u l t r a m o o k i e

After more than a week with my Moto Q9H, I have some quick thoughts about the phone, Windows Mobile and the iPhone:

Windows Mobile has a huge learning curve.  In old Microsoft fashion, somethings are not where they should be intuitively.
Windows Mobile has a large amount of 3rd party software, but no central “App Store” like [...]

After more than a week with my Moto Q9H, I have some quick thoughts about the phone, Windows Mobile and the iPhone:

• Windows Mobile has a huge learning curve.  In old Microsoft fashion, somethings are not where they should be intuitively.
• Windows Mobile has a large amount of 3rd party software, but no central “App Store” like the iPhone does.  If you want software, you’ll have to go scouring through the internet to find it.  Places like Handango and PocketGear are nice repositories though.
• With Windows Mobile, there are no restrictions on apps produced.  The same cannot be said about the iPhone platform — ie. No Opera on iPhone because it’s too similar to Safari, wth?.  And, no, Apple going through the apps in a heavy handed way does not guarantee any safety for you.  Nor does it guarantee that you’re getting quality applications.  It is very apparent that Apple doesn’t go through the apps very thoroughly before putting them up on the store.  Examples would be “I Am Rich” and “Netshare”.  All this guarantees is that Apple wants to have full control of what you get and what you don’t get.  You are Apple’s b*tch when it comes to applications on the iPhone.
• Tactile thumb board well worth the trade-off in screen real estate.  Sure, with the iPhone, you get all that extra screen space to view webpages, movies and other media.  But, when it comes to typing, it is just not the same.  The tactile feedback of a button click cannot be beat.  This all comes down to what you do with your smartphone though.  As a messenging device, a thumbboard is the best thing.  If you want a hybrid consumer device for media and some light messenging the iPhone is fine.
• The Windows Mobile UI is generally “laggy“.  Even with a 325Mhz processor, the screen redraws are quite apparent.  Launching apps is generally snappy.  There is actually a spinning beach ball in Windows Mobile.  Ironic.
• Moving around text with d-pad is a lot easier than with the touch interface on the iPhone.  When I am trying to back up and edit something (say a misspelling), it is a hell of a lot easier to use a d-pad to move around and put the cursor where I need it.  Using the magnifying glass and fat-finger on the iPhone to do the same is a pain-in-the-ass.  This is especially true when you want to put the cursor at in front of the first word of a paragraph.  The first word is at the edge of the screen, so trying to get the cursor there is near impossible.
• The Windows Mobile interface is too clicky — it takes too many clicks to get something done.  This is a considerable part that plays into the large learning curve of Windows Mobile.  There are menus, lots of menus.  But, most all menu items have numbers associated with them.  So if you use an app long enough, you can memorize the most used menu item’s number.  Then you can just Menu+# to activate that function.
• Most Windows Mobile devices have batteries that can be replaced by the user, go figure.  The Moto Q9H even comes with two batteries, a slim one and a fat extended one.  Take your pick which one you want to use.  And, no, a user replaceable battery does not help make a device thinner as Lord Jobs would have you believe. My original iPhone was 11.6mm thick.  The new iPhone 3G is 12.3mm thick.  My Moto Q9h is 12mm thick.  Huh.
• Want more storage on your Windows Mobile device?  Go buy an expansion card (Moto Q9h takes microSDHC cards for user swappable storage).  Want more storage on your iPhone?  Go buy a new iPhone.
• Hey, look, cut and paste.  That’s innovation at work.
• The webbrowsing experience on the iPhone cannot be matched. Mobile IE 6.1 is OK.  Opera 8.65 is OK.  But, neither matches Mobile Safari.
• Windows Mobile devices can multitask.  The iPhone doesn’t.  It can, but it doesn’t.  This means that if you want to have your instant messenger open, you can’t do anything else.  On my Windows Mobile device, I can have my IM client open in the background while I go and do other stuff.  Sure, Apple has promised “Push” notification for applications so that they can simulate running in the background, but Apple has slipped that promise.  Job’s continues to try to push the idea that apps running in the background will drain the battery faster.  Yes and no.  I ran my IM client on my 3G Moto Q9h all day yesterday (on the slim battery) and still made it throughout the whole day without recharging — and this included calls, RSS reading, and websurfing.
• I wish I could quit applications.  Some applications in Windows Mobile let you quit.  Some don’t (like Mobile IE).  The only way to exit applications that won’t let you do it nicely is to kill them via the Task Manager.  Microsoft could do us all a big favor and make sure that the user interface across the whole platform requires that an app have a Quit function — and maybe they can implement it themselves, say in Mobile Outlook and Mobile IE.
• Bluetooth functionality in Windows Mobile is not neutered like it is on the iPhone.  I can connect via Bluetooth wirelessly to ActiveSync on my Windows box and synchronize all the information on my box — including PIM stuff and files on the file system.  Not only that, I can use Bluetooth on my Windows Mobile device to send contacts, calendar events, and files to other Bluetooth enabled devices (except the neutered iPhone, of course).  I can use the Bluetooth connectivity on my Windows Mobile device for making calls on a Bluetooth headset.  Oh, and I can listen to music wirelessly using Bluetooth on my Windows Mobile device.  What about the iPhone’s Bluetooth capabilities?  Severely limited to one thing and only one thing:  Bluetooth headset for making phone calls.  How lame is that?  iPhone users, when it comes to Bluetooth, Apple wants to welcome you to the 90’s.
• I have to say on a whole, the stability of Windows Mobile and its apps have been a lot better than the stability of the iPhone and its apps.  The iPhone 2.1 update did a lot to fix the crash problems that iPhone apps had, but it didn’t fix them all.  Safari was one of the worse offenders, often dumping me back to the Home screen without warning.  So far, no Windows Mobile app has done that yet.  I have not had to restart my Moto Q9h to clear up any issues.
• The out-of-box experience on a Mac is much better for an iPhone since all MacOS X applications are built to work with the iPhone.  If you have a Windows Mobile device and a Mac (giggle), you’ll have to get something like PocketMac to get the two to talk to each other.
• The out-of-box experience on a Windows box is the same suck-ass experience for both Windows Mobile devices and iPhones.  Mainly, you can’t synchronize to a Windows box unless you buy Microsoft Outlook.

