Kerfuffles

In case anyone is wondering about my new computer - all is well and I’m lovin’ it. If you remember, I had great trepidations about it before its grand arrival once I learned that its shipment had been delayed due to all the celebrating that was going on in China at the very same time that my new little machine was being built. See my comments at “Almost Arrived”.

However, this is really a little magic box and a true miracle to a granny like me. In my wildest futuristic dreams during my long ago youth, never could I have imagined owning such a marvel. For the remainder of my life I will owe continual gratitude to the many, many young geeky guys and gals whose incredible brain power went into the creation of my new laptop computer. I have no idea in the world, how it accomplishes what it does, but it does and I am greatly pleased.

I have no complaints about HP (Hewlett-Packard), about Windows VISTA, nor about the new Explorer browser that I am using exclusively. I have said goodbye to Firefox and constant computer crashes. I used the default search engine from Yahoo that HP had installed for a few weeks, but once Yahoo returned a search that included porn sites, I switched to Google. The computer works well with all my other beloved Google tools: Gmail, Picasa, calendar and home page. I cannot image why HP tried to entice me to switch to Yahoo, so that is really the only failing on the part of HP.

In fact, I am so busy learning some of the new features on my VISTA HP Laptop, that I am finding little time for blogging. Sorry, loyal readers. One problem, I just received an email from HP that they have come out with an even better laptop, with features that mine does not have - like a swivel screen. Now isn’t that just like those geeky nerds? Instead of resting on their laurels while I continue exloring my new arrival, the geeks continue plodding on and come up with another new feature.

I just checked the FedEx tracking and as of 7:37 AM today, my new laptop is here in my own neighborhood, at the local FedEx facility. Sometime within the next few minutes, it should be at my doorstep, if all goes as expected. HA! Nothing has yet, but fingers are crossed. It seems that Vinnie the HP guy was right when he said it would clear customs late this week. Three cheers for Vinnie. No wait, hold the cheers … let’s see if it does arrive.

• Clearance Delay Continued
• Stuck in Customs
• Stuck in Indiana

The FedEx status of my “Stuck in Indiana” new laptop continues without any updating. So I finally bit the bullet and called the manufacturer of the computer, Hewlett Packard. I had already contacted the retailer, Costco, and they were no help at all. FedEx was extremely efficient and in fact I was quite amazed at their telephone support which was prompt and in native spoken English. FedEx gave me the reason for the “clearance delay” status in Indianapolis, Indiana, which was that my computer has not passed U.S. Customs.

I phoned Hewlett Packard a few minutes ago, and although I would not give them high marks for their telephone support, it was better than I expected. After finally being put through to a native English speaker, Vinnie, I was told that my computer will not be making it out of U.S. customs until the end of this week. That means I will be looking for my new laptop to arrive at my door next week. So while my Vista-installed notebook depreciates itself in customs, I continue to wait.

However, it was most troubling to hear his explanation of the delay. I had the most unfortunate luck to order my new laptop in the middle of the Chinese New Year holiday. Instead of visions of Vista and Word 2007 dancing in my dreams, I now have nightmares of all of those Ford and GM automobiles that were made in Detroit on a Monday. There was so much New Year’s celebrating going on in China, that they could not get the correct paperwork sent along with the 312 custom designed HP computers. How much Chinese celebrating was a-happening when my laptop was actually being put together, I can only fear to know. If only I had not been so eager to get the latest thing … if only I had waited a week or two … if only I had known.

For the other 311 “Stuck in Indiana” would be computer owners, who are wondering “why didn’t I just buy a MAC and save myself this aggravation?”, upon doing a Google search of “clearance delay” and “Indiana”, I discovered that this exact same turn of events has happened with the mighty and glorious Apple too.

I have now learned that my yet to arrive Hewlett-Packard laptop, was not stuck in the Indiana snow, nor stuck on a JetBlue airplane, as I feared was the cause of its delayed arrival at my home. My new computer has been stuck in customs in Indianapolis since very early on the 16th of February. Why would it take five or more days to inspect a little laptop and pass it? My new computer was promised to be at my door 10:30 am on Monday, February 19th. It never arrived, and until today, the FedEx tracking site never bothered to change the arrival date, even after it was long past.

I phoned FedEx today and they were very efficient and helpful, however there is nothing they can do to get 312 computers through customs. Now I do not even have an arrival date. Apparently it is when all 312 HP computers are hand checked by United States Customs. So I am only one of more than 300 people awaiting their new HP Vista computer.

