Ask-Steve.com

Worst Laptop I've Ever Owned: Lenovo ThinkPad T60

Let me start by saying that the IBM and Lenovo service reps I've dealt with have always been very pleasant to deal with. And I've talked to a lot of them. Frequently. Which is the problem.

My first laptop (back in the early 1990's) was a Toshiba Satellite. It was thick as a brick and weighed as much. When that died I used a desktop machine for a few years and then had a couple Sony laptops that worked well. I eventually bought an IBM ThinkPad T40, first because it had a full-size keyboard and second because ThinkPads had the reputation of being bulletproof. I have to say, the T40 was bulletproof — except for the wireless connectivity. It would drop frequently and then it would take 30 minutes to get back online. I spent all kinds of time on the phone with IBM service reps troubleshooting, installing software, installing drivers, uninstalling software, rolling back drivers. Nothing every improved the wireless issues — and some of what they told me to do made it worse. Other than the persistent wireless issues, it's still going strong.

Eighteen months or so ago I decided to treat myself to a new laptop. I threw down a bundle of cash for a fully-loaded Lenovo ThinkPad T60p with 4GB RAM, 120MB hard drive (I store most of my stuff on an external hard drive), an extra battery, the travel accessories pack, etc. And I've hardly used it since. I've sent it in for repairs three or four times now and they've replaced almost everything in it, and I've spent more hours than I care to think about on the phone with service reps, researching problems online, rebooting over and over, etc. It's been a complete nightmare. I just received it back from yet another trip to the service center (thank goodness I invested in a great service plan!) where they replaced the video card and the fan, and it's running about as fast as my mid-1990's Toshiba brick. When it runs at all.

I won't list the seemingly endless list of problems I've had, but suffice it to say that they've replaced the motherboard, the video card, the fan —and no doubt a few other things along the way. Oh, and the wireless has sucked from day one, too.

I'm using a Dell laptop at work and that will probably be my choice for my next personal laptop, as well.

Oddball e-commerce

I love what Oddball does. They just need to fine tune how they go about doing it.

Oddball is a hometown (Portland, Oregon) company selling shoes & apparel for tall men. That's my kind of niche retailer. They have a great selection and fairly reasonable prices. But the site could use some work. This product page is just one example (click the image for a full-size image):

Of all the words to misspell, it had to be the brand name of the featured product. Even without the typo, it’s unclear whether the brand name is spelled “magnum” (lowercase) or “Magnum.” I decided I didn’t need to catch any bad guys, so would forego buying these shoes. I wanted to take a look at the shopping cart before I checked out. Wait a minute… how do I get to the shopping cart? The link isn’t in the upper right where most sites put it. It isn’t in the left-hand navigation – or the top navigation, either. What’s going on here? Finally, as I was about to give up and leave the site, I scrolled down.

I know what you’re thinking, but no – I didn’t Photoshop® the shopping cart widget into the bottom left of the page below the fold. That’s really where they have it. If you do add a product to your shopping cart, the product page simply reloads. Nothing changed that I could perceive. Again I scrolled down, trying to find some sign that clicking the “Add to Cart” button had actually done something. That’s when I saw that the shopping cart widget – again, below the fold – showed that the item had been added.

Oddball is a great company filling an important niche, but they need to tighten up their site with some relatively easy fixes and better proofreading.

TypoWatch: Salesforce.com speaks Alaskan

One can't help but wonder whether Marc Benioff, CEO and co-founder of Salesforce.com, is planning to enter politics. In a new book, The Developer's Guide to the Force.com Platform published by Salesforce.com, you'll find the following:

Yep. They're dropping the letter 'g'. That can only mean one thing: Getting folksy in preparation to run for office.

samslist? Wal-Mart takes aim at craigslist

Wal-Mart continues it's relentless drive toward world domination — one unthinking, bargain-lusting, fellow shopper-trampling lemming at a time.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. quietly launched a free Internet classified service, as the retailer goes beyond selling its own offerings on the Web to posting the products, pets and paraphernalia of virtually anyone who wants to list.

