Tuesday, July 08, 2014

NOT ABOUT TRAVEL BUT THOSE %^*#@& COMPUTERS

Computers, computers and computers. You can't live with them and you can't live without them. Earlier this year Microsoft stopped their support for Windows XP. I firmly believe the reason was to get people to buy new computers or operating systems. I did replace my desktop, but my old Dell laptop with XP keeps on ticking with no problems, at least so far.
For Christmas the past year Cathie, knowing that I was in the market for a tablet, enlisted the help of our daughter Julie in picking out one. They chose a Lenovo Yoga 10 tablet with a wireless keyboard. It was light and had an 18 hour battery life which was great. The main reason for choosing this tablet was that it came preloaded with a photo program allowing me to upload photo from my camera. So far so good. So while on a trip to the Central Coast in January I hooked the camera up and.........nothing. After fiddling with it and adding a few choice words I finally got it to upload the photos. All was going well until the next time I tried to upload more photos.

It took a little time but I managed to find the phone number for the helpline and gave them a call. The Good: It didn't take long to actually talk to a person and although they were located in some foreign land, for the most part I could understand them. Their fix was to re-boot the tablet, which meant that everything I had saved was lost. But it worked, at least for a while. Soon I was on a first name basis with the folks at the helpline, which I had on speed dial. Finally they agreed to fix my computer and I was to send it to Texas for repair, at no cost to me. More good. There was an issue with the return and more phone calls to the helpline with promised returned calls that never occurred. Bad.

About a week later I had my tablet back (good) but it wasn't fixed (bad). I began the phone calls again and started asking for a refund. Answer: No. (bad). They finally agreed to send me a new computer and I started dealing with Cris in North Carolina. (good). Within a few days I had a new computer (good), the photo program worked (good), it wouldn't receive a WIFI signal (bad). A call to the helpline did not help. (bad). So since I was on a first name basis with Cris and I had her phone number and I called her and explained my problem and told her I wanted a refund so I could buy a mini iPad. Answer: YES! (really good)

Julie tracked down the receipts on Amazon and I sent them off to Cris. I talked to her today and she will be sending me a check for both the tablet and the wireless keyboard for the full purchase price. (really, really good). They just need to wait until I send the second tablet back to them, again at no cost to me. (good) Cris says I should have a check within two weeks. I'll wait to declare if that promise is good or bad.

So, yesterday I went to the Apple Store and bought a mini iPad. Now a new learning curve for me as I've never owned a Apple product, so we shall see if this is good. Apple offers classes at their store, so I will be there tomorrow night as I've tried to talk to the Apple helpline, but they don't have the answers I need. (bad).

Something else. I purchased an app called Blogsy, which I have heard about from other bloggers. I am writing this post with Blogsy and it has some nice features. Of course with me I had questions, so I sent Blogsy an e-mail. Within an hour, Lance, the CEO of Blogsy sent me an e-mail with the correct answer. (good)








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