The Jaded Tech

Lately I’ve been wanting more.  Current and publicly available mass-consumer technology doesn’t do much for me.  iPad?  Pfft, just an oversized iPhone.  Tablet?  That is soooo 2005.  Touch Technology?  If only I still owned the ‘touch techhnology’ Radio Shack t-shirt they gave to employees in the early 90s.  Still, Touch Technology is soooo 1970s!

Just a few short years ago we saw some potential ‘improvement’ from Microsoft to this ‘touch’ stuff.   Although the irony will be missed by most.  Even Jeff Chan has a little more improvement in 2006.

What about some real work?  What about Pranav Mistry?  This is some pretty damn good and even edging revolutionary ideas and mass-consumer potential.

What happened to the Johnny Mnemonic Virtual Reality Data Gloves and visor?

How is it that we are still bound to a stupid keyboard, mouse and fixed screen?

All this technology and we are still using devices that are 133 years old!!!

Should I take the conspiracy angle in that the ‘powers that be’ want us chained and dumbed down so that we are more easily controlled?  Maybe I should take the financial angle that if they simply ‘jumped to something truly modern’ they would loose all the potential revenue that would come from the 50-year gap?  What about the FUD that will be the excuse that ‘they won’t be able to handle it, it’ll be too much of a shock.”?

Yes, I understand the irony that I am using a modified 133-year-old device to write this very blog.  Sure I could go to some sort of vlog or even just a ‘podcast’ but really, not much better.

There is some serious missing bit of information and limitations imposed on us and it is getting annoying.

What is great to see is that a problem can be quickly diagnosed and pinpointed exactly to what the problem is. In this case let us talk about a recent support call I got involving a system that would not boot up.

The client’s system would only boot to the HP logo screen. Yeah, already a bad sign. The HP logo itself. So any ways, it turns out that the HD itself is bad. System boots ‘fine’ (minus the lack of an OS). So in I pop an Ubuntu LiveCD.  The system boots fine as long as the HD is not plugged in.  Ok, it’s obvious what needs to be replaced.

The system itself is not that old, just over 2 years.  So who knows, maybe HP still has some sort of warranty on the drive.  I head on over to HP to chat with their support people.  I fear that it will not go all that enlightening….here is the exact transcript of the chat.

JadedTech : Not that I can type without having a restraining order against me Thanks for your help!

JadedTech : System will not boot with HD plugged in. Boots ‘fine’ without it.

[An agent will be with you shortly.]

[You are now chatting with Melanie .]

JadedTech : HI Melanie, how goes it?

Melanie : Welcome to HP Total Care for Desktops. My name is Melanie. Please give me a minute while I review your problem description details.

Melanie : Hi Alex, how are you doing today?

JadedTech : any better ther’d have to be two of me

Melanie : Could you please elaborate the issue so that I can troubleshoot and fix the issue?

JadedTech : the system freezes at the inituial boot screen (HP logo, F9/F10 options and such). If I unplug the HD, it will boot fine to a CD.

Melanie : Thank you for the information.

Melanie : Could you please let me know do you have the alternative hard drive?

JadedTech : no alternative HD, running off a liveCD (Ubuntu) right now.

Melanie : Okay.

JadedTech : can we check possible warranty on the system?

Melanie : Alex, may I know do you have operating system installed in the hard drive or else it is empty?

JadedTech : The OS that is on the HD is the factory installed XP Home.

Melanie : Okay.

Melanie : Alex, are you chatting from the same PC with which you are facing the issue?

JadedTech : yes

JadedTech : ” running off a liveCD (Ubuntu) right now.”

JadedTech : FYI, the diagnotistic partition does not work as the whole system will not boot with that HD plugged in.

Melanie : Okay. May I know the operating system that is installed in your computer right now?

JadedTech : There is no OS installed. I am running off a LiveCD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_CD)

Melanie : Okay.

JadedTech : tHE hd IS SITTING ON THE DESK BESIDE ME.

JadedTech : sorry, forgot about caps

Melanie : Not a problem.

JadedTech : what version of SATA does the motherboard support?

Melanie : Alex, as you said that you are not able to boot the PC beyond the HP logo screen using the hard drive cable. This indicates that the hard drive has gone bad.