Is this normal? When I made the order there was no advisement that it may take many days for a laptop computer to clear customs. In my mind I am fretting that there may be a bigger issue here. Is something amiss with these computers? Have the Chinese secretly installed some spyware that may be a security threat to the United States? If so, I may be better off to cancel my order and get a Vista-installed Lenova or Vaio, as they seem to be available. I think I will do some checking on those computers.

Maybe I should contact HP and listen to what they have to say.

Where’s the Inventor of Global Warming When I Need Him?

I have been anticipating the grand arrival of my new Vista-installed laptop. I ordered it on the sixth of February, soon after the new MS operating system became available with a guarantee that the computer be shipped on the 14th of February. I thought that meant that I would certainly have my new laptop in my lap by the latter part of this week. Well, think again Kerfuffles.

From My Computer, …

I finally received an email from the retailer (HP) informing me that my little notebook had been shipped from some remote corner of the earth that I had never even knew existed - “Kunshan, CN”. At first I thought it had been made in Canada, and I started worrying. I finally came to my senses realizing that if there were a city in the frozen tundra that is our neighbor on the northern border by the name of Kunshan, I certainly would have heard of it. After all, there are not that many cities in Canada to keep track of. Could “CN” mean China? Oh, I guess that makes sense, since I vaguely remember seeing information when I made the purchase order that it was indeed to be “Made in China”.

Okay, so it’s being shipped from China. So why did those Chinese people wait until after the FedEx shipping office was closed? Don’t they know they are ruining my life? I retired to bed last night with visions of Vista and Word 2007 dancing in my head, and when I awoke this morning to track the progress of my travelling dream machine, I discovered that it had made it from faraway China, north to Alaska. FedEx - please don’t freeze my hard drive before I have a chance to do that myself.

Feb 16, 2007 5:22 AM
Clearance delay
INDIANAPOLIS, IN

5:22 AM
Clearance delay
INDIANAPOLIS, IN

3:21 AM
In transit
INDIANAPOLIS, IN

Package available for clearance
12:00 AM
Arrived at FedEx location
INDIANAPOLIS, IN

Feb 15, 2007 1:39 PM
Departed FedEx location
ANCHORAGE, AK

11:55 AM
Arrived at FedEx location
ANCHORAGE, AK

Feb 14, 2007 2:57 PM
Left origin
KUNSHAN CN

2:56 PM
Picked up
KUNSHAN CN
Package received after FedEx cutoff

Not only that, but it had left the great Alaskan icebox without incident and made its journey all the way to Indiana this morning. INDIANA! Why that’s just a hop, skip and a sleigh ride from where I am, in Virginia. However … there it sits … STUCK in the Indiana snow.

Al Gore, where’s your global warming when I need it?

HEY - HEY - HEY … The Fifties People Were Not THAT Dumb!

This image has been making the e-mail rounds of the Internet since 2004, claiming that the Rand Corporation and “Popular Mechanics Magazine” of 1954, were illustrating their idea of what a home computer of 2004 would look like.

According to Snopes.com the illustration purporting to be a prototype of a futuristic home computer is actually a doctored image made from a photograph of a U.S. Navy submarine maneuvering room console found at an official United States Navy web site. Hoaxsters breathlessly exclaiming “the mouse replaced the steering wheel”, converted the image to grayscale, modified and replaced a modern display panel and TV screen with pictures of an old teletype/printer and console television, along with a genuine fifties era man in a gray flannel suit.

The original color picture (HERE) was taken in 2000, at the Smithsonian Institution’s exhibit “Fast Attacks and Boomers: Submarines in the Cold War” and depicted a full-scale display of a typical nuclear-powered submarine’s maneuvering room in which the ship’s engineers control the power plant and electrical and steam systems.

The new Firefox browser for the web 2.0 age made its debut today. One of the twelve new improvements tauted in the updated software is anti-phishing technology, to prevent fraud. There is now a phishing finder that alerts people when they stray upon a site that attempts to trick them into handing over login details for financial acounts.

There! I’ve said it, finally releasing all that frustration built up over these past three years of my using that miserable excuse for computer software! I had always thought it was a “learning curve” thing, and that eventually I would “get it”. Today I have finally come to the realization that I will never round that “learning curve” and it is not my fault!