In the end, I still think each of the platforms has their own cubby hole.  The iPhone is an awesome consumer media product that makes things easy for consumers by limiting the way that things can be done.  If you can live with these limitations, more power to ya.  The Windows Mobile platform is a great business or prosumer product by making a platform that is powerful and open to third-party applications.

It all depends on what you’re looking for and how much freedom you want from your device.  Strangely enough, when it comes to actually doing things, the Windows Mobile platform is a lot more free than the iPhone platform.

After using the Moto Q9h for a little bit, I actually like the device a lot.  There was no instant out-of-box “holy crap, this device is heavenly” experience like I had when I got my iPhone.  But, there is no week later, “damn this thing is severely limited by Apple” or “crap, I wish Safari didn’t crash so much” experiences either.

Apple fanboys please refrain from posting comments.

Let me qualify this posting with this:  Sometimes, I’m a cheap bastard.
So, I have been doing most of my computing now on my HP dv2910us.  Because of this, I wanted to get my iPhone working with the HP.  Right now, my iPhone is being synced on my PowerBook G4 through iTunes using iCal and AddressBook.  [...]

Let me qualify this posting with this:  Sometimes, I’m a cheap bastard.

So, I have been doing most of my computing now on my HP dv2910us.  Because of this, I wanted to get my iPhone working with the HP.  Right now, my iPhone is being synced on my PowerBook G4 through iTunes using iCal and AddressBook.  Not a bad combo, but it really means that I have to fire up the PowerBook and get out the white iPod sync cable every time I want to make changes to my calendar via a computer keyboard (or update a contact).