[It is important to note that it took almost 20mins of chatting to get to this point and now our wonderful HP tech tells me what I already knew.....sigh]

JadedTech : so, two questions, 1/ what is the warranty on this machine. 2/ what version of SATA does this motherboard support?

Melanie : Sure,I will check with that information and let you know.

Melanie : In order to assist you in a better way, may I know the Product number and Serial number of your PC?

Melanie : we can find the product and serial number on the rear panel of the computer on a white bar coded sticker which is followed by a P/n and a S/n.

JadedTech : prod – FQ515XXXXXX, s/n – MXU8XXXXXX

Melanie : Thank you for all your information.

Melanie : Could you please confirm your email address?

JadedTech : alex@jadedtech.com

JadedTech : I am a tech working on a client’s PC

Melanie : Fine.

Melanie : Thank you for being online.

Melanie : Alex, I have checked with the information of warranty status and found that it is out of warranty.

JadedTech : whendid the warranty end?

Melanie : The warranty status got expired on 12/30/2009.

JadedTech : ok, thanks. how about the answer to my second questions.

Melanie : The specifications of hard drive are: 500 GB SATA 3G (3.0 Gb/sec) 7200 rpm.

JadedTech : Ok, that’s not what I asked for but useful enough I suppose. Need motherboard specs.

Melanie : http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01324212&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us〈=en&product=3816196

Melanie : This the web link of motherboard specifications.

JadedTech : Thanks, that’s all I needed.

Melanie : You are most welcome. It was my pleasure to assist you.

Melanie : Thank you for all your time and patience.

JadedTech : have a better than average eveing/weekend/life then Melanie!

Melanie : Thank you.

Melanie : Is there anything else that I can assist you with to bring smile on your face?

JadedTech : Not that I can type without having a restraining order against me Thanks for your help!

Melanie : Thank you for using HP Total Care and giving us an opportunity to serve you through Real-Time Chat. Please contact us again if you require any further assistance. We are available 24hrs a day, 7 days a week.

Our exclusive Owner Services will help keep all of your HP and Compaq products up and running. Please visit our Web site at:

http://www.hp.com/home/ownerservices

http://www.hp.com/support/chat

Have a nice day.

Melanie : Take Care. Bye Bye.

Ok, so I leave the client with the LiveCD and she agrees to go buy a replacement HD.  TigerDirect has the exact replacement for a reasonable price.  As luck would have it, the client still has the original reinstall disk!  This should be a breeze.

What do you mean STOP error on pci.sys?!!!  Ok, just breathe….maybe it was a fluke.  Reboot and try again.  Nope.  Failed again.  Oh joy!  Let’s boot to Ubuntu and see if we can see the drive.  Ubuntu boots fine, can’t see the drive.  Yay.  Let’s try another Windows install…..oh wait….this is a SATA drive and while Windows installs allow for the add-on of a different HD driver, you need a floppy disk.  Two problems….one, I don’t have a floppy disk.  Two, I’m sure it will get more complicated real quick trying that method and be a big waste of time.

Well, let’s see if Ubuntu installs fine.  Yup, no problems and it just hums along peachy.  Cool, let’s drop off the computer back to the client.

Oh but the fun with the system doesn’t stop there.  The client owns a Canon Pixima iP90.  Of course there are no drivers for it and to get it to work seems to be pure luck, if at all, according to other, more knowledgeable friends of mine.

Who knows what were gonna do about the printer….

I always wonder why people like to send out completely meaningless emails to me where I have never met the person, seen any of their videos, never even heard of them. Oh wait….that’s just spam. What I love about these emails is the complete idiocy of them. The blatant “I’ve no idea who you are so here is a fake comment and a video I did with complete sub-text and pretense of getting you to buy something of mine.”

So here’s the email:

has sent you a message:

Your Video’s are better then mine
Jadedtech,

Thanks for the inspiration. Your content is great.

I attached a video my wife and I made over the weekend on our way back from Big Bear where we went zip-lining. Just messing around. fun though.

Cheers,

The video is just some reasonably good looking chick singing to some esoteric song. What is funny is if you look at my Youtube page you will see “JadedTech has no videos available.”.

But really, this kind of ‘complete non-connection with target audience’ is rather rampant online. Blast as many as you can in the faint hopes that the ‘numbers game’ works in your favour and you’ll get some sort of benefit (be it money, popularity….).

This is also a great time to use the “report spam” link