! I hope you recover all the files. And I'm glad the Compocalypse storm front is passing!

[gholam.livejournal.com]

To crop in MS Paint, drag the little blue dot in the bottom right corner.

Also, there are three kinds of laptops out there: ThinkPad T-series, ThinkPad X-series, and everything else. In particular, Studio 17 has a (well-deserved) reputation of a flextastic ABS boat anchor among the techs. But on the other hand, hey, it's shiny! If you want to find a good deal on one, check http://www.dell.com/outlet

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Studio 17 has a (well-deserved) reputation of a flextastic ABS boat anchor among the techs

I can't even tell if you're saying that's a good thing or a bad thing.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

You know, it's strange - I've worked with a lot of Indian people and tutored a lot of ESL kids from their families (I used to work at Kumon, which is a preschool tutorial - a lot of those kids were bilingual and spoke better English than me). I usually don't have a problem with Indian accents. But understanding someone on the phone is a different matter, and sometimes it doesn't matter how used you are to an accent or not.

Anyway, guy I worked with once used to work in a tech-support phone bank in India, and he told me that they were taught to use an American accent one day, and an English accent the next, so that they'd supposedly end up with an internationally-vague English-speaking voice. I don't think that would work at all.

[lost-garnet.livejournal.com]

"Don't call on Wednesday. That's Glaswegian Day."

[magicloaf.livejournal.com]

It sounds like the storm has passed! *said somewhat cautiously*

Those are some great tips about ordering from Dell and how to talk to a person without an unintelligble accent, btw. Fingers are crossed for continued upswinging of luck with the hard drives!

[off_coloratura]

Turning down the iPhone's screen brightness helps make the battery last longer, as does turning off Wifi and Bluetooth when you don't need it.

[reebchan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, turning off the 3G network makes the battery last much longer for me, and doesn't noticeably affect loading times (or at least, not that I can tell).

[greedyskunk.livejournal.com]

Oodles of good wishes being sent your way. And, not that it matters, but I highly approve of the purple. Well worth the extra expense. :D

[kouredios.livejournal.com]

Pretty! You totally deserve it, after all this crap.

[cherrysakura5.livejournal.com]

oooh Purple! I like Purple. ^_^ Good Luck!

[jubilantia.livejournal.com]

Yaaaaaaay purple! Good luck selling stories. You can do it!

[escap1974.livejournal.com]

Hee. 64MB... that's funny. Do you remember when they first came out and were 32? What did we ever do with that?

I love my iPhone like whoa, but the battery life blows horribly. I bought a case with a built in battery that helps immensly. Nearly doubles the life.

[angedesoir.livejournal.com]

Wishing you the best of luck Cleo, it's all going to be alright.

[emoui.livejournal.com]

If you go to the apple site you can read the iPhone manual, which is way more comprehensive than the 6 page fingertips booklet that comes with the phone. I highly recommend doing that. They also have a section (I think it's in the FAQ) about conserving battery life - stuff like turning down the brightness, turning off stuff you're not using like bluetooth, location services, wifi, etc. Another thing was running the battery down to empty and then letting it have a full overnight charge. When it's plugged in and charging the battery icon has a little lightning bolt in it and when it's full it turns into a plug, it's tiny, so it can be hard to tell. HTH

[queenanthai.livejournal.com]

Not that I have or want an iPhone, but I gotta wonder if it wouldn't make it easier to type on if you used a DS stylus.

Huh.

[musikologie.livejournal.com]

It probably wouldn't work with a DS stylus -- I think the iPhone is like most trackpads on laptops, in that it requires an actual finger to work.

[sarasaid.livejournal.com]

During my last Compocalypse (not the one I'm in RIGHT NOW, but the last one) I did the turn-harddrive-into-external-drive-with-fancy-USB case - but NOT on my own. I wanted to, but my IT friend wouldn't let me touch the project myself with a ten foot pole. It's apparently far too easy to fry your whole drive. But it's possible this IT guy you're going to try could do it for you easy!

Anyway, that's just a comment, not a suggestion! I fully approve of the way you're handling yourself! :)

[callmesyd.livejournal.com]

LIKE KINGS!!!!1!!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love love love my Studio 17. I have never had any real trouble with it. The one time we thought we were having trouble with it (the keyboard went unresponsive), we just unplugged everything, took out the battery, held down the power button for five seconds, and it was magically fixed.

Yeah, I dunno either. Computer sorcery. vOv

GOOD LUCK.

[erinya.livejournal.com]

I'm to a point where I want to max out the service/support contracts--people have spoken very highly of those, and since it's a laptop and perhaps more prone to damage, I'll probably need it; also, I'm told that if you order through "business" instead of "home user," you get to talk to tech support in the US rather than in India.

This is exactly what I did. Gold service package. So when my shiny cherry red refurbished Vostro (that I lurve, btw) arrived with a bad hard drive, I called, talked to an American techie (a nice Southern gentleman), and had the option of a) having someone come to me to fix the issue (free of charge) or b) having the component sent to me and replacing it myself.

I picked (b) because I couldn't set aside a day to be home and wait for mobile service. When I got the part (within two days) they walked me through the process by phone. No issues since. The folks I talked to were great, too--very efficient, polite, and helpful. I think it was the least amount of stress that can possibly be associated with an expensive new toy that doesn't work right.

Wishing you the best with your new compy! At this point, I think you deserve all the pretty artwork money can buy.

[supervillainess.livejournal.com]

I suspect you shouldn't have too much trouble retrieving your data off the Betsy drives. Harddrive death is usually a result of mechanical failure - they quit spinning up. Even if everything dies around them, the harddrives are usually intact.

And I don't blame you a bit for not wanting to toy w/ it yourself, but retrieval is pretty similar to extracting the drives, plugging them into a power source and USB hookup, and turning them into external drives. If they've got considerable storage on 'em (anything over, say 20 GB) see if your Retrieval Guy won't wipe 'em and mount them in an exernal case for you. Better than dropping $$$ on a new backup drive. :D

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yeah (the most recent Betsy is 150GB; I think the older one was maybe 50GB). I'm more concerned about the whole grounding issue, you know? I don't want to fry the whole thing with, like, a spark from my fingertip or something. I've been told how to ground myself, but it's just like--given my luck, and given the stakes involved, I would rather throw the money away on getting someone qualified to not screw it up.

[luna-k.livejournal.com]

but their customer service desk has been a treat.

Clearly you live in an alternate universe, because whenever I've dealt with Best Buy's customer service, it's been a nightmare. Once my friend bought a dvd there, and when she opened it, it was all scratched. She tried to return it - with the receipt and everything - and they were total bitches about it and wouldn't take it back.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I know, right? I can't believe that of everything in the world, that's the one thing I haven't had a problem with.

[shiraz_wine]

Good luck!

Although you still might want to do an animal sacrifice to the tech gods.

Just in case.

I'm just saying.

[chellytastic.livejournal.com]

I continue to send good waves of technology karma and hope for the best for you.

I've seen way too many soap operas to know what NOT to say to jinx things for you. ['Nothing could ever tear us apart..' and whatnot.]

And purple is vair nice.

[vitalitat.livejournal.com]

That's going to be a fun one to name.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

"Violet the Undying"