In all their infinite wisdom, Apple forces Windows users to pickup a copy of Outlook in order to do any calendaring.  This sucks because buying Outlook means shelling out $90 — and I have already made it clear, I am cheap.  I wanted something different and I wanted something that really did not need a cable.  And while instant push is nice, I don’t need it.  I don’t care if my updated or new appointment shows up in a millisecond or in a few minutes.  I just want to be able to calendar and manage contacts from any computer without having to install iTunes or any other software.  I found three options, two are free and one is paid.  The paid one would be OK if it worked, but lets go over the details.

MobileMe(ss) - The last time I tried MobileMe, it lasted two hours — mainly because I was futzing around trying to get it to work.  The straw that broke the camel’s back was the inability for me to set an alert via the web interface for a calendar event.  That was a huge oversight by whoever designed the MobileMe web interface.  I signed up for another trial yesterday and it lasted about as long as the previous try.  Yes, you still can’t add an alert via the web interface.  Yes, the web interface is delicious.  And yes, it still costs $99 a year for this service.

Granted, MobileMe tries to do a lot more than just being a remote version of the Apple iApps.  They give you an iDisk to keep files remotely (which can be had for free with something like Xdrive or Dropbox).  They provide a way to sync up your bookmarks, settings, mail, and other doohickeys between Macs.  They provide a way for you to take control of your Mac remotely.  And they provide easy to use web page and photo gallerry tools.

But, it seems that with all of Steve Job’s huffing and puffing about how MobileMe is not fixed, it’s not.  Contacts still continue to disappear for no reason, webmail continues to have issues, and other assorted issues continue to crop up.  And Apple still wants to charge $99 a year for this stuff.  Yay.  Well, Apple is not the only game in town that has web-based apps that can push information out to iPhones.  This is because Apple implemented ActiveSync into iPhone 2.0 firmware.  MobileMe:  Still Fail.

NuevaSync + Gmail Contacts + Google Calendar - So, this combo is actually very nice.  Basically, NuevaSync is a service that emulates an Exchange server.  What it does is act as an intermediary between an iPhone and the two Google services.  When anything changes, the changes get pushed back to the other side.  I found that changes usually push within five minutes and that is fine with me.  I will admit that I like the Google Contacts and Calendar interfaces a lot.  They are clean and well thought out.  In general, they just work and are intuitive (unlike the Gmail interface).  They both act like their Apple iApp counterparts, so people who choose this route will feel right at home.

But, I couldn’t overlook some stuff.  First, I have this strange paranoia about Google and their fetish for information.  I don’t like leaving a lot of information with them.  In order to use this combo, I would have to let Google know what I am doing and when; and I would have to let them keep track of all my contacts and their information too.  Maybe I’m Lone Gunmen paranoid, but I don’t like giving Google so much of my information.

If you can overlook the whole Google paranoia thing (and lots of people can), there is one other thing that bugged me:  NuevaSync.  NuevaSync is a new company and their product is a beta product.  In their FAQ, they are very clear about the support you’ll get for the product:

It means that while we take every precaution to ensure correct sync, and make every effort to ensure reliable service, we’re still working on the software. We might restart the service to deploy new code or additional hardware, for example. We don’t maintain 24 hour support for our machines either. So if something very bad happens to a machine when we are asleep, we won’t know about it until we wake up. We do recognize that many people have come to depend on our service and we keep that very much in mind.

And, apparently the company has no business plan or revenue stream at all.  That means that tomorrow, they could just turn off their servers and leave if their current funding runs dry.  Again from their FAQ:

How are you guys going to make money?

We’re not certain, but probably by introducing some form of premium paid service.

So, while I really liked the NuevaSync + Google combination, there are some issues that I could not overlook.  The whole thing is currently free and that makes my cheap-bastard heart warm.  NuevaSync + Google: Possible Win.

