Summer's Coming!

As of today, I'm two weeks away from the Advance Placement national exam for my 10th Graders, and one week away from the State assessment for my 9th Graders. Everyone is stressed out, grouchy and the students are tired! What can you do to relieve the stress? As a Frugpal Propellerhead, I can make plans. Yes, I did indeed sign up to teach summer school this year so the break is two more weeks away than it would be otherwise, but hey; they are paying me roughly $1000 for those two weeks!

So, I'm in need of stress relief. And for me, there's no better stress relief than planning things to do this summer.To start with, I'm in the process of planning our first true "big kid" vacation. What does that mean? It's where the activity that is planned isn't "hampered" majorly due to the age of the children. Josh will be 10 and Katie will be 7 this year so I'm not terribly worried about the length of the car ride or whether they are physically capable of doing some particular activity. So yeah: Seaworld is finally off of the "short list"! In fact, I'm leaning toward what I've come to think of as the "Lan Sun Chen New Mexico/Colorado Swing". When I was a kid, my dad loved to drive up into Northern New Mexico, and Southern Colorado. That's figuratively speaking of course since, first my brother, then I did virtually always did the driving! Nevertheless I learned to love the rugged desert landscape and the Anasazi ruins.... Didn't have a choice, that's where my dad was going to take us, or his friends who came to visit! In fact, it's so integrated to the "Lore of Chen", that Carlsbad Caverns was where my wife and I had our first real date! So, I'm kind of thinking going to the caverns, then up to some of the ruins around the Four Corners area, Mesa Verde, then taking either the Durango, Siverton train or the Royal Gorge train, coming out at Colorado Springs, then down to Amarillo before heading home. For those who haven't driven all over that part of the country, that's a LOT of driving. 

So, there are many plans that have to be made associated with this vacation. First, I actually need to decide for sure where we are going, and when we are going there. Then of course there's the whole accommodations/reservations and other kinds of 'tions that have to do with the pleasures of vacation planning. I'll definitely need to make sure that the "Family Truckster" is in good shape. But I'm not here to write about all that. There are LOTS of Frugal Propellerheadish things to do as well.

First being that I'm going to have to decide what to do about my daughters tablet.  Yes; my victorious find of "refurbished" Dell Streak 7 tablets has turned into a mini-disaster! You guys remember my son's tablet dying from the sad and fatal "Dell Connector" disease. We now have my daughter's tablet which has succombed to the same fate. So, I have to figure out what to do; replace it (with a different kind), don't worry about it and let her use mine or momma's. I don't know!?! Have I said lately that I hate Dell!  

 

Then I have to deal with the in-car entertainment issue. In today's world of personal electronics, we all take a wide variety of devices everywhere with us; ipods, ipads/tablets, Nintendos, computers, etc. And with the long hours of driving anticipated between destinations such as Carlsbad, New Mexico to Farmington, New Mexico, we'll definitely be using the portable DVD player. However, this would also entail such other needs as drinks and snacks. All-In-All, this make the inside of a Honda Civic (of course we're taking that instead of the gas-sucking SUV. Not difficult to understand 45+ MPG vs. 20 MPG) look like my daughter's long-suffering closet. I'm thinking that it's going to involve some sort of wood-working project to build a bit of a backseat console to hold everything.

Then there's the need to organize all my photographic needs. We've previously dicussed the fact that modern (digital) photography usually includes a computer, so there is that as well. Now that I have a "street photography" rig as well in the Panasonic GF-1, that'll clearly include both camera systems, and attendant lenses, flashes, tripods/monopods, and last but not least....which bags to take! I'm beginning to feel like some 19th century Englishman going on Safari! Would someone please send along some porters....which is what I'm starting to feel like, just thinking about it. 

As a related (kind-of) "aside"; did you know that's China's participation in WWI consisted of 500,000 "Porters" sent to aid in the Allied Efforts!?!

State of Support: Part 2

I know this is going to come off as a rant, but it's really not; just bear with me. 

A couple of days ago, I interacted with Dell's consumer product support center in India for the 3rd time....and I suspect, the last. Although this rep was much more difficult to understand language-wise, but much more enlightening from the standpoint of policy. Here's what this person explained to me, which by the way is the first time I've heard this: in order for their "normal" 90-Day warranty on "refurbished" products to apply, I needed to have bought it directly from Dell. End of story.

So, naturally, I got in touch with Newegg, who had told me in the beginning (Dec. 21st) that the tablet had the "Dell" refurbished product warranty. This time, the Newegg rep, asked me to fill out a form that they would email me, so that they could act as my agent and take it up with Dell. Two days later, I received an email saying that they hadn't made any progress since it the tablet was "out of warranty" and that they were very sorry and could offer me a $60 certificate for credit for my trouble.