The Bentonville, Ark., retailer debuted Walmart.com Classifieds last week through classified Web site Oodle.com. The service, which the retailer described as a pilot test, carries 30 million items, including foreclosed homes, basset hounds, Madonna concert tickets and a 1981 Ford Firebird, as Wal-Mart tapped into Oodle Inc.'s menagerie of listings.

The service doesn't charge the seller or the buyer and is accessible through Walmart.com, the site the company uses to sell its own products. Wal-Mart said the new offering "further connects our community of 130 million customers who shop the Wal-Mart brand each week."

Let's see... They already let RV's park in their parking lots overnight. I'm guessing next they'll start building trailer parks around their stores. You'd then have everything you ever need in life within walking distance, just beyond the smiling faces greeting you at the doors of Wal-Mart. The smiling faces of Americans sitting there because companies like Wal-Mart put them out of business, then hired them at a crappy wage that wouldn't let them afford to retire.

Wal-Mart. Pay Less. Until We Put Our Last Competitor Under. (Then You're Screwed)

Wal-Mart Adds Free Online Classifieds  |  WSJ.com

MySpace spamming former members

I'll never understand why companies like MySpace, with so much on the line, think it's worthwhile to engage in dirty and unethical business practices.

I deleted my MySpace account a while back. I have many reasons for deleting the account, but I'll save those for another post. Before I deleted the account, I unsubscribed from all their e-mail notifications, newsletters, etc. — just in case they didn't have the sense to stop sending me e-mail automatically after deleting my account. Apparently even that wasn't enough to prevent them from spamming me. Today I received another Member Newsletter from them. Of all the crap they might send, sending someone who is no longer a member the Member Newsletter seems pretty pathetic.

Annoyed, but wanting to get MySpace out of MyFace, I thought, "Fine, I'll unsubscribe again." I should have known they wouldn't allow that. Rather than having a one click unsubscribe option in the e-mail like real, ethical companies do, they instruct you to log in to your account to change your subscription settings. Well guess what. I don't have an account! So I have no way at all to unsubscribe from the MySpace Member Newsletter. And that is, without any doubt, by very careful design. If I want to truly rid myself of MySpace, I'm going to have to spend more of MyTime chasing down an e-mail address or phone number and haggling with someone.

If you want to know how trustworthy a company is and whether you should give them your time, information and/or business, take a look at how easy they make it to stop giving them your time, information and/or business. The harder they make it, the more you should avoid them.

PayPal spamming former customers, blocking unsubscribes

I haven't used PayPal in years, but they keep sending me e-mail newsletters, e-mail ads, etc. I finally decided to unsubscribe—and was reminded why I haven't managed to do it before.

Unlike all real, ethical businesses have been doing for years now, PayPal doesn't offer a one-click unsubscribe option. Or even a "reply to this e-mail to unsubscribe" option. When you click on the unsubscribe link in their e-mails, you're taken to a screen with the text shown here.

I don't know my login name, password or anything else. Sure I could spend 20 minutes chasing it down, but the point is that it's clear PayPal is doing this very specifically to block people from opting out of it's spam mailings.

The solution: Don't give PayPal your e-mail address in the first place! In the mean time, I've just added them to my spam list.

The Industry Standard is back... but buggy

I used to subscribe to The Industry Standard. I couldn't help but feel a little of the old dotcom excitement when I heard they'd relaunched with an online-only version. Unfortunately, it seems they've jumped the gun. The site is very buggy—which they seem to know because it features a prominent Report a Bug link.

I've tried verifying my e-mail with them three times now. Each time the e-mail arrives, I click the link and it tells me that verification was successful—but I'm still not authorized to view some pages or interact with the site at all.

I don't get it. Why launch now—after all these years—with a buggy beta site? Why not wait another week, or even month or so, and launch a functioning, usable site?

Weird.

Nero and Innovyx: Partners in spam e-mail marketing

Nero needs to find a new e-mail marketing partner because Innovyx has to be costing them customers. Innovyx claims to know something about what, in decade-old marketing speak, is called 1-to1 marketing. The most basic tenet of 1-to-1 marketing is this: "The worst thing you can do is to treat all your customers the same." E-mail marketing 101 includes marketing to segments of your customer and prospect databases, not sending one blast to your entire database. Nero and Innovyx haven't even figured that out. In fact, they seem to be sending the same e-mail to both their existing customers and those who have never bought a thing from them!

