Almost Exciting!

I ordered a laptop from TIGER DIRECT (tigerdirect.com) on Dec. 22nd and purchased 2nd Day Air through UPS. This was the biggest mistake of my life. The package did not arrive until Dec. 28th at 1:30pm. That is almost a week. I contacted the CFO of SYSTEMAX (Tiger Direct’s parent company), but he said that he was out of the country and would have to forward me on to someone else. No one from corporate contacted me. I filled out three online forms for help and used their online chat tool, but got no where. Then I sent an email to the SVP/COO at UPS. He was a little bit nicer, because he actually had someone contact me from their corporate office (Maureen). I have been dealing with Maureen for the past four days but have not gotten any closer to solving the issue. Both companies’ continue to point fingers at the other company. Maureen explained that they only pickup at certain times and have an agreement with Tiger Direct to pickup in some sort of locked trailer. Apparently, according to her, Tiger Direct did not have the package in the trailer.  Tiger Direct explained that it’s the shippers fault because they only pickup on Monday-Friday. The problem is that I paid for a service that I did not get, which is a breach of contract. The reason I do not believe all the smoke and mirrors, is that I have the emails to prove that I ordered it on 12/22/07 and that Tiger Direct said that they would be shipping it out on 12/23/07. I am not asking for something that I was not promised. UPS even had it posted for delivery on 12/27/07 at the latest, even though Tiger Direct said 12/26/07. Then UPS rescheduled the package for delivery. Sounds fishy to me. I believe that UPS did pickup the package, it got lost in their system and now they don’t want to pony up a refund. I even used UPS’s own online shipping calculator, and it said that it should arrive on 12/27/07.  In conclusion, I would recommend not ordering anything from Tiger Direct or ordering from any online retailers that use UPS. They have both been very unhelpful and have a terrible customer service department. If you need computer supplies use NEWEGG.com. They are fast and friendly. I have never had any issues with them.

Quite awhile back I was informed that there was a list of songs “purportedly deemed inappropriate by Clear Channel” shortly following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

I wanted to do a whole writeup on this, but I’m tired of this sitting in drafts.

So here’s the link: List of Songs with “questionable lyrics” following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

You read it on the internet, so it must be true.

GoDaddy will apparently give your domain name away if your WhoIS info is not up-to-date. They only try to contact you by your email address and then if you do not respond after so many days, they make it available.

“Security Watch: Check Your E-Mail and Save Your Domain“

I think Adam says it quite well in his note about Google “Warning” ISPs About Online Video, when he says:

“Aw, shucks, how sweet of you to try to weasel your way into the service provider industry under the guise of a warning.”

However, I just (highly) doubt that Google is only trying to get “into the… industry”. I use Google a lot, but when one sits and thinks about the possibilities it can get a little creepy some times.

So, apparently Keith Urban is suing Keith Urban. Can you imagine why? Yes, Keith, but his name is also Keith Urban. I think the most that should be done in a case like this is that Keith Urban should have to put a link on his site stating that “if you’re looking for the website of the other Keith Urban, it’s at…”

You decide which Keith should have the link.

I thought I was alone in my discomfort during the half-time show - it appears that other’s also noticed. Y’know, that Prince guy just creeps me out some times.

And this post gets categorized under “Recommended Reading” because of this link, even though it’s a YouTube Video that I want you see. If you’ve ever read an article about the history or future of the internet, and were at least somewhat interested… well, forget that - If you use the internet, this 4 minute 30 second video is worth watching.

Is this for real? A “Pimped Out John”? I think I’m signing up!

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Limited Numbered Signature Edition

More info than I can describe in just one headline today.

First up: Here’s a link to the article about BluRay/HD-DVD’s not working in Vista. Something you should definitely know about.

Here are some quotes from the article:

This protection, known as high definition content protection (HDCP), must be present throughout the entire system — usually the computer, or a television. If it is not, Vista will disable the connection

Almost no computers using digital connections have HDCP, according to computer experts, although those that do are being phased in

Any computer which has an LCD monitor is potentially at risk of not being able to play this content

I absolutely, positively can’t stand this. I think that if I payed to own the movie, I should be able to watch it on any player in my house, especially at it’s intended quality! I don’t want to fight for the rights to make things easy to pirate or steal, but if I own it, I should be able to watch it - period.

In other news:

Intel announces Quad-core. There it is, monk!

Also, a brief mention on BoingBoing.net about Target and Best Buy’s pricing, and how to know if you can get a discount on an item - or if it’s already (or not actually) on sale.

And, have you ever seen a picture of a photo ID, credit card, checking account number, etc., where sensitive or personal information is blurred out? I can’t believe I didn’t think of this: Why blurring sensitive information is a bad idea.

For the arts-and-craft kids, you probably already do this, but I thought that How to Make a Folded Paper CD Case might come in handy. Be sure to check out the ever-popular papercdcase.com where you can make your own PDF with fold lines, artist/track information, etc., if you’re the lazy do-it-yourselfer.

First off, the Palm Treo 700p looks like a cool gadget. If I ever get the money, I would love to get one of these. It can be connected to your laptop for connection to “Sprint or Verizon’s broadband wireless networks”. It has an SD expansion slot and has a 1.3 mega pixel camera. The keyboard looks a little small but I like a lot of the features.

I bought a $10 game from Best Buy last night, Rainbow Six 3, and can not get it installed. It keeps giving me an error when the install gets to the Stream.sso file. It states that file is corrupt and then gives me a cyclic redundancy error. I tried the fixes on the web but nothing works.