Mail2Web - While stumbling around the web yesterday afternoon, I discovered a very helpful article from Lifehacker.  The article talks about setting up just what I wanted.  They used a service named Mail2Web Live.  Mail2Web is a Microsoft Exchange Hosting company (they also host other stuff like web, chat and blogs).  And the main benefit of Mail2Web is that they offer free, somewhat limited Exchange accounts that are ad-supported.  The limit on these free Exchange accounts is that you cannot use the desktop version of Exchange to connect and manage your data.  That means that you are stuck using the Outlook Web Access version, which for me is fine — and gives my IE a second task (the first task is being a viewer for Netflix Watch Instantly movies).  The Firefox version of OWA works, but the IE version looks and functions just like the desktop version of Outlook.  If I want to go ad-free and get POP/IMAP access, I can pay $5 a month.  If I want to use Outlook on the desktop, I can go with the $14 a month plan.  For me, the free plan is just fine.

ActiveSync is offered free with all the accounts and there are simple instructions on how to get it setup with an iPhone.  The setup is not as easy as setting up MobileMe, but it is not difficult either — one just has to read and follow the instuctions.  So far, the service has performed flawlessly.  Although not very important to me, the push services from Mail2Web are instantaneous — mail (which I don’t use outside of testing), calendar and contacts.  Mail2Web, unlike NuevaSync does have a business plan and a revenue stream.  The more expensive plan from Mail2Web includes a copy of Outlook or Entourage also.  But, from the standpoint of a normal user, Mail2Web Live (free service) is enough to let anyone manage their calendars and contacts from any computer without any additional software.

What makes this so ironic is that a service based on a Microsoft product (Exchange Server) performs so much better than an Apple product (MobileMe).  Not only does Exchange + ActiveSync push out information near instantaneously, the web-based interface provides better functionality.  Sure, the OWA interface is not as shiny as the MobileMe interface.  And yes, there’s not a lot of “extras” like remote storage or syncing of bookmarks (which I use delicious for) or any other “features”.  But, Mail2Web seems to work well.  It does exactly what I need and the price is right — even if I hopped on the ad-free plan, it would be cheaper than MobileMe.  Mail2Web:  Win.

I did look at hosted Zimbra accounts also, but they all cost money and so far Mail2Web seems to be doing what I need.  I have 59 days of MobileMe trial left, I’ll leave that account open just in case something happens in the next 59 days which will rock the MobileMe world.  Otherwise, MobileMe will not be my choice for pushing information over to my iPhone.  People have had good experience with Mail2Web and the only complaints I found were from a week long outage in early 2007 — which seemed to be more the fault of a bug in Exchange than Mail2Web.  I will update as I keep on using Mail2Web.  For now, my iPhone can be managed from any computer without having to whip out my iPod sync cable, or installing iTunes, or installing Outlook.  Yay!

I wanted to rearrange my workspace at home to be more ergonomic.  This meant moving my laptop onto the small stand that was for my LCD.  Then, I could get a nice keyboard so that I am not hunched over typing.
I went shopping for a new keyboard and the shiniest one was the one I [...]

I wanted to rearrange my workspace at home to be more ergonomic.  This meant moving my laptop onto the small stand that was for my LCD.  Then, I could get a nice keyboard so that I am not hunched over typing.

I went shopping for a new keyboard and the shiniest one was the one I bought.  It was the Apple Wireless Keyboard.  Yea, I bought an Apple keyboard for my PC notebook.  Since it is HID compliant, I paired it up with my notebook without issue and most of the keys mapped over OK (like ALT and (Windows)).  But, after typing on it for a while, the shortcomings of the shiny keyboard started showing up:

• Flat keys make it hard to touch type.  It is really difficult to find the “home” position for typing on the keyboard.
• The keys have a really short throw (about 3mm from what I read).  It is weird at first, but not a killer.
• The Fn key is where the Control key should be.  Ugh.
• There is no dedicated Delete key.  The Delete key on the keyboard is actually Backspace.  To get normal Delete action (aka. Forward Delete), you have to Fn+Delete.  Huh?
• There is no Home.  There is no End.  There is no Page Up.  There is no Page Down.  For that matter, there’s no numeric keypad either.
• At least Steve allowed Apple users to replace the batteries in the wireless keyboard, and with standard AAs too.  Too bad, it’s an odd number of AAs (three).