I hate using Adobe Photoshop 2.0. It is so difficult! The instruction window, which PhotoShop so cutely refers to as a “recipe”, will not stay open when I do what it tells me to do. Then I have to memorize all the recipe steps. When I finally get all that embedded into my brain well enough to start the execution of the many, many steps, it is then that I discover they don’t work anyway.

Now I may be a Granny, but I do know a thing or two about computers! However, I don’t know enough to use Adobe PhotoShop, apparently! Their recipe tells me that if I am using Windows, than I must “alt - click”. Well I would do that if I knew what it meant. I have been using Windows since it was first invented and all that time without ever knowing what “alt - click” means. It must have been a miracle that I got this far in the world! Well, I tried “alt - control”, “alt - enter”, “alt - shift”, and “alt - every key on the keyboard”, and nothing works. Where the heck is the “alt - click” key???????

All I was trying to do was a bit of cloning. I just wanted to remove the raindrop that you can see in the sky in the upper right of my beautiful picture of windmills. I followed all the steps to the letter, and I couldn’t get anything acceptable. It is always the case with Adobe Photo-Shop that every time I try to use it, I end up closing it and going over to MS Picture-It 7.0 or PaintShop Pro or Picassa or two or three other “FREE” photo softwares I have installed. All of those actually work. I cannot even add text to a picture in Adobe Photoshop without going through 100 steps, and then I end up with script too small for the human eye to read. Picture-It is very simple - I just type in a box on the picture, and “voila!”

All the free photo-editing software works as it should, and the only photo-editing software that I bought and paid for, Adobe PhotoShop Elements 2.0, is unusable. Go figure! If I weren’t so frustrated I would have gone over to my Nero software to see if I can clone with it, but instead I sent the picture to someone who has never used Adobe PhotoShop, and he is cloning it for me.

And don’t write and tell me to upgrade to Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 4.0, as I am not that dumb!
(Crossposted at http://kerfuffle.wordpress.com/2006/08/01/i-hate-photoshop/)

Google Spreadsheets! Powerful Stuff!

A Consuming Experience Uncovers Googles Spread Sheets

For anyone who’s not yet heard about it, Google Spreadsheets was released on limited test a few days ago. Free, of course.

Sign up quick for an invite if you’re interested - the last I could tell, Google were sending out invites only a couple of days after signup, so if you sign up now you may be able to get to try it out.

Remember, spreadsheets aren’t just for finance or maths types, a lot of people (me included!) use them just to help organise lists and tables. And the beauty of Google Spreadsheets is that not only can you access them from anywhere over the Web via a browser (IE 6 or Firefox 1.07+, Javascript must be enabled), you can also share them with selected others (though at the moment only if they have a Google Account, which it’s free to sign up for) - let them view your spreadsheet, even edit it (and chat with them you as they do so). Very much Web 2.0 social software.

You can import Microsoft Excel .xls files and also .csv files from your computer, and export to those formats too. Plus, you can export or save your spreadsheet as a Webpage, i.e. HTML file, which is handy. I’d like to be able to import Excel files attached to my Gmail direct, without having to save them to my computer first, but no doubt that will come.

Google have rustled up an overview and some help pages about Google Spreadsheets, plus there’s also a Google Spreadsheets Google Group.

I’ve not had the chance to try it out in detail yet but if there’s more to report back on, I will. It looks very very good though, and one of the most potentially useful things to come out of Google Labs in a while.

The White House Uses Forbidden Cookies Too
These are not your Granny’s gingersnaps!

The Rime of the Avenging Nerds

Cookies, Cookies, every where,
And all the Dems did shriek;
Cookies, Cookies, every where,
But not a crumble to eat.

The very poor did starve, O Kerry!
That ever this should be!
Oh, you alone would have saved us all
From George Bush’s calumny.

About, about, in reel and rout
The web bugs pounced at night;
Spy Cookies, much like witches’ balls,
Shone red, and blue and white.

And some in dreams assuréd were
Of the evil that plagued us so;
Nine gigabytes deep had tracked us all
To the land of never-go.

And all the forkéd tongues of Dems,
Were withered and parched dry;
They could not rant, they could not rail
They could not speak to lie.

Ah! well a-day! what evil lurks
Inside the minds of Nerds!
In Big Brother’s stead, the web bugs,
Into the dough were stirred.

PyjamasMedia reports that the White House has caller-ID too. Linked at basil’s blog Picnic.