Samsonite suitcase quality declining
I bought a spinner and the handle was stuck in day 2. Broken even before the 1st trip. The Samsonite suitcase I had from ten years ago however, still works perfectly.
AT&T never chooses to help.
We all know AT&T has very bad customer service. However, it's sometimes abysmal.
When my friends and I first started a contract with AT&T, I didn't know too much about the subsidized phone when you first open an account. However, I still find it haunting that the store manager also chose not to inform me of that. I had an old phone from before and he just put the sim card in and let me go. Moreover, we were students (we told him) and he also chose not to inform us of our eligibility for student discounts.
AT&T never chooses to help.
Citi credit cards online system is slow
With Chase Freedom, you can see your purchases/pending charges immediately. But the Citi system is very very slow...
AT&T charges ETF even if I'm moving overseas
AT&T charges ETF even if I'm moving overseas. So are the thousands international students.
If you are an international student. If you're moving to a 3rd world country, I encourage you to use your phone on roam for a month to get a few hundred dollar bill, let's say $700 and not pay the bill.
There's no credit report or they may not even have your SSN or anything to start with. If AT&T wants to go after you, they will have to go to court in your home country and that should cost them way more than the few hundred dollars. Otherwise, they lose a few hundred dollars for not cancelling your contract. Either way, it's a good way to get back at them.
On the constructive side, if you haven't signed a contract, you should consider T-mobile or Sprint, they seem to be much better at waiving your ETF if you're moving overseas. I went to a T-mobile store with a friend and the T-mobile sales person told her directly that once her one year program finishes, just tell T-mobile that she's moving overseas and her contract will be ended without penalty.
If you are an international student. If you're moving to a 3rd world country, I encourage you to use your phone on roam for a month to get a few hundred dollar bill, let's say $700 and not pay the bill.
There's no credit report or they may not even have your SSN or anything to start with. If AT&T wants to go after you, they will have to go to court in your home country and that should cost them way more than the few hundred dollars. Otherwise, they lose a few hundred dollars for not cancelling your contract. Either way, it's a good way to get back at them.
On the constructive side, if you haven't signed a contract, you should consider T-mobile or Sprint, they seem to be much better at waiving your ETF if you're moving overseas. I went to a T-mobile store with a friend and the T-mobile sales person told her directly that once her one year program finishes, just tell T-mobile that she's moving overseas and her contract will be ended without penalty.
Staples Coupon Giveaway
Extra $25 off $75 coupons I'm not using. Expires May 2, 2012. I have 2 extras. If anyone needs one, let me know.
Coastal Contacts
Coastal Contacts often have great deals on glasses. However, the frames' build quality isn't that great. I bought a $100 pair. The lenses were like $80. $20 is for shipping, insurance etc. The frame came free. The plastic peeled off the arm in a few months and I had to tape it back. I also bought a pair of glasses from glassesshop. They took their time to make them. I was going to use the glasses as a backup pair but now I've had enough with the taped arms so I'm using the glassesshop pair. Let's see how they're holding up.
Staples
Laptop because they often have very good deals. Staples has better
lower-end camera deals than Sears. They also often have coupons to combine with the camera sales.
Staples Deals
Seagate GoFlex® Desk 2TB External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - $85+ tax after coupon
Staples $5/25 Direct Link MULTI USE Coupon for IN STORE to 4/28 (free Photo Paper/ream paper aer/ac)
Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 2TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive $84.99 Plus Coupon Cost Shipped Staples
Staples Rewards 10% back on prepaid phone cards - Verizon and T-Mobile
Kindle Keyboard Models 20% Off at Staples
Free PNY Attaché 4GB Flash Drive. Get 100% in staples rewards (Instore Only)
PNY 32gb Flash Drive $30 or 64gb Flash Drive $60 Free ship $45+/premier or store STAPLES.com
Staples B&M Make $10 w/$25-75 in store and Monetize Rewards a/MIR-ER on McAfee and Photo Paper (see post)
BIC® BU3 Retractable Gel-Ink Pens, Medium Point, Blue or Black, 12/Pk $5 ship PREMIER or to store STAPLES
Acer S201HLbd 20 inch Widescreen LCD Monitor $89.98 ($64.98 If You Have a $25 off $75 Coupon) Shipped Staples
Other freebies I found:
Free Mitt Romney Bumper Sticker
Official Campaign Bumper Sticker, No tax, No shipping:
http://slickdeals.net/f/4252218-Free-Mitt-Romney-Bumper-Sticker
Free "Celebrity Apprentice" Pedometer at Walgreens
http://slickdeals.net/f/4265618-Free-Celebrity-Apprentice-Pedometer-at-Walgreens
Free Pillow Protector - First 2,500
http://slickdeals.net/f/4266282-Free-Pillow-Protector-First-2-500
FREE Pearl Earrings and $10 Sneakpeeq Credit
http://slickdeals.net/f/4056706-FREE-Pearl-Earrings-and-10-Sneakpeeq-Credit
Corona Beach Break- Earn Freebies w/ little to no effort!
http://slickdeals.net/f/4056706-FREE-Pearl-Earrings-and-10-Sneakpeeq-Credit
Free TaylorMade RocketBallz 5-Iron Golf Club - 1st 15,000 Qualified Entrants
http://www.taylormadegolf.com/products/irons/Rocketballz-irons/Free_5_Iron
Free Essie Nail Polish - First 1500 who sign up starting 4/10/12
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sweepstakes/22425
lower-end camera deals than Sears. They also often have coupons to combine with the camera sales.