If you look at the keyboard itself, it is the same size and layout as the MacBook Pro’s keyboard.  Yup, it is a notebook keyboard without the notebook.  While that is not a bad thing, the things that Apple cut out (look at the above list) for the sake of design are unreasonable.  When practicality and usability are sacrificed for the sake of design, that is bad engineering.  Yes, it’s shiny.  Yes, it’s sexy.  No, it’s not something someone would use as their primary input device.  That would be idiotic.  If you’re going to make a keyboard, why not make it a full keyboard?  Why cut the keyboard down to less than normal keys?  (Other than for the sake of trying to get people to describe it as “minimalistic”)

Instead, for half the price, I got the Logitech LX310 keyboard and mouse combo.  Yea, for half the price, I got a decent keyboard and mouse.  The keyboard is a standard-fare layout (the Delete key is weird because it is twice as high, but at least there is one).  The keyboard includes some media keys, some programmable keys and other weird keys that I probably won’t take advantage of.  What the keyboard does have are the Delete, Insert, Print Screen, Home, End, Page Up and Page Down keys.  Oh, there’s also a keypad.  And it even takes an even number (two) AAA batteries.  The mouse is good too, it has a nice feel and heft to it.  There are extra buttons that I’ll probably use sparingly — the page forward/back buttons are nice.  Sure, the keyboard is not sexy like the Apple Wireless Keyboard, but it is something that can be used as a primary input device.

Update (9/8/08): Picked up a Rocketfish Wireless Multimedia Bluetooth Keyboard and Laser Mouse from Best Buy.  I found it last night as I was surfing around, it is a cool set because it is Bluetooth and it is considerably cheaper than Logitech and Microsoft’s offerings.  The keyboard is “ugly” as my wife blurted when I opened the package — quite an opposite of what the Fry’s guy said when I returned the Apple Wireless Keyboard (”This is beautiful” as he said).  The keyboard is silver, black and (sit down for this) red.  Same thing with the mouse.  By going Bluetooth, I can reuse my Kensington micro-USB Bluetooth adaptor (which can stay in the USB port if I ever take the notebook away from home).  The keyboard has a good feel to it and the mouse is actually pretty nice also — though, I would have happily traded the cheezy “play, ff, rew, and stop” buttons on the mouse for a “back” and “forward” button.  However, the set is pretty nice.

Apple does make some cool stuff, but I think they may have taken design a little too far with their wireless keyboard.

Apple fanboys please refrain from commenting.

Here’s the super secret iPhone 2.0 strategy.  I got it from Steve* himself.
Promise all sorts of new features before iPhone 2.0 software is available.  Fanboys go wild.
Rush iPhone 2.0 software out the door, when it is really not ready — it’s buggy as hell, crashes, and is slow.  People have to reboot their iPhones every [...]

Here’s the super secret iPhone 2.0 strategy.  I got it from Steve* himself.

Promise all sorts of new features before iPhone 2.0 software is available.  Fanboys go wild.

Rush iPhone 2.0 software out the door, when it is really not ready — it’s buggy as hell, crashes, and is slow.  People have to reboot their iPhones every day to keep it running — hey, just like Windows.  Fanboys rejoice as they have new software.  Fanboys go out and defend this shitty software because…well, they are Apple fanboys and Steve Jobs is their diety…and they must defend their diety.

Every few weeks bump the revision number of the software, but really don’t fix anything.  In the release notes, be as vague as possible — say something like, “Bug Fixes”.  Fanboys install, get the placebo effect, and go wild.  Fanboys cheer and are happy that Apple “fixed” something — when secretly, all Apple did was bump the VERSION_NUMBER constant in one of the header files and recompile the whole thing.

Meanwhile, try as hard as possible to fix the iPhone 2.0 software and get what would have been the real release out the door — you know, like any respectable software developer would:  Release a tested and fixed software sans any major bugs.

Thanks Apple for your backasswards way of releasing the iPhone 2.0 software.  I really wish I had stuck with 1.1.4 and waited things out.  Apple you’re becoming more and more like Microsoft.  With the iPhone 2.0 software, I kept thinking to myself:  “Crap, I should have waited for Service Pack 1 before I upgraded.“  Ironic, huh?

