Tuesday, June 17, 2003
I got all excited yesterday about finding an e-mail connection to Dell technical support. Turns out it is the same old same old. It doesn't matter if you call India or go to a news group or camp out at Microsoft, no one will tell you what to do for an error (event) besides recommending what I was told to do today. One of my drivers won't start, the eplpdx02, to be specific. Now when I found this exciting e-mail inroad to technical support, I wrote and told them that I had made the hidden driver unhidden. The device manager had suggested that I might want to completely disable the eplpdx02 to see if a wizard would appear at start-up time and fix it. This sounded a little chancey to me, and I wanted to get their opinion on this.
All this is necessary, of course, because no Dell or Microsoft support site tells you what to do about specific errors (events) despite the fact that every single error (event) card in the event viewer has this message on it: go to http:/go.microsoft.com./fwlink/events.asp. When you go there, here is exactly what it says, "There is no additional information about this issue in the Error and Event Log Messages or Knowledge Base databases at this time. You can use the links in the Support area to determine whether any additional information might be available elsewhere." And they're sorry. And this is on every single error notice I've ever had. To me it's like seeing all the hype about Whoppers from Burger King in the windows, on the signs, on the billboards, on t.v., radio, etc. Then you get up to the counter and ask for a Whopper. The counter person tells you, "We're sorry. They are not available at this time. Please check back at another time. Or you might be able to find some elsewhere but not at Burger King." I mean when they put all those notices together didn't it occur to them that people would be counting on finding answers?
Because, as I said, no matter what the error is, Dell's technical support response is one of two things: De-bug and re-install (and lose all your files), or do yet another system restore. That was today's response: Do a system restore. And then they want to tell me how to do one. Like I haven't already done so many that I am out of days to go back to when the computer ran well, if it ever did. So I am forced to learn computer geekese from somewhere, and I'm not sure just where. I read Windows XP for Dummies and I was apparently not dumb enough for it, because it didn't answer most of my questions and it drove me mad with multiple, sloppy indices. So now I haunt the newsgroups and try to change my screen name when I find I am asking too many questions. At least there they don't just tell you to do a system restore. But no one has been able to tell me why my document files turn into pictures. As many times as I close my Paint program it continues to turn all my files into slide shows. And I don't care what Dell says, it is not a virus. Here is an example of a file of books reviews.
Finally, though, speaking of system restore, I have decided that I would most like to be restored to age 35. I am not talking about people and places or what I was doing. I mean just physically. I didn't smoke, drink or take drugs, and hadn't in some time. I worked out minimum three times a week. I swam minimum three times a week. I rode a bicycle every day. I was a vegetarian and had a very healthy diet. I somehow existed without massive quanitities of Diet Coke
Why, you might ask, wouldn't I want to be in my 20's or teens? Because I wouldn't want to be stupid again, that's why. Everything I did to my body was stupid, and, consequently, I had a lot of impaired judgment. I think the prime of life is much later.
So I am going to e-mail Dell technical support now. I will tell them that I can't do any more system restores on this computer because it has no more good dates left on it. I will tell them that it is a piece of crap and has been a piece of crap since I got it. Much like the first piece of crap (tribute to Neil Young's song) that lasted a month and had to be replaced, this one needs to be replaced as well. Maybe lucky No. 3 is the magic number. Or maybe I should just get a refund and start all over. But I do plan to inquire as to whether they can do a system restore on me. I would be interested in that.
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All this is necessary, of course, because no Dell or Microsoft support site tells you what to do about specific errors (events) despite the fact that every single error (event) card in the event viewer has this message on it: go to http:/go.microsoft.com./fwlink/events.asp. When you go there, here is exactly what it says, "There is no additional information about this issue in the Error and Event Log Messages or Knowledge Base databases at this time. You can use the links in the Support area to determine whether any additional information might be available elsewhere." And they're sorry. And this is on every single error notice I've ever had. To me it's like seeing all the hype about Whoppers from Burger King in the windows, on the signs, on the billboards, on t.v., radio, etc. Then you get up to the counter and ask for a Whopper. The counter person tells you, "We're sorry. They are not available at this time. Please check back at another time. Or you might be able to find some elsewhere but not at Burger King." I mean when they put all those notices together didn't it occur to them that people would be counting on finding answers?
Because, as I said, no matter what the error is, Dell's technical support response is one of two things: De-bug and re-install (and lose all your files), or do yet another system restore. That was today's response: Do a system restore. And then they want to tell me how to do one. Like I haven't already done so many that I am out of days to go back to when the computer ran well, if it ever did. So I am forced to learn computer geekese from somewhere, and I'm not sure just where. I read Windows XP for Dummies and I was apparently not dumb enough for it, because it didn't answer most of my questions and it drove me mad with multiple, sloppy indices. So now I haunt the newsgroups and try to change my screen name when I find I am asking too many questions. At least there they don't just tell you to do a system restore. But no one has been able to tell me why my document files turn into pictures. As many times as I close my Paint program it continues to turn all my files into slide shows. And I don't care what Dell says, it is not a virus. Here is an example of a file of books reviews.
Finally, though, speaking of system restore, I have decided that I would most like to be restored to age 35. I am not talking about people and places or what I was doing. I mean just physically. I didn't smoke, drink or take drugs, and hadn't in some time. I worked out minimum three times a week. I swam minimum three times a week. I rode a bicycle every day. I was a vegetarian and had a very healthy diet. I somehow existed without massive quanitities of Diet Coke
Why, you might ask, wouldn't I want to be in my 20's or teens? Because I wouldn't want to be stupid again, that's why. Everything I did to my body was stupid, and, consequently, I had a lot of impaired judgment. I think the prime of life is much later.
So I am going to e-mail Dell technical support now. I will tell them that I can't do any more system restores on this computer because it has no more good dates left on it. I will tell them that it is a piece of crap and has been a piece of crap since I got it. Much like the first piece of crap (tribute to Neil Young's song) that lasted a month and had to be replaced, this one needs to be replaced as well. Maybe lucky No. 3 is the magic number. Or maybe I should just get a refund and start all over. But I do plan to inquire as to whether they can do a system restore on me. I would be interested in that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for searching on this message; your search helps us identify those areas for which we need to provide more information.
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