Staples Deals
Seagate GoFlex® Desk 2TB External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - $85+ tax after coupon
Staples $5/25 Direct Link MULTI USE Coupon for IN STORE to 4/28 (free Photo Paper/ream paper aer/ac)
Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 2TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive $84.99 Plus Coupon Cost Shipped Staples
Staples Rewards 10% back on prepaid phone cards - Verizon and T-Mobile
Kindle Keyboard Models 20% Off at Staples
Free PNY Attaché 4GB Flash Drive. Get 100% in staples rewards (Instore Only)
PNY 32gb Flash Drive $30 or 64gb Flash Drive $60 Free ship $45+/premier or store STAPLES.com
Staples B&M Make $10 w/$25-75 in store and Monetize Rewards a/MIR-ER on McAfee and Photo Paper (see post)
BIC® BU3 Retractable Gel-Ink Pens, Medium Point, Blue or Black, 12/Pk $5 ship PREMIER or to store STAPLES
Acer S201HLbd 20 inch Widescreen LCD Monitor $89.98 ($64.98 If You Have a $25 off $75 Coupon) Shipped Staples
Other freebies I found:
Free Mitt Romney Bumper Sticker
Official Campaign Bumper Sticker, No tax, No shipping:
http://slickdeals.net/f/4252218-Free-Mitt-Romney-Bumper-Sticker
Free "Celebrity Apprentice" Pedometer at Walgreens
http://slickdeals.net/f/4265618-Free-Celebrity-Apprentice-Pedometer-at-Walgreens
Free Pillow Protector - First 2,500
http://slickdeals.net/f/4266282-Free-Pillow-Protector-First-2-500
FREE Pearl Earrings and $10 Sneakpeeq Credit
http://slickdeals.net/f/4056706-FREE-Pearl-Earrings-and-10-Sneakpeeq-Credit
Corona Beach Break- Earn Freebies w/ little to no effort!
http://slickdeals.net/f/4056706-FREE-Pearl-Earrings-and-10-Sneakpeeq-Credit
Free TaylorMade RocketBallz 5-Iron Golf Club - 1st 15,000 Qualified Entrants
http://www.taylormadegolf.com/products/irons/Rocketballz-irons/Free_5_Iron
Free Essie Nail Polish - First 1500 who sign up starting 4/10/12
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sweepstakes/22425
Fixing XFCE sound in Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04
Not really sure what happened there so I probably need some feedback.
The situation is that I have one of those weird HP laptops with the NVidia video card and realtek sound card. The sound works perfectly with Gnome but when I switched to XFCE, the applet went grey.
The solution is: I followed this guide half way through and I clicked the applet and chose HDA NVidia... PulseAudio mixer. And there is sound!
However, the volume control buttons that worked in Gnome don't work yet.
The situation is that I have one of those weird HP laptops with the NVidia video card and realtek sound card. The sound works perfectly with Gnome but when I switched to XFCE, the applet went grey.
The solution is: I followed this guide half way through and I clicked the applet and chose HDA NVidia... PulseAudio mixer. And there is sound!
However, the volume control buttons that worked in Gnome don't work yet.
HP laptop = nightmare?
Recently, I got hold of a HP laptop and here's the awkward experience.
The laptop is a HP tx1000, or more precisely a downgraded version without the touchscreen and stylus and with the product number, it is identified as tx1215nr.
I got it from a friend because he was absolutely unable to boot it and everything stops with a blank screen before the BIOS logo etc. I usually fixes stuff! I searched on google like crazy and found a post by a Taiwan guy. I followed his instructions by turning the computer on and keep it in the towels for an hour. (That's his standard. Mine didn't get that hot the first time and I had to make it hotter with more blankets and turning it on twice because it turns off automatically when over heated). I can't find the post right now but he explained it helped the mal-soldering of the nvidia video card.
I have only had one boot problem ever since (and I was scared...) but I've noticed a lot of problems with this designs. Two people out of the ones I know have had HP laptops without problems. A few others have had broken hard drives and motherboards. The motherboard or video chip is not HP's fault possibly but I think they do have responsibilities in not thoroughly testing their products out. Of course, the problems usually appear after a year (the same time warranty expires, sad coincidence...). And below I list a few things that I noticed that should be improved (just out of common sense...) (And I believe I'm not the only one having problems with HP designs, Shiny gave very sad reviews on youtube about tx1000 too).