*Steve “Mookie” Kong, that is.

This will probably slip through the news since there’s this consistent Viagra driven love for Apple.  But, for those of you interested (from the Wall Street Journal):
Apple raised hackles in computer-privacy and security circles when an independent engineer discovered code inside the iPhone that suggested iPhones routinely check an Apple Web site that could, in [...]

This will probably slip through the news since there’s this consistent Viagra driven love for Apple.  But, for those of you interested (from the Wall Street Journal):

Apple raised hackles in computer-privacy and security circles when an independent engineer discovered code inside the iPhone that suggested iPhones routinely check an Apple Web site that could, in theory trigger the removal of the undesirable software from the devices.

Mr. Jobs confirmed such a capability exists, but argued that Apple needs it in case it inadvertently allows a malicious program — one that stole users’ personal data, for example — to be distributed to iPhones through the App Store.

I guess Uncle Steve is really trying to tell people that All Your Ifones Belong To Him.

Almost a year ago, Apple released the iPhone.  Everyone clamored to get one and then everyone hopped on iTunes to activate it.  Surely enough, the activation servers were overwhelmed.  For hours and hours, happy new iPhone owners quickly turned to angry customers.  You’d figure that Apple would have learned their lesson about capacity planning when [...]

Almost a year ago, Apple released the iPhone.  Everyone clamored to get one and then everyone hopped on iTunes to activate it.  Surely enough, the activation servers were overwhelmed.  For hours and hours, happy new iPhone owners quickly turned to angry customers.  You’d figure that Apple would have learned their lesson about capacity planning when it comes to large launches.  Nope.  Apple screwed the pooch again with the iPhone 3G launch.

Why do we make mistakes?  So that we can learn from them and not make the same mistakes twice.  If you do make the same mistake twice, you’re kind of stupid.  Therefore, Apple is stupid?

Anyways, I upgraded Eileen and my “Original” iPhones to the iPhone 2.0 software and downloaded a bunch of apps from the App Store.  Very cool software, there are some stability issues, but still this is close to what the iPhone should have been when it originally launched.  Minus the 3G and GPS, I’m happy enough with my original iPhone and don’t see any real reason to “upgrade” (or in AT&T’s words “extend my contract”).

By the way, if you were one of the people that installed the unofficial 2.0 firmware yesterday on your original iPhone, you’d probably want to install the official one.  It is rumored that the one distributed yesterday (which carries a different filename and filesize from the official one) was a debug version for the iPhone 3G — that’s why you’re probably experiencing slowness or sluggishness on your iPhone.  You can either download the firmware directly or just use the “Check for Updates” button.

My GQ NX-L513 (aka ECS LS51II, aka $399 notebook) is a cool machine. It is still rather speedy and it still runs great. It just turned One in April and I wanted to upgrade for a few reasons:

I wanted something smaller that is willing to travel.  The NS-L513 is a 15.4″ monster that [...]

My GQ NX-L513 (aka ECS LS51II, aka $399 notebook) is a cool machine. It is still rather speedy and it still runs great. It just turned One in April and I wanted to upgrade for a few reasons:

• I wanted something smaller that is willing to travel.  The NS-L513 is a 15.4″ monster that is really built to live at home.
• I wanted to have that extra “core”.
• More to the first point, I wanted a processor that was more battery efficient and that did not run at “holy crap, I’m 100%” all the time.  The Celeron M 420 is fast and it was fast all the time — no fancy SpeedStep.
• I wanted 802.11n (draft) speeds, since my D-Link DIR-655 is one of the routers that gets great 802.11n speeds.
• I wanted something with a DVD burner inside — the NX-L513 only had a DVD-ROM / CD-RW drive.
• Did I mention, I wanted something smaller?