I'm mad, but I'm tired of fighting this battle for what is now, a $65 difference from the purchase price. So, I'm going to get in touch with them and accept their generous offer and move on to more important things; like BunnyNet (will explain in another post). 

This whole episode takes me back to the pre-2000 days when I was trying to learn all things computing. I had graduated from a self-built 486 to a Toshiba desktop. Bet most of you weren't even aware that they made anything but laptops! After a few months of owning this thing, I really wanted a laptop as well. This turned out to be the IBM ThinkPad 701c. Then as now, I tended to be somewhat out there on the edge with my portable technology. It was one of the first sub-notebooks, which was indeed under 5lbs. AND had a footprint smaller than a sheet of paper. Of course, in those days, that meant a 10.1" screen, no optical drive, in fact, no internal drives what-so-ever except for the HDD. The keyboard even had to fold in and out (hence the Butterfly name)! It came with a floppy, but I had to get my own external optical drive if I wanted to load software w/o lots of hassles. So, I bought what I could afford at the time; a Panasonic 8x portable drive that worked through PCMCIA. 

 

For any of you who worked with various devices in those days (Windows 3.11 to 95) days, you are well aware of all the work that was a part of anything unusual. Lots of driver issues, sorting IRQs, and DMA......just a lot of time spent on the phone with tech support. Call me a glutton for punishment, but it kind of stimulated my interest, and probably caused me to move into IT eventually. 

Now, take this next section with a grain of salt, because there's quite a bit of generalization and "seat-of-the-pants" analysis that would stay with me for years to come: through my Professional IT years and on till now. Here goes:

• American firms handle customer relations in general and tech support specifically, different than others. In short; better (from the customer standpoint). I account for this as a cultural phenominon, as much as, if not more than a business practice. I'm just not a strong believer that the concept of "the customer is always right" is generally practiced in other countries very often.
• Japanese firms make and design GREAT products, but God help you if something goes wrong! They expend so much energy into making their products "perfect" that they just can't believe that there'd be an issue that was their responsibility! 
• Third world countries are just that. Large corporations are monolithic and the policies are not to be questioned and that employees are to do everything possible to protect the company's last penny, even if it means hurting it on the PR front. The workers simply can't conceive of a situation where an angry customer will simply move on to other competitors and often refuse to buy from that provider again. In their world, that kind of behavior is unthinkable. If something goes wrong, then the individual is to simply accept that as Karma and hope that it will all balance out in the future.

Back when I owned the ThinkPad 701, I could call IBM Tech support with anything regarding that machine and they'd do their best to resolve it. It didn't matter which of their call centers you got routed to, but notably, they were in North Carolina, Toronto, and Dublin, Ireland (who in my opinion was absolutely the best....incredibly patient, if difficult for an American to understand at times). They took on the driver issues with that Panasonic CD-ROM, fixed IRQ and DMA problems, as well as walk me through sorting Windows 95 which didn't come on the machine. 

Not surprisingly, Dell's consumer tech support center in India uniformly takes a hard-line, coming up with every excuse under the sun why they shouldn't honor their warranty, and Newegg goes above and beyond to offer me a store credit when the table is clearly beyond the realm of their 30 day return policy! The probability that I'll buy any consumer grade Dell product again isn't good, but I'll sure continue shopping at Newegg!

State of Support

My children are/were happy! Their Christmas present this year are the Dell Streak 7s, and due to circumstances, they actually received them a month ago when we took a Thanksgiving trip to to see their granddad in Midland. A 6 hour car trip is absolutely what the Android tablets are designed for! It was a good purchase at a very good price: $125 from Newegg....refurbished. I'm not going to go into the reason I bought those here since I did that in a previous post, but I'll say that I've been impress so far.

That was until a couple of weeks ago. One day my son brought me his tablet saying that it wouldn't charge. So, I tried using the cord and adapter from my daughter's Streak 7 and still no go. I was pretty hot figuring that it was something that he did and now he'd killed his Christmas present.....before Christmas week even! However, after I cooled off, I took some time to look up the issue and it's apparent, that the charge connector going bad is pretty common with this tablet. So I called Newegg, who said that although it was beyond their return period (which of knew already) of 30 days, it was an official "refurbished" product, therefore covered by Dell for 90 days and I could just contact Dell myself. And since it was December 21st at that point and I bought it on September 22nd, I called Dell immediately. The person I talked to said that I would need to send them my proof of purchase and they would be able to put me into their "Mobility Support" system. I did that immediately. Two days later (last night), I received a call back saying that they had received my proof of purchase and they were processing my request. I would need to call back the next day (today). So I returned their call this morning to be told that the tablet was "out of warranty" and since it was an "end of life" product, they couldn't extend it. My reply was that it was not out of warranty where I initiated the call, so therefore they were still bound by it. After having that customer service rep tell me the exact same thing 3 times, I asked him to "escalate" the call, at which point I got the "Floor Manager", who told me the same thing 3 more times. My response at that stage was to explain to him, that since the product was in fact within the original 90 days when I initiated the case, that in fact what he was telling me was that Dell is refusing to honor the warranty for a product because it was "out of production". The response was another round of telling me that they couldn't extend the warranty. After the second time I explained to him what he was saying, the response was silence. Then he said that he would have to pass this on to his superiors who would call me back within two days. That's where it stands at the moment.

