In other news ...

[apocalypsos]

I miss my laptop already, mostly because every time I reload my friends list on this computer it freezes up for a few seconds and then gives me an error message. It's a small annoyance that's driving me up a damn wall, especially considering how often I'm on it.

It's also freezing up if I open too many windows. As in more than two tabs on Firefox, Yahoo Messenger or AOL Radio so I can listen to music, and one document file. Brilliant.

*sighs*

What I'm really hoping for is that since they got the damn laptop bright and early this morning, they'll it done today, slap an airbill on it, and send it back to me ASAP, but then again I highly doubt it.

****

Someone keep me away from Fandom Wank. I'm supposed to be writing, damn it. And I am! I'm just, you know, in a mocking sort of mood, I guess.

Comments

[kanedax.livejournal.com]

I have that happen with my work computer, too. If you hit "reload" on the friends page an error message comes up. I suggest just clicking the "View My Friends Page" link at the top of the page whenever you reload. It never locks up on me when I do that.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, it worked! *hugs you*

[kanedax.livejournal.com]

Not a prob. I blame Explorer.

[palmetto.livejournal.com]

What exactly is wrong with your laptop? I think we have the same one, you see, and I wanna keep an eye on it for weird behavior.

I don't exactly trust Compaq. I just liked the price.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

The USB ports weren't working. One wasn't registering anything connected to it and hooking something up to the other one froze up the whole damn machine. It was a hassle getting customer service to say, "Okay, send it in," but when they finally did I got the box to send it in in about a day or so. And at least you can chat with the techs online, which helped.

And I put a note in the box because the CD drive's been randomly popping open to see if they could make that stop, but that's happened with all of my computers after a time.

I'm not exactly thrilled with Compaq, either, really. Mine was on sale for a hundred bucks less than usual, so I could put that towards the two-year service plan. (Thank GOD -- I don't think I could do this again if I didn't have that this time around.) One of these days I've really got to invest in a really, REALLY nice laptop from some other company.

[palmetto.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I had some really weird software conflicts going on, but I mostly fixed those by ripping out Norton and all of the preloaded bloatware on the system. Windows keeps throwing me errors, though, leading me to believe there's something still hanging out there.

I wish it were possible to easily build your own, like you can do for a desktop. I trust computers I've put together with my own hands a lot more than ones put together by people I don't know who are just trying to make a paycheck. I have a personal stake in my own work.

[baileytc.livejournal.com]

After having two laptops of my own plus many supplied by my employers, all from different manufacturers, I've reached the conclusion that there ARE no really, really nice laptops. The max life is about three years. Get a service plan that covers you for at least two years, and figure you'll be buying another one every 2-3 years.

The IT department of the college my nephew is attending in the fall reports a much lower percentage of students' Mac laptops needing repair than PC laptops, for what it's worth. They're significantly more expensive, and I find Macs more difficult to use, having using PCs since the Dark Ages.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, by now I'm well-aware of just how fast laptops fall apart, but on the other hand I'm my father's daughter and I love my shiny new toys. Even if I invested in a really fancy desktop I'd still be dying to get a new one after a year. (Hell, I'm already wanting a new laptop and there's really not anything wrong with the laptop I have that can't be fixed at this point.)

I'm really tempted to buy a Mac next time, too. I've never used one outside of one or two times in college but I'm always up for a challenge. :)

[scary-being-me.livejournal.com]

No! Turn away from the dark side!

[scary-being-me.livejournal.com]

Long ago, I sold computers for a living. We had more defective Compaqs than any other brand we'd sold. I personally got 2 bad out of the box machines when I bought one. I ended up returning it and building my own. I died a little when they bought HP. HP had been a good brand. Predictably, HP's quality has gone way downhill.

We use Dell at the office and we've had good luck with both desktops and laptops from them. I'm contemplating replacing my PC at home; and when I do; I'm probably going to buy a Dell.

I have a theory about buying computers. Wait as long as you can (while saving for it) and buy as powerful a machine as you can afford. You may just get an extra year before being forced to upgrade.