The first machine I found was a HP dv2845se, which is a “special edition” notebook that comes with a (what I think) neat lid design and palm rest design.  It was on sale for $750 at Best Buy and that was a great deal for what was being sold:

• AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-62 [2.0Ghz]
• 4GB RAM
• 250GB HDD
• DVD-RW
• 14.1″ WXGA screen
• Nvidia GeForce Go 7150M
• 802.11b/g wifi

It was priced much less than some comparable machines (say from Dell) and HP is not a bad name to go with.  I had done my research at night and the morning after Best Buy pulled it from their website and said that it was no longer sold in stores.  Boo!

So, I looked around for another notebook with comparable specs and price.  What I found at Fry’s and Circuit City was the HP dv2910us.  It was a near match for the dv2845se, except that it was $50 more and had an Intel Core 2 Duo chip inside.  Yay!  I’ve always liked having Intel chips in my PCs, I don’t know why, but I do.  What do you all think about the whole Intel vs AMD thing?  Are they on about the same playfield now?  (Perfomance, power efficiency, etc.)  The dv2910us looks like this spec-wise:

• Intel Core 2 Duo T5550 (1.83Ghz)
• 3GB RAM
• 250GB HDD
• DVD-RW
• 14.1″ WXGA screen
• Intel X3100 Video (GM965)
• Intel 4965abg wifi (802.11 a/b/g/n)

And that was perfect.  I picked it up at Circuit City and have been tweaking it ever since.  It has less RAM than the dv2845se, but that’s OK, I think I’ll survive.  The dv2910us also has the high-gloss imprint on the lid and palm rests also.  It’s a different, more subtle one.  I’ll write more about the new notebook as I use it more.  The old GQ notebook will get a fresh install of Windows Vista Home Premium and then it will go to work with me to see if I can’t find it a nice new home.

I want to mention that I will never shop at Circuit City again.  I only bought the notebook at Circuit City because it was closer to my house (4 miles versus 12 miles compared with Fry’s, one way).  Fry’s and Circuit City both had the same price on the machine, so the cost of gas really made the decision for me.  During the purchase, I was asked no less than four times if I wanted the stupid “protection plan” (from three different people).  I was asked three times if I wanted “free” anti-virus software and a “free” printer (after mail-in rebate).

One guy, who I figured was a floor lead (because his shirt was black and not red) asked me the last time for the “free” printer and software to which I was steaming mad, this is how it went:

Him:  Are you sure you don’t want the free printer and software?

Me:  Sure, as long as it shows up as $0 on my receipt.

Him:  No, it’s a mail-in rebate.

Me:  Then it’s not free since I have to pay tax and postage.  Shut up.  Go away.

I was not steaming mad just because he was the third person to ask me about the “free” stuff, but he walked in late on the sale and started this conversation:

Him:  Do you want to get one of these external USB harddrives?

Me (politely):  No, thanks.

Him:  Are you sure?

Me (slightly less politely): Yes, I’m sure.

Him:  Ok, I just came out of a training recently and they told us there are two types of people.  Those that can recover their data and those that are destined to lose their data…(trailing off his voice to insinuate something).

Me:  Can you please leave now?  You’re unpleasant.  (Last part was in my head.)

I’m sorry stupid sales guy, I’m not your regular customer.  I’m sorry that you don’t see there are lots of other types of people out there like maybe the kind that has 4TB of storage at home in different locations, and a lot of that is dedicated to backups.  Sigh.  I’m sorry if you’re a dense dumb-ass.

Oh, and when the guy selling me the notebook first pulled out the notebook, he offered me an “optimization” service.  I was curious to what they would optimize.  He told me that for a fee, they would remove all unnecessary programs.  Really?  He’s going to charge me money to uninstall stuff?

I’ll never shop at Circuit City again.  At least at Fry’s, if you know what you want, you can just walk up and buy it.  Boo to Circuit City for such terrible service.

And lastly, to those of you were going to ask (since it seems like a question I have gotten a lot \):  No, I didn’t buy a Mac.  I have a PowerBook G4, it still works great.  It was very pricey and still has a way to go before it gets replaced (if at all).  The MacBooks are nice, but pricey also.  And I didn’t want a new Mac.