Technology & Finance

Personal Technology and Gadgets

Suggestions for making technology a better part of your life

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Why Epson, Fujitsu Web Sites Suck

David Platt, where are you? Didn’t you promise a book about web sites as a followup to your “Why Software Sucks?”

So I am ordering a printer from Epson...I get a cancellation with a list of possible reasons, such as credit card refusal, credit card info wrong, incorrect address, etc.

7 possible reasons. Nothing specific. SEVEN! Where to start?

I call Epson. Go through all my information again. They seem to confirm the order. I figure it is all set.

Several days later another cancellation. Call again. This time the phone person at least realizes the problem is that they had called my cell numebr to verify and hadn’t reached me. My cell doesn’t work in the woods of Wisconsin and I hadn’t carrired it into town, so I hadn’t received the call. Good thing the pace of life is slow and I am not in a hurry for this.

I call. Verify the information and ask if they can send the order through. Nope. I have to go back to the Web page.

The Web wants to me register. I think I had, but it didn’t appear, so I register again.

No record of the order.

Fill out the order and then my shipping address and add my email. You’d think that with a printer they might offer a package of cartridges for all the ink types. Nope. Just three appear and if you check them the next three. Or you can go to ink cartridges, but it has no record of the type of printer, so you have to find it in the long list and then order the ink. Again, no single package containing them all.

Oops, that email is registed, please sign in.

I do. But the site has wiped out my shipping info. Have to enter it again. Ah, I see the advantages of registering. Just like trying to order parts from Fujitsu...I can’t just order a $30 spare cord, I have to go through the whole use of my existing registration or register fresh.

Fill it all out again and the order goes through. We shall see if Jon on the verification desk remembers he talked to me.

Do execs ever use their own web pages? I remember a senior guy from Progressive who said everyone in the company has to order their own insurance through the web site, and he checks with his mom to see if she finds it easy to use.

Pretty good idea…

Monday, December 29, 2008

Would the TSA Please Shut Up?

Air travel is reasonably annoying these days, with the requirement to take off your shoes, based on one potential failed shoe bomber ages ago, the need to take laptops out of bags, limit carry-on liquids…

But then the TSA continues to talk like a complete idiot. And talk. And talk some more.

Well inside terminals, like Atlanta’s the other day, the announcements continue relentlessly.

Don’t take stuff from strangers and carry it on the plane. Well, by this time the audience is already well past the checkpoints, so presumably anything a strange could hand over has been thoroughly screened. And besides, who is likely to take baggage from persons unknown?

Then the horribly boring announcement that the Homeland Security alert is Orange. When has it not been? This is the default alert level and will probably be announced regularly for the next 20 years, well beyond the point where it has had any meaning. Ok, I guess we passed that point a couple of years ago.

Henry David Thoreau years ago commented on the stringing of a telegraph wire from Texas to Boston and asked, what if Texas has nothing to say to Boston?

PA systems are like that, as I was reminded today on the New York subway. If the audio system exists, someone wants to be heard on it.

Funny, tho—no one has taken the electronic signs which are cropping up on highways and used brilliant quotations, philosophical sayings, or even simple jokes to test them or just show motorists they are working.

A wasted opportunity to brighten drivers’ days and maybe even enlighten a bit.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Make Peace with your PC

For serious problems, says Steven Salemi, take your PC to a professional. But for lots of other problems, you can fix the PC yourself through tools on the machine or using online help. And his book.

The Computer Guru, as he styles himself, bailed me out when my notebook froze—on two deadlines, of course.

He cleaned out the gunk and handed me this helpful 128-page guide to getting along with your PC, making backups easy, knowing when noises warn of danger, and how to keep the thing healthy. He approved of my Fujitsu Lifebook and had only scathing comments for Dell portables, which matched my own experience.

This is especially useful for people, like me, who are their own help desk/IT shop. I especially like his warnings about what not to do. Don’t bother with every software upgrade—if your old version of Quickbooks works just keep using it. Don’t renew security software subscriptions—install a new program rather than just continue to use an old one. Do use Microsoft’s automatic (and free!) software updates—sign up for them at Microsoft.com and your computer downloads any updates and patches and then asks you if you want to install them.

Don’t try to fix broken Internet security programs—it hardly ever works.

Don’t share. One PC per person, is his advice to keeping a PC healthy, and with the prices these days, that makes sense.

He backs up information five times and explains how and why, and he shows how to do it easily by keeping everything in the Documents folder so he has just one source to go to.

A very useful book written in clear English with lots of attitude, which makes it enjoyable to read. Yes, that’s right—a computer book that is a pleasure to learn from.

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