I bought Nero 8 a few months back and have been getting offers on what seems like a weekly basis to buy it again - at a lower price! After the first offer came, I contacted them and said, "I just bought this from you for $20 more. Since you're sending me this e-mail, I assume you're offering to refund $20 of what I paid you to match this price?" I got a boilerplate reply explaining why they wouldn't do that. Then the "Buy Nero even cheaper than last week!" spam kept coming.

All this has done is make me realize that if Nero can't even get decade old e-mail marketing techniques and technologies down, how can they possibly be committed to their customers and write good software?

Nero needs to either replace their e-mail marketing firm (Innovyx) or get with them to find out why they haven't figured out decade-old techniques. Otherwise they're going to continue costing them customers.

MySpace: The new (suckier) AOL

MySpace, despite being owned by a right-wing media baron (Rupert Murdoch's Fox empire), seems to be inexplicably turning into the new AOL. I remember the nightmare of dealing with AOL when they were at their peak. I would ask people, "So, are you online? Do you use the Internet?" They would reply with some form of, "Oh, you mean AOL?" Argh!!!

I design websites and did a great deal of (opt-in only!) e-mail marketing at the time. I remember that we would have to design an attractive, fully-functional HTML version of a website or newsletter, a plain text version of the newsletter - and then spend time building a third AOL version that would work in AOL's mess of a browser and e-mail client.

MySpace doesn't have its own browser and Internet e-mail client, but it is nearly as insidious for the way its users seem to feel like MySpace is the Internet. I log into MySpace about once a month at most - and will probably delete my account there altogether very soon. I often find days- or weeks-old messages from people that say, "Hey, wanted to let you know right away that..." These people have my real e-mail address!

To make matters worse, I've been hearing more and more about event invites sent from MySpace. I'd thought about blogging about it, but decided to wait until I received one myself to see if it's really as atrocious as I'd heard. It actually gives me some satisfaction to report that it is. MySpace Events sucks.

The initial event information page came up just fine - albeit extremely clunky and unattractive compared to Evite. I filled in the form and clicked to submit - and got the error you see here. Which apparently is what happens every time anyone tries to answer a MySpace Events invite.

As far as I can tell, MySpace is good for one thing: Looking up bands and sampling their music. And frankly, I'd rather use Rhapsody and other services for that. Or go to the band's website. But I have to admit that MySpace has done a great job as a record label. I give them full credit for that. But please, let's let them focus on that and stop trying to use them as an e-mail platform, social networking site, events platform, etc. There are far superior options out there, none of which are owned by a right-wing, tabloid media robber baron.

Christian Science Monitor screws up big time

The Christian Science Monitor is a fine publication - but they got it all wrong in a piece out today entitled, "What YouTube doesn't show." I would have thought CS Monitor above this kind of if-you-can't-beat-em'-smear-em tactic, but I can't say I'm surprised. YouTube is emerging as the remedy to corporate media's complete failure to ask the tough questions and speak for the people - and that is bound to rattle some cages. Especially when it starts putting a dent in the power and pocketbooks of the 800 pound gorillas kicking back in those cages.

The subtitle of the piece reads:

YouTube spread news of Florida's Taser incident fast. But instant media doesn't always tell the whole story.

That's rich. As though Fox, USA Today or any other corporate media outlet always tells the whole story. That's such a laughably flawed statement that I'm surprised it made it past the editor. Instant media (which every news outlet on the planet seems to be trying to emulate in terms of speed these days) doesn't try or intend to tell the whole story. They're video clips for crying out loud! Unlike the mainstream media outlets that often do claim to be telling the whole story - and in an unbiased way at that. It's an absurd comparison.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many are conveyed by a video tape? Whatever the number, it is not always enough to understand the situation.