1. I got rid of Vista asap because it is too slow, and the CPU is generating so much heat(cf. 2). There are not alternative drivers to download, so now that I'm dual booting XP and Ubuntu. XP sometimes fails to shutdown and the quick launch buttons become useless.
2. Sort of along the same line as 1, HP gives so little space for configuration and I'm talking about this in comparison to Dell. There's nothing you can do in the HP BIOS whereas in a Dell computer, you can turn off unused devices like a modem and other on-board devices. You can turn off nothing and as mentioned in 1, drivers are not provided. So very little space for configuration and I don't understand the reason. I guess they chose pissing off customer over pissing off business partners.
3. AMD processors give out too much heat. Definitely not suitable for smaller laptops. I don't know if HP got a great contract from AMD or not, I think running Vista on this computer with average work load for a few hours is certainly going to ruin the laptop in about a year. And I don't know why the engineers didn't realize it. The CPU temperature is constantly above 60 or 70, or more. The Dell Inspiron 1300 runs much more smooth and causes much less problems under XP and it has so much less processing power. So with so much more to do so much less, I'd definitely say it's definitely a design flaw.
HP just have so many REDUNDANT things like the touchpad lock. Other computers don't have it but we seldom run into troubles. I'm glad your touchpads are sensitive but we have to fiddle with the button all the time... Just design a soft lock and count characters per 5 seconds typed and if it is above a threshold, then disable the touchpad. I wonder if some other companies already have it.
Well, HP did let us format the hard drive and reinstall other systems easily at least on this laptop (which is even untrue or some others). I don't know what is going on with HP's designs but the HP laptops just seem to have the worst of all others but no highlight of their own.
Note: For those who are using smplayer in Linux or mplayer for windows, if it doesn't show videos, go to preferences->general->video tab and change dx(fast) to gl(fast). Then it'll work.
The laptop is a HP tx1000, or more precisely a downgraded version without the touchscreen and stylus and with the product number, it is identified as tx1215nr.
I got it from a friend because he was absolutely unable to boot it and everything stops with a blank screen before the BIOS logo etc. I usually fixes stuff! I searched on google like crazy and found a post by a Taiwan guy. I followed his instructions by turning the computer on and keep it in the towels for an hour. (That's his standard. Mine didn't get that hot the first time and I had to make it hotter with more blankets and turning it on twice because it turns off automatically when over heated). I can't find the post right now but he explained it helped the mal-soldering of the nvidia video card.
I have only had one boot problem ever since (and I was scared...) but I've noticed a lot of problems with this designs. Two people out of the ones I know have had HP laptops without problems. A few others have had broken hard drives and motherboards. The motherboard or video chip is not HP's fault possibly but I think they do have responsibilities in not thoroughly testing their products out. Of course, the problems usually appear after a year (the same time warranty expires, sad coincidence...). And below I list a few things that I noticed that should be improved (just out of common sense...) (And I believe I'm not the only one having problems with HP designs, Shiny gave very sad reviews on youtube about tx1000 too).
1. I got rid of Vista asap because it is too slow, and the CPU is generating so much heat(cf. 2). There are not alternative drivers to download, so now that I'm dual booting XP and Ubuntu. XP sometimes fails to shutdown and the quick launch buttons become useless.
2. Sort of along the same line as 1, HP gives so little space for configuration and I'm talking about this in comparison to Dell. There's nothing you can do in the HP BIOS whereas in a Dell computer, you can turn off unused devices like a modem and other on-board devices. You can turn off nothing and as mentioned in 1, drivers are not provided. So very little space for configuration and I don't understand the reason. I guess they chose pissing off customer over pissing off business partners.
3. AMD processors give out too much heat. Definitely not suitable for smaller laptops. I don't know if HP got a great contract from AMD or not, I think running Vista on this computer with average work load for a few hours is certainly going to ruin the laptop in about a year. And I don't know why the engineers didn't realize it. The CPU temperature is constantly above 60 or 70, or more. The Dell Inspiron 1300 runs much more smooth and causes much less problems under XP and it has so much less processing power. So with so much more to do so much less, I'd definitely say it's definitely a design flaw.
HP just have so many REDUNDANT things like the touchpad lock. Other computers don't have it but we seldom run into troubles. I'm glad your touchpads are sensitive but we have to fiddle with the button all the time... Just design a soft lock and count characters per 5 seconds typed and if it is above a threshold, then disable the touchpad. I wonder if some other companies already have it.
Well, HP did let us format the hard drive and reinstall other systems easily at least on this laptop (which is even untrue or some others). I don't know what is going on with HP's designs but the HP laptops just seem to have the worst of all others but no highlight of their own.
Note: For those who are using smplayer in Linux or mplayer for windows, if it doesn't show videos, go to preferences->general->video tab and change dx(fast) to gl(fast). Then it'll work.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)