I AM!!
Why do they hire the stupidest people to do the tech support for computer companies. Ok, Apple is fine. I mean the guy I talked to for my issue that I had with my iMac did have to put me on hold to go ask someone (well, I think that’s what he was doing) how to fix the problem but I was really only on the phone for about 5 minutes.
Anyways, my current issue, which has now been resolved, was with my laptop. It’s a Gateway MX3410. What happened was that the wireless driver seemed to not be working. It was fine up until two weeks ago. It just all of a sudden stopped detecting wireless networks. I reinstalled the drivers more than once. I downloaded the driver from the Gateway website and tried to install that. Nothing.
So then I finally got a chance to email Support. They got back to me pretty fast, but the email was the most ridiculous thing. This guy, his name is apparently Mark, told me to…take a wild guess!… REINSTALL THE DRIVER!! GAH!!!!! I clearly stated in my email that I had already done that more than once. Then the proceeded to tell me that if that was unsuccessful, to DOWLOAD THE DRIVER. AHHH!!!!!
Then he goes on to tell me ho enable the wireless network card by going through some steps that he gave me, which were not at all accurate. I tried to do what he said just so I could say that I could but the fact is that I couldn’t. The things he was telling me to click were just not there. They are non-existent.
He gave me another option, which again involved steps that were impossible due to the buttons or links he told me to click not existing.
Then he continues by telling me how to set up a wireless network. HELLO?!? I’ve obviously done that before!!!!!! But I continued to read his instructions, which were beginning to make less and less sense. I think maybe he had some alcohol or drugs in his system because some of the stuff wasn’t making any sense even after reading it 5 times.
And I mean come on, don’t they expect their staff to use at least somewhat technical terminology. Here is a direct quote from the email:
The window will then go away.
What is that?! Ok, if you’re telling someone who is completely computer illiterate and maybe never used a computer before, or just someone who is a bit slow or something would need you to say something like that. But seriously. No one says “the window will go away.” Usually it’s something more along the lines of “the window will then close on it’s own.” That’s a little more professional sounding. Ok, maybe I’m making too much of this, but I mean really! What is this shit?!?
I did manage to fix it though, with no help from tech support. I was just experimenting with some things on it so I don’t know exactly what I did but I have a bit of an idea. Although, I thought that I had tried it before, but maybe I didn’t. I’m not really sure. Either way, it works now and that’s all that matters.
I was going to send a nasty reply to the email but I decided against it. They’ll send me a follow-up email at some point to ask whether or not it was helpful.
The stupid thing is that the last time I had to contact them, the exact same thing happened. It was a completely different issue but they told me to do things that didn’t work. Eventually we managed to get the problem fixed after 3 or 4 emails back and forth. You’d think that the company would want their customers’ problems to be resolved fast and effectively, but apparently not. They’d rather the customer get frustrated and angry before the problem gets solved. It’s ridiculous.
iMac
We decided to buy it there because it was only 99 cents more than the price on the Apple Online Store, but then we would have to pay shipping and whatnot for it, and then I would have to wait for it to come. Although, maybe that would have been a good idea because I’m having too much fun playing with it but I have to get some assignments done for Jim’s classes by Tuesday. But I left most of my software in my desk in my room in res so I can’t really install some of my stuff. I was going to download at least my purchased music from my iPod on to my iMac but I was smart and forgot to bring the USB cable. But I found a solution! I put all moy music from my laptop onto my external hard drive and and then imported it into my iTunes on my iMac. That will also save me the time of importing all my CDs later, although I still don’t even have all my CDs on it anyway because I never did finish doing that after I downgraded my laptop back to Windows XP.
The keyboard is kind of flat because it’s so thin. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it because I thought it would feel more like when you don’t use the little things to prop up your keyboard, because it doesn’t have them, but it is propped up a bit. I don’t mind it though. I think it’s because the keys are so flat that I don’t really notice it as much. It’s weird. But they’re much nicer and easier to press than the the old Mac keyboards that they have in the Multimedia Mac Lab at the college. I find those keys are very stiff and I tend to miss a lot of letters on there because it’s so hard to type on it. But this is really nice!
The mouse it’s too bad. At first it didn’t have the right clicking option but I found how to change it. It’s still all like one button, like the old Mac mouses, but it somehow senses where you’re pressing from. It’s cool. And the little scroll wheel is so tiny, it feels a little weird but I like it because it can scroll both vertically and horizontally. It took some time for me to figure out why every once in a while my display would go out and show me all the windows I had open, and then I figured out that it’s because I was accidentally squeezing the side buttons on the mouse. I didn’t even know they were there. Well, I knew they were there, but I didn’t know that they were actually buttons.
I love the remote! I can be watching a movie or playing music and not sitting at my desk and I can pause it, skip, turn the volume up and down. It’s cool!
I wasn’t sure if the built-in speakers would be any good because any other computer we’ve ever had that came with built-in speakers (including my laptop) would just be basic speakers that aren’t really any good for music or movies but the speakers in this thing are amazing! Well, for computer speakers anyway. I can turn the volume up really loud and it still has really good quality and it doesn’t distort at all. It’s so awesome! The speakers in my laptop are just crap. If you want music to sound decent you have to have the volume low because if you turn it up, it sounds kind or hollow, and it distorts quite a bit. It’s like there’s a mini subwoofer inside this thing or something because it’s got good bass for small speakers. If I turn it up I can feel it vibrate the desk a little bit.
I love the screen resolution too! 1680 x 1050. It’s going to be awesome when I get Adobe Creative Suite because there’s so much “screen real estate” as Tanya says. It’ll be awesome for Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash!
Plus, the size of the screen is great for movies and stuff too. It’s funny because it’s almost the same size as our “big” TV. Not for long though! My parents are planning to get a new TV now. They’ve been talking about it forever but it sounds like they’re actually going to do it now. We were looking at Future Shop after we bought my iMac. It looks like we’re probably going to get an LG 32-inch LCD TV.