So we're to be prevailed upon to believe that YouTube, with its virtually unlimited capacity for the number of videos it can hold and much less constrained length of those videos - uploaded mostly by average folks like you and me at the scene - are going to provide a less complete picture of things compared to broadcast media? How many amateur videos of that University of Florida incident are there? If only we'd had a Fox News camera crew there we'd know God's own truth of exactly what happened there that fateful day!

That will not stop many people from rushing to judgment based on what they think they know.

Sage words, Mr. Jett. Good thing you're above ever doing anything like that and, say, publishing it in the Christian Science Monitor. If only people would rush to judgment based on what they think they don't know. Or crawl slowly toward judgment based on what they do know, but don't realize they know. Now that would be ideal. At exactly what point did you deem it appropriate to form the opinions you're expressing here? And exactly how much information did you feel you had to accumulate and process before what you thought you knew became what you truly know - in your estimation?

Their views are formed more by the media stampede and their own biases than by what really happened. And that says a lot about how people react and how information is used today.

And this phenomenon of the human race is suddenly unique to YouTube how? This has no doubt been the case since the first prehistoric news hack painted his first big story on a cave wall during the Upper Paleolithic. I don't know how you manage to be a first-hand witness to all events that you form an opinion about, but folks like me are constrained by our physical bodies and things called time and space. Therefore we glean what we can from what we have determined to be reliable sources and then form our opinions based on that.

As the story spread, many people formed a firmly held opinion.

Damn those pesky many people! How dare they form an opinion - let alone a firmly held one! - as the story is still spreading!

I also had an opinion on the event...

You don't say?

...but my perspective was unique.

Well of course it was! Do you really think any of us lowly many people would think that our rushed, firmly-held opinions could possibly have been formed on as solid a basis as your omniscient, omnipresent perspective would allow? Perish the thought!

I was the moderator of Sen. Kerry's talk and the only other person on stage with him.

Oh, sweet! I'm glad I kept reading! So the key is that simple. I'll just be sure to land a stage role at the heart of every world event so that I don't have to rely on spurious media coverage and eyewitness accounts. Especially accounts caught on video tape. I'd rather have someone interpret for me what happened than be forced to rely on live video footage. Who knows what kind of judgments I might make if I actually saw what happened myself?

Take the case of Andrew Meyer, the University of Florida student who had a Taser used against him by campus police at a speech by Sen. John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts last month. Videotapes of the incident made the evening television news and immediately found their way onto YouTube.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement was called in to investigate whether the actions of the officers were appropriate. Their 300-page report was recently turned over to university officials. (A summary of it is at www.president.ufl.edu/incident/.) The report concluded the officers acted "well within" their guidelines and also pointed out that the student had provoked an earlier disturbance on campus.

Wow - what complete idiots all we gullible many people have been! Why didn't we wait until the completely unbiased, 300-page report came to us via university officials from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement rather than rush to judgment based on eyewitness accounts and multiple video clips of what happened? So that kid wasn't actually being knocked down, sat on and roughed up by four cops and Tased repeatedly while screaming and pleading for mercy and help. Obviously those video clips and all those eyewitnesses must have gotten it wrong somehow. No seriously! The report says so!

The really great part?

In a letter released October 29, Mr. Meyer publicly apologized for his "failure to act calmly" during the speech and admitted he had "stepped out of line" and was truly sorry for tarnishing the university's image.

That doesn't begin to portray the tone and content of Meyer's letter. It was an abject, groveling plea for mercy. I wasn't halfway through it when I couldn't have been persuaded to believe other than that this kid was blackmailed into writing this letter. Why should the authorities deal with repeat offenders when you can make an example of a kid like this, have your thugs beat the shit out of him, threaten him with who knows what afterward, get him to write a prostrate mea culpa - and then get the Christian Science Monitor to put out a piece like Mr. Jett's here. It's a complete coup for the Cheney/Rove/Bush/Kristol regime and their fear-mongering tactics of frightening U.S. citizens - especially those who might dare to engage their brains, ethics or morals - into self-censorship and trembling complicity in its tyranny.

I almost wonder if John P. Philbin didn't coach Karl Rove on writing this piece with the help of Bill Kristol.

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What YouTube doesn't show  |  Christian Science Monitor