Category Archives: Tech Journal

idubbs Blog Site Update

Started out with some routine maintenance and wanting to do a little enhancement: Update the blog engine to the latest version while adding twitter link capability to posts.  Ended up doing a bit more for fun.  Smile 

  • Backed up the WordPress site files and content (db).  You don’t really care about this, but I needed to do it before upgrading anything…  There are some more elegant methods and tools available, but I just did it manually this time around.  
  • Upgraded the MySQL and PHP engines.  You don’t care – no biggie. What is cool about upgrading this and the mySQL engine is that they were both done really easily due to the way WestHost has their site management set up – kudos to them. 
  • Upgraded the WordPress software.  Again, you don’t care, it doesn’t change the way anything looks.  Again, what is cool is the way that WordPress has their updates now – all automatic via the administration interface.  Slick.
  • Added the Tweet This plugin to allow users to tweet posts and post facebook statuses.  (cool)  This you might care about – if you’re able to find anything useful here and want to easily share it with others.  I hope you do…
  • Added a plugin to change the mobile experience, which works really well for iPhone users.  This – is really cool.  Thanks to @AndrewWoody for the heads up on this one – very slick for iPhone users to access the site.  WPTouch plugin.   
  • Adding another plugin to improve the experience for Windows Mobile users.  Thanks to @bsimser for raising the issue for WP7 users (since I’m not one yet) and @AndrewWoody again for ID’ing the fix – WPSuperCache plugin

And now, back to SharePoint…

Customer Service #FAIL – Best Buy and Samsung

So, I bought my current main monitor – a Samsung 204B three years ago – just over 3 years ago.  I’m sure you’ve already guessed that the manufacturer’s warranty period for the particular item is yes – 3 yrs.  For a little while, starting before the 3 yr mark, it started acting a little flaky – nothing too outrageous, but little “I wonder what’s up with that” kinds of things that I was able to get past with a power off/on, etc…  Literally a week after the 3 yr warrantee expires, it has a much more significant issue, that takes a number of unplug/plug-in cycles before it finally starts working again.  At this point I’m thinking – great timing – I’m probably out of luck because of the warranty and purchase date.  I at least want to check with Samsung and see what my repair, replace, whatever options are, so I send them an e-mail looking for assistance rather than sitting in support call hell. 

So, in addition to a little background information in my message to Samsung, I ask:  What options do I have for repair, replacement, credit… anything”.  The response I get back, in addition to the normal canned response is:  “We are sorry to inform you that Samsung does not provide free service for the warranty expired products”

No s… kidding Sherlock.  Now answer my question and tell me WHAT MY OPTIONS ARE.  I resubmit my question – still haven’t received an answer.  *sigh* 

What’s next… I’ve got two reasons to swing by Best Buy.  One, to see what’s new with monitors since I’m likely going to need another one anyhow between this one and getting rid of the rest of the CRTs in the house.  Two – since I’m heading over I might as well see what, if anything they can do about my busted one – which I originally purchased there. 

So we swing into Best Buy and are looking at monitors.  One of the folks working there stops by before too long and I explain my current situation.  She informs me that they have a 30 day grace period on warranties and that I should bring it in before that expires – which is the next day.  Sweet.  I’m thinking I’m not totally out of luck. 

The next morning I pack the monitor up, grab the receipt and head to Best Buy.  I head to Customer Service and explain my situation again.  The low-level CS guy enters my receipt and information and tells me the warranty period has expired.  I explain that I am aware of this, but that another person at the store informed me of a grace period under which I have some options – which I’m trying to figure out.  Let me check with the manager.  Super.  Nope sorry – but I can call and check with Samsung for you.  Ok – let’s do that… I’ll talk to your manager after we’re done with Samsung.  He calls the retailer super-special number and they’re closed.  So he calls the consumer number and hands me the phone.  Gee, thanks.  I could do this at home while sitting down without having to pack up my monitor…  After talking to the wrong person, they transfer me to the correct department with plenty of hold time in between.  He takes my information and explains that my warranty has expired.  *sigh*  So, Mr. Helpful, WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS.  Well, you could check the web site for authorized repair services.  Fine, I’ll do that once I get home and have my monitor back up and running – I can’t check that from the desk at Best Buy.  Thanks for nothing.  OK Best Buy level 1 CS guy, since I’m here already let me talk to the manager just to make sure your story is correct and the person last night is wrong.  I talk to the manager and she informs me that yes indeed, they can’t do anything.  Lovely. 

So – with the help of the folks at Samsung and Best Buy I’ve gone from generally bummed that my monitor is busted and bummed at the timing of my monitor failing to:

  1. Wasting my time with trips to Best Buy, packing up my monitor (that at the time was in its ‘functioning mood’), sitting on the phone with Samsung AT Best Buy, re-setting up the monitor and smacking it around until it started working again – and now this silly blog post.  🙂
  2. Irritated at Samsung – who, honestly I have plenty of their products that I like – but the shoddy way this was handled was just crappy from a customer service quality perspective.
  3. Irritated at Best Buy for telling me (apparently erroneously) that I would be able to bring my monitor in and have something done with it.

Now, you don’t get the last few minutes you spent reading this back, but I feel better having written it.  🙂

Have a wonderful day everyone.  In other news on this day in history, a good friend of mine had a baby (late yesterday actually) and the East coast is getting slammed with 30” or so of snow.  So much more important things going on than my dealings with aging computer hardware and poor customer service. 

Oh hey – I just checked where the nearest service location is for my monitor… it’s in NEW JERSEY.  I’ll wait until they dig out of the blizzard to give them a call.  😉

2010 Build tidbits

One of the things I’m doing to dig into the SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 bits is build a Windows Server 2008 R2 build and installing everything on it.  Over the course of this build, I’ve come across a few things that others might find useful.

First of all, I’m doing this on my laptop (another server soon too, but for now, the laptop).  I’ve currently got a Dell Latitude D820 with 4 GB of RAM – though not all the RAM is fully used due to hardware constraints.  In order to keep my normal work environment available, I’m using a second hard drive in the CD (modular) drive bay using a hard drive caddy. 

So #1 that I ran into today was trying to use PowerPoint 2010 to work on a slide deck.  For the life of me I couldn’t get the file to open.  I don’t know if this is only a Server 2008 R2 feature, but the file was blocked – I couldn’t open it in PowerPoint.  PowerPoint just sat there and spun until I cancelled it.  If you right-click on the file name (once it’s saved locally) and select Properties, you’ll see a Security blurb at the bottom of the General tab.  By clicking the Unblock button, you’ll be able to open the file as you normally would. 

Oh, I suppose this is #1.5.  Not sure what the deal here is, but when I save something from a SharePoint site down to my local machine, it’s changing the file name by filling in the blanks with underscores.  I’ll take a peek at this one later – it’s not stopping me from getting my work done. 

#2 Was trying to Run OneNote to take notes, etc while running through things.  Ran into “OneNote cannot start because the Desktop Experience feature is not installed.  Install it in the Windows Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows features on or off.”  That pretty much says what you need to figure it out. 

So open the Control Panel.  Under Programs there is a ‘Turn Windows features on or off’.  This opens the Server Manager.  Scroll down to the Features area and select Add Features.  Select Desktop Experience.  This will require you to also install Ink and Handwriting – go for it.  Run through the install wizard for these and you should be good to go.  This does require a reboot. 

Note: Using the extra drive caddy, or at least different drive partitions for the separate OSs allows me to have a OneNote file that I can open up and use on either machine/OS.  I can take my notes and capture screen shots in OneNote while working in Server 2008 and then access those notes just as easily on my Windows 7 machine.