The Rose's Grove

...And I have one more reason to Hate Dell.

Want to see their computer-marketing website aimed especially at women? No? Well, you should anyway. Because it's appalling.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go bake a pie and finish my boyfriend's laundry before I go to bed early so that I can make breakfast and pack him a healthy lunch. Or just drink a beer and wonder why Dell has to be so god damned stupid.

Apparently explaining the results of my trouble-shooting with my computer to one Dell technician in email wasn't enough. Now I have to get called at 7pm tonight by another technician who will probably make me go through the whole "turn it on, try to do the setting thing, oops it shut off, blah blah blah" thing all over again. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Seriously, it's not the technicians faults, but I am getting so very sick of putting up with their shit. I loved Dell back when a problem meant that they sent someone out to help me figure it out. That was great. Now? I'd rather just have a computer that my friends can help me fix when it goes bad, 'cause this shit is just not working for me.

I can't wait to have a niiiiiiice long rant at their customer service survey thing. I will make clear that it's not the technicians faults. But fucked if I'm going to let this whole fiasco go without comment, because it's annoying the living hell out of me.

Fuck this shit. Next time I get a computer, maybe I really will get a friend to teach me out to build up my own. It's gotta be better than having to whine to Dell and then wait around while they make me figure out what part to send me. At least this way, if I figure out what part I need, I could go buy it myself and not have to worry about convincing them of what's wrong. I fucking hate that. I feel stupidly guilty enough that my computer doesn't work right, because it's like I made a mistake in buying the wrong one or something. I don't need to spend vast amounts of my free time convincing someone in Bangalore of what my problem is... and then convincing another person in Bangalore because the first person is out for the day! What. The. HELL.

Shit. And I just realized that I told the tech to call me at 7pm, because that's when I would normally be at home, but thanks to a fucking ralley in Downtown this evening I probably won't be home by then. Fabulous. Just what I need. DAMN IT.

Gacked from aris_tgd: Tell us what the name of your computer is (or your hard drive, whichever is more interesting) and how you chose that name.

Old laptop's name is Lennier (sweet, very eager, slightly hapless and ill-starred), which led to me naming my mp3 player Marcus (bright, enthusiastic and cheerful, with a sleek black look), and my work laptop Corwin (functional and hard-working, if occasionally dippy, and doesn't have much of a life outside the office ;) ). And then there's my PC/'main computer' - Susan. I originally meant the name in honor of Susan Ivanova, but it's become a three-way pun of sorts, referring also to Susan Sto Helit, Death's grand-daughter in the Discworld books, and to Susan Foreman, the Doctor's grand-daughter in Doctor Who. The confluence of which brings me to the conclusion that there's something in the name "Susan" that says to writers "I'm very cute, entirely too practical for my own good, I'm more than a bit dangerous, and I could probably kill you. Also, my family is terrifying." Or something like that.

...On this subject, my mp3 player decided this morning that he is feeling ill and doesn't want to work anymore. And no, I haven't hooked him up to my PC, lately. But he won't turn on, won't take a charge, won't recognize being plugged in... *Sigh* Looks like I'll be taking a trip up to Best Buy this weekend to see if my warranty is still good. :(

thought computer was fixed when i got home. then it did same thing again once i relaxed. seems to be completely random.

just bought new computer off dell's outlet site. am now panicking to some extent. but was a very good deal. still kind of going 'ack.' and... y'anno... not using caps. 'cause... random computer shut-down very off-putting.

six years is a good run for a computer. it was bound to start dying soon. even if i'd been able to fix this... of course now it seems fine. but... yeah.

ack.

Edit: Oh, sure! Right now you'll let me use the shift key all I want! But you're not fooling me, computer - as soon as I start to trust you again, you'll do the exact same thing as last time - I'll innocently hit 'shift' and it'll all be over. Again. As soon as I least expect it.

There's no more trust in this relationship. I have to go. We'll always have Paris. Or at least Livejournal. I'll have someone new in my life soon... someone shiny and new. Sure, it'll be hard. But we'll have a two-year warranty to try to make it work. So... there.

I'm going to go play with my laptop. He still loves me.

...At least I hope he does.

The electrical short that's been plaguing my laptop's power cord finally decided to go well-and-truly splut. No more power cable. And as the poor little squishy was much ill-used by the sales executive to whom he belonged in his prior life, that means no power, because the internal battery can't seem to run more than a few minutes without the cable. *Headdesk*

So now I have a laptop, but no way to use it. Fabulous. And I was just getting used to the whole "writing upstairs where it's warm and there are people" thing. I had even made a nice new desktop wallpaper for him. Guess it's time to start looking into the price of AC adapter cables for Inspiron series Dell laptops. Argh.

Edited to add: Looks like the official Dell site offers refurbished Inspiron 4150 external adapters for $15.95. So that's a place to start, then, with figuring out where else I can get the thing, possibly for cheaper.

Okay, who on the f-list uses Rough Draft?

It (my favorite word processor in the whole wide world) is being a total butt lately. Every time I use the "File" sidebar to try to open... oh, let's say my thumb drive (you know, that thing on which I keep EVERYTHING I WRITE), it gives me this error message:

This file cannot be opened.

Possible reasons for this are:
The file name has been misspelled.
The file has been deleted.
The file is in use by another program.

Help? My programs seem to be hating me the last few days...

Oh yeah. And that fic I was worried about? Sure enough, I really did save over the work I did last night. Insert angry and poorly-pronounced Mandarin here. And the reason for the weird double-file thing that caused me to save wrong? This same file problem I just described. Sonofabitch.

Never name your computer after a snarky 5,000 year old man unless you're prepared to suffer the consequences.

Methos' sound-card appears to have never really been broken. He just didn't like what I was trying to play.

Since I had it stuck in my head, I used "Princes of the Universe" as my test today.

It played. No problem at all.