On the other-hand, my experience with Lenovo/ThinkPad brand went like this..... As you guys know, I bought a broken tablet that was still under warranty by Lenovo. I received it, and called them the same day. The following day, a pre-paid box arrived and the tablet was sent off to EZ Serv, in Memphis. A week later I was told that they didn't have the part necessary to repair the tablet "within an acceptable period of time", and that they would discuss this with the associated division within Lenovo as ask that a replacement be sent to me. The following day, I was called to say that Lenovo had agreed and would send out a new tablet to me directly from China. 10 days later, a brand new, never-been-opened tablet of identical spec to my original arrived. End of story. 

I would find out later that this model of tablet, is in fact an end of life product for them as well, having decided to move to Windows 8 on their Tablet 2. So, what's the difference? Is Lenovo that much better than Dell? Is it because I had to deal with one of the dreaded, India support centers? I believe that answer to both questions is an unequivical...."NO"! The difference? .....is that the ThinkPad was supported on the "corporate support" side of the business, and the Dell is being supported on the "consumer" side of their business. That's why the Dell center I was directed to was in India in the first place! Businesses routinely don't put up with "off-shore" support. I don't have any issues with Indian support centers per se. I have found them to be excellent in providing polite, and patient service. On occasion, I struggle with their accents, but I'm certain that they struggle with mine as well. 

The real issue is that corporate support philosophically wants to keep the customer happy at all costs. The caller could very well be a high level IT professional with the ability to influence if not make the decision on 100s of thousands of dollars worth of purchases based on their experience. I know; I was that guy once. On the other hand, consumer support quite typically is dealing with a "single purchase" consumer who quite often cause the problem themselves and the philosophy for these big firms is to minimize the damage to the company in terms of $$$. We all know what that means. Which is why I almost always recommend a professional (corporate) level product is there is a choice! 

We have some friends who are looking to buy a tablet for their teenage daughter......any guesses what I recommended?

Age of the "Slate"

Not even we, are immune the trends. About a month ago, the first tablet came to live at our house. I've alluded to it before, but never fully explained how I got what might be one of greatest "deals" in my Frugal Propellerhead career. So let me back up to the middle of the summer when this all started.

 At that point, my iPad toting brother-in-law who spent the summer here had been around for a month, and my techno-lust had been well-and-truly ignited. Of course, me being me, I didn't really want an iPad that seemingly every pretentious house-wife and fashionista twenty-something was toting around. Even my father-in-law had given in to the the disease and gotten one for his wife. So obviously that was pretty much off of my radar.....even if I could rationalize or afford it. 

What I really wanted was the ThinkPad "Slate" Tablet, by Lenovo. I didn't want it because it was a ThinkPad. I wanted it because of what made it a ThinkPad Tablet. It was everything that the iPad wasn't; it was function first and really pretty utilitarian in design. Not to say it's ugly, it's a bit of a "government agency GMC Yukon" of tablets. Of course you can read about it on one of the many review sites, but let me at least say that I'm more than pleased with the performance. It's equipped with a 10" IPS screen covered with Gorilla glass and packs a dual core processor supported by 64Gb of storage, not to mention the full SD card slot!

However, it's really the "back-story" of how I came to have it that's more interesting....so here goes. When I started looking at tablets. I was originally intent on starting out by purchasing a cheap android clone just to play around with, before I invested in something nicer. In fact, I had found a guy on Craig's List who was trying to sell a little 7" Viewsonic for $30. However, that seller was kind of flaky and never would meet me, so the sale never came to fruition. As many of you are aware, when I get interested in something, I spend a lot of time researching and hours on eBay watching them. Of course I was aware of the ThinkPad Tablet, but couldn't even afford the $250-300 that I sometimes saw them sell for, much less the $550 to $650 that they sold at new. Therefore, they were pretty much a "pipe-dream". Then, one day while scanning the eBay ads, I came across a guy selling a "new-looking", but "non-working" ThinkPad Tablet for $200. Knowing that they hadn't been out for very long, I was curious why the guy didn't just send it in for warranty repairs. We messaged back and forth on eBay; enough so that I was comfortable with him being what he claimed to be......which was someone who goes out to auctions and buys up pallets of goods. He said that it was in a "mixed lot" pallet and the rest of what he had for sale pretty much bore this out. What it means, is that his business is to go to various auctions, bid on pallets of goods that can come from almost anywhere, but commonly, from places that have gone out of business. So they end up with all manner of stuff that they don't have time to test thoroughly. They make money, by "flipping" this stuff as quickly as possible and do it all over again. 

