Longklaw.com

Technology is great, except for when it’s not.

One day I came to work and I couldn’t sign into my PC. I went and got one of the user support people. He logged in as an administrator and determined that something had turned off the services on my machine. He, of course, thought that it was a virus. I’m not sure though. I’m pretty careful, but I do sometimes click on links that people post on Twitter without thinking. He turned on the services that he thought needed to be on and ran a bunch of scans, which turned up nothing. I couldn’t get any work done that day, but at the end I got my PC back. It has really been the same since. I wish I could get a new PC.

The weekend before this past weekend, DirecTV came to install a 2nd receiver. This one went in the bedroom. From what I understand, the DirecTV installers are usually people that work at third-party companies that DirecTV hires to do the work. The installer got there at the beginning of the 4-hour range they gave me. He did all the wiring and connected the receiver in a decent amount of time. However, he couldn’t activate the receiver because DirecTV’s systems were down. He didn’t know how long the wait would be. He said that his supervisor (I’m assuming the one at whatever company he works for) wouldn’t allow him to leave a receiver that wasn’t activated. He would have to take the receiver and reschedule for another day, which would be 2 weeks later. Of course, I was angry because I had already waited 2 weeks for him to come in the first place. He called DirecTV to reschedule and they said he couldn’t reschedule for that reason. After sitting on my couch for a couple hours, he finally got approval to leave the receiver with me. He told me to call in later to activate it myself. He finally left after about 3.5 hours. I finally have satellite in my room. It’s great to have another option for TV viewing. Sometimes I get tired of sitting on my old couch. Also, I can sit in bed and watch Golden Girls reruns.

It’s a good thing I got the new receiver in the bed room because my big living room TV is dying. On Friday when I turned on the TV the screen was flickering rapidly. I could hear a clicking noise every time it flickered. I’ve only had this TV for 3.5 years, so I was mad that it was malfunctioning. It’s a cheap Vizio, so I shouldn’t be surprised. It was my first HDTV, and at the time I couldn’t afford to get anything more expensive. After talking to Vizio and the company Vizio uses for repairs, we determined what the problem was and that it would be better to buy a new TV than fix this one. When I bought this TV, I also bought an extended warranty. I remember that I didn’t want to, but my roommate at the time convinced me to do so. Well, all of my warranty coverage expired on January 31, 2011, which was less than 6 months ago. If it had done this before January 31, I could have gotten it repaired or replaced for free. Oh well. I’m getting a new TV. It definitely won’t be a Vizio. I’ve already picked out a Samsung that I like. I’ve had great luck with Samsung products in the past and they’re not as expensive as Sony products. I’m going to wait until after my vacation this week to order so it won’t be left outside my door and stolen while I’m gone. Sometimes the Vizio will come on and not flicker, but when it does flicker I can go watch TV in the bedroom.

These are first world problems if anything.