I’m so out of the loop. Good thing Susan pointed this out. I love Jon Stewart trying to trick Gates into divulging his password. “Did you have any pets when you were a kid?”

I’m really starting to think they are just playing “You’re on candid camera” (or candid microphone) with me.

I have an itty bitty SX280 Ultra that came with a 40gb drive. I want more storage and was hoping that, even with the tiny footprint, I could add a 2nd drive in there. Dell’s site makes it super easy to get support for your particular system. You just log in while you are on that computer and it identifies the computer and the service tag and gives you links to everything about your computer. So rather than shut the p.c. down and open the chassis, I thought I’d just ping the online chat and ask if I could fit another drive in there or not. Stupid me.

Here are a few highlights of the conversation. Note the times.

01/30/2007 08:57:16AM Agent (): “Thank you for contacting Dell Technical Support. My name is xxx and my rep ID number is xxxxxx. How may I assist you today?”

01/30/2007 08:58:04AM Julia Lerman: “I didn’t want to take my computer apart to answer this question – it’s an SX280 ultra. Is there room INSIDE for a 2nd hard drive?”

01/30/2007 08:58:31AM Agent (): “Thank you for the information. I’ll be glad to assist you. Please give me 2 to 3 minutes to pull up your account information.”

01/30/2007 08:58:41AM Agent (): “I would also request you not to hit F5 key or refresh the screen anytime during the chat as that will disconnect you from me.”

01/30/2007 08:58:44AM Agent (): “Also, may I have your telephone number, along with the area code to update our records?”

01/30/2007 09:01:14AM Agent (): “May, I also have your alternate number in case we are not able to get you over the main number?”

01/30/2007 09:01:27AM Julia Lerman: “use the number I gave you”

01/30/2007 09:01:29AM Julia Lerman: “thanks”

01/30/2007 09:01:32AM Julia Lerman: “it will work”

01/30/2007 09:02:14AM Agent (): “If I understand the issue you need information if you can install a second hard drive on the system you are using?”

So it’s been 5 minutes of bullshit and now he’s getting to my question.

Then after another 1 1/2 minutes….

and so on and so forth

here’s where the conversation ended, with my question still unanswered.

Twenty freakin’ wasted minutes. This was not the fault of the agent, but of Dell’s support system.

So I disconnected and in 2 minutes I had my computer shut down, the chassis off and saw that no, there is no room for another hard drive.

I finally upgraded the first of my boxes with VS2005 on it today. After all the worry about how long it would take based on so much feedback, I was shocked when it finished up very quickly! Read more….

[A DevLife post]

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070125/NEWS02/701250308/1007

Cingular still doesn’t offer service in Vermont, so that means no iPhones.

According to this article, Vermont isn’t the only state that is ignored by Cingular (AT&T). Other states which do not get Cingular service (or don’t in large portions of the state) are:

Alaska, Colorado, the Dakotas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, upstate New York, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.

I have always thought of the lack of Cingluar in Vermont as a temporary problem.  Luckily we have Verizon Wireless(who is selling off their he wired service in vermont) and have access to lots of other cool phones. We also have Unicel here, which is more regional. I moved over to Verizon a few years ago because I was travelling so much.

I have been wondering this lately after talking to yet another 50+ person who is having a hard time finding a programming job… read more

[A DevLife post]

Listening to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, I got a good laugh this morning. The quote of “I’ll order 4000 lattes to go please” was the clue and the question was what was being launched that this was the first crank call from? Of course we know it was Steve Jobs on the new iPhone which was front page headline news everywhere. The contestant said “oh, that new ummm… Microsoft, ummmm…” to the ooohs and boos of the audience. Kinda funny. 🙂

http://www.btobonline.com/article.cms?articleId=30259

Charles in 3D on WPF on the web! Read more

[A DevLife post]

Every time I go to check out the Vermont Flash User Group’s site to see what their upcoming meetings are, I get flashed with envy at how groovy their website is. Even rescheduled meetings look cool!

Sadly, looking at VTdotNET (done by not-a-designer moi) and then looking at theirs, kinda makes me think of those “hi I’m a Mac… and I’m a PC ads”. Bah…