Anyway, the most interesting part was that although he tried.....and ultimately failed to figure out how to work Lenovo's support site to find out the warranty status. Lenovo, like all the other bigger corporate suppliers typically have 1 to 3 year warranty periods which are pretty liberal. So, after a little digging, I figured out that the tablet in question, which by the way was the highest spec 64Gb model was covered till November 23rd of this year! And, before I offered him $150 (which he accepted), I even told him about it! Then began my odyssey with Lenovo warranty service:

1. The day I received it from the seller, I called Lenovo support- 
2. they sent out a box which I received the next day- 
3. that same day I got it back on UPS to the Memphis repair depot (which used to the EZ-Serv division of IBM)- 
4. the following day they acknowledged that the tablet had been received and said it would take a week- 
5. after a week, I saw online that it was "on hold for parts" so I called them to find out what happened- 
6. got escalated to a manager- who called me the next day to say that they weren't going to have that part for some time and they'd talk to Lenovo to see what they could do- 
7. a day later, he called me to say that Lenovo had agreed to replace it with a new unit......shipped directly from the factory in China!!! 
8.  Two weeks after that, I receive delivery of a brand new ThinkPad "Slate" Tablet directly to my house.......after one month of my time and $150 invested!

Do I love it more because it was ridiculously cheaper than what the normal price should have been? Yup, I sure do....but that's not the end of the story. Apparently I don't love it as much as my 9 year old son and 6 year old daughter, so we all know what that means, right!?! You got it......

Daddy-Claus has been busily looking for something for Christmas. After examing a crazy number of different tablets, it came down to what I was willing to spend on two elementary aged kids while making the salary of a teacher. That turns out to be around $100 give or take. Decision parameters?

• Their kids! If we were a part of a different demographic, maybe it'd be a no-brainer and we'd just buy iPads........hmmmmm...........naaaaaawwww.
• It needed to be small for kid hands and so they could carry it around in backpacks etc.
• It needed to have a dual-core processor so it could run something better than Android Gingerbread.
• It needed to be better-built than the usual "no-name" clones that may run great, or may break after a week. 

Actually the device that got me going was the Arnova 7, specifically the 7F G3 that Micro Center had on their sales flier for $100. For those who aren't familiar with them, Arnova, is a low-end branding used by Archos, a French electronics manufacturer. Although, not exactly an iPad killer, it does have a dual-core and comes loaded with Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich). Therefore, now that I had a legitimate price for a 7" tablet running something other than warmed-over phone Android, from an honest-to-gosh manufacturer, I now had a standard. 

 What I had figured out was this: 

1. I could buy a decent tablet pretty much any time, new or used for around $100. All you have to do is to do a search on the local Craig's List.
2. Unfortunately, at that price, all you'll usually get is an old single-core machine only capable of running Android "Gingerbread"....like the Lenovo IdeaPad A1 (illustrated above).
3. I wanted one built at least as nicely as the Lenovo IdeaPad....
4. But wanted it to be able to run Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) or better.....
5. And of course, I only wanted to spend around $100

So it looked like it was going to be the Arnova 7F G3 for a while.....right up until I came across the Dell Streak 7, being sold by Newegg, "refurbished" for $120. Here was everything I was looking for in one package. As part of the refurbishing, these unit are loaded with Honeycomb. It comes with Gorilla-Glass (just like my ThinkPad Slate), and a full sized SD card slot. And I'm betting that the refurbishing amounted to loading the new OS, flashing the ROM and replacing the backs with one that doesn't have T-Mobile markings! I'd lay even money that Newegg got a sweetheart deal on them when T-Mobile decided to get rid of the ones that hadn't sold yet from their original cost-supplimented deal they had cut with Dell. Anyway; I don't really care. I'm going to look good at Christmas this year is all I know!

Which leaves one thing left to do. You guessed it: A tablet for the wife of course! Let me give you one quote and see if you translate it as quickly as I did. Upon being offered to use my Slate, she said: "No, that's your tablet". The emphasis is mine of course, but you got the message, right? Now I've just got to decide whether to go with any one of the following options:

• A "rooted" HP TouchPad running Android 4.0 (ICS)- Least expensive
• A Motorola Xoom- Middle of the road (cost-wise)
• Or give in, worship at the alter of Jobs and buy her an iPad- Most expensive 

 

Of course, this is a conundrum all to itself and obviously in need of a separate post.