Category Archives: Rants

This is where I gripe about the bad things that happen.

An Open Letter to Steve Ballmer

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Dear Mr. Ballmer,

I understand that at the MVP Conference in Seattle this weekend, you referred to Windows Vista as a “work in progress”. As a daily user of this operating system, I have no idea how it is that you can even begin to assume that this phrase gives me confidence for my future use of this OS.

We could argue about the finer points of Windows Vista and all you have learned for as long as you like, but the reality of this situation is that I’m an end user of a product that you’re selling. I expect products that I pay for to work. There are many products I’ve passed on because they simply don’t work. With my OS, I have not been given the option to choose one that works. Windows Vista came with my PC. I called my hardware manufacturer and requested a downgrade to Windows XP one week after I purchased this machine.… [Read More]

I Love my AT&T Store.

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So this morning, after 3 weeks… I received yet another anonymous text message from some person looking for some guy named Dave. It started a while back. My husband and I were watching House, and I was getting phone calls from this dude who sounded like he was stoned saying, “Eh… is Dave there?”

The problem is, I know several guys named Dave, and in an emergency situation, I could see one of them giving a stoner my phone number if he had no one else to turn to, so I always asked, “Which Dave, I know two and none of them live with me.” Stoner Dude (not his real name), hung up after saying, “Well it was his number this morning. Aww man!” After three days of this, I finally managed to convince Stoner Dude that this was not his phone number, and that he was going to have to come up with another way to get in touch with his friend.… [Read More]

Vista, Nvidia and iTunes, Again.

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So today, my wonderful geek husband got fed up with my laptop being unable to sync video to my iPhone directly from my hard drive. He put in a phone call to HP and asked if it would be possible for them to provide us with Windows XP recovery discs. He was told they would have to contact a supervisor to authorize it, and waited for the call back. The call back didn’t assist us at all. Not only would HP not be able to provide us with XP recovery discs, but if I choose to downgrade my machine to XP from Windows Vista, my warranty on this machine is void.

WTF?

As I have pointed out many times before, my phone is my life. If there were one other device in my life that were second to that, it would have to be my laptop. For the past five years, I have been very happy with the HP and Compaq machines that we have purchased, and have gotten a great deal of use out of them.… [Read More]

Windows Vista Woes.

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Now, I am a gadget girl, but I’m not sure that you could truly call me a computer geek. I keep my husband around to fill in those shoes, still, today I managed to prove that I am geeky enough by pointing out that the only difference between his computer and mine was windows vista and the only known issue that caused a disaparity between his ability to sync his iphone, and my ability to sync mine is windows vista.

According to Apple, Windows Vista machines with SATA hard drives on board have problems transferring pictures and video through iTunes. Lord only knows why, this is just what Apple says. But when I hopped on to see if there was a driver update for my SATA hard drive, guess what? Nada. I followed all of Apple’s suggestions, including disabling some features in Windows Vista that I don’t use anyway (all of this was directed by my wonderful geek husband) and still nothing.… [Read More]

Honda Chick

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So, my husband finally replaced his old beat up volkswagen rabbit convertible (otherwise known as a cabriolet that is the same age as my little brother, who is now of legal age to consume alcohol).

It all started on his birthday. On his birthday, he picked up our son from school and stopped at the mail box to get the mail. When he got back in the car, it wouldn’t start. He and my son had to push the car the rest of the way up the street and into the garage. Little did I know at the time that this was the beginning of the end.

The car has died like this on numerous occasions, so many that I became nervous about taking the vehicle out for family trips in the summer (which is kinda the whole point of owning a convertible anyway, isn’t it?). One time, a county sheriff had to push the car out of one of the busiest intersections in town, into a grocery store parking lot, and I had to go pick up my hubby and take him home.… [Read More]