http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8001644.stm

After my hard disk debacle, where I've been trying for about a week to get the failed drive replaced (read: even showing up as having a warranty on their website)

The following is the completed survey. I had to reformat it to show it here.

1. Please rate the representative with whom you interacted across the traits below in your last contact with WD.
Courtesy (Very Satisfied)
Knowledge (Satisfied)
Support (Very Dissatisfied)
Satisfaction (Very Dissatisfied)

Additional Comments (Please limit your comments within 2000 characters)

This process is assinine, and i'd rather bash myself in the face with a hammer than go through it again. I've wasted a week or more trying to get my product RMAed, and finally only because microcenter has good records do i have a valid warranty on my drive. The entire process seemed like pulling teeth, and inspired a great deal of doubt on my plan to buy a retail drive with a 3 year warranty when i have to waste considerable time and deal with an assinine trouble ticket system that forgets my email address every few hours.

And I have wisdom teeth coming in, and pulling those would be a welcome release from pain. I just want to be clear that when I am talking about pulling teeth, I mean good, healthy ones that cause no issue. I don't want to imply that when I'm done, there's a good feeling. After getting the warranty activated, the system would repeatedly malfunction trying to create an advanced RMA. I guess I'll be seeing my hard disk sometime next month at this rate.

The employee was useful, but the whole process was unnecessary. I have no idea why western digital wouldn't at least honor the drive's warranty based on its date of manufacture to speed things along, that would have been fine with me since it was only 1 month between its date of manufacture and date of sale.

2. How likely are you to recommend this product to your friends, colleagues, or family?
(Neutral)

3. How much effort did you personally have to put forth to handle your request?

(Very High)

Additional Comments (Please limit your comments within 2000 characters)

Your website was worthless in ascertaining the actual cause of the issue. Only a vague statement that implied that the data may be incorrect and I have the opportunity to correct it was the only clue that something could be done about the situation. If you're not going to honor warranties because someone didn't register the sale, then come out and say "no record of drive being sold, please contact us to confirm" or something like that. Don't simply say the drive can't be returned under warranty. I'm sure there's some attorney general around somewhere salivating at the thought of something that retarded and misleading.

4. If you had tried to resolve your question prior to speaking to a live agent or sending us an email, how easy or difficult was it to use the features below? Please select N/A if it's not applicable.

Support website (Very Difficult)

Additional Comments (Please limit your comments within 2000 characters)

Support website was useless, it mentioned various procedures but didn't imply that I actually had to undergo it for western digital to honor the warranty they sold it with and that this was a routine thing.

5. Did you attempt to handle your request through self-service (via our website) before contacting us directly?
(Yes)

6. Please rate the product you contacted us about based on the attributes below.
Ease of Use (Very Satisfied)
Reliability (Very Dissatisfied)
Documentation (Very Satisfied)
Design and Appearance (Very Satisfied)
Price (Very Satisfied)

Additional Comments (Please limit your comments within 2000 characters)

Damn thing died in a month of having it. What more can I say regarding reliability?

Otherwise, it's a great drive.

7. Would you like to be notified on news and updates related to WD products?
(No)

Additional Comments (Please limit your comments within 2000 characters)

Why this entire process took over a week is mystifying. You'd think the rep's first response would be something like "hey, we don't see any record of that drive being sold. Can you score us a reciept to confirm it? Thanks!" instead of some strange canned response telling me the same shit that's on the website.

Compact flash as a hard drive – it works acceptably, i plan on going back to the real hard disk though. The write speed is killer, causes lags sometimes. The reads are just peachy though.

With the help of friends, we swapped out my oil sensor, and on top of that i changed the oil in my van and finally replaced the old ass air filter. it's a completely new van, I swear. It doesn't light up the oil light when you're driving with a warm engine and slow down to an idle either.

Not a good sign when you pull the electrical connector off the oil sensor, and oil comes running out of the connector socket. That's not supposed to be there!?!?!?! Glad we got it fixed!

In related news, I want one of these: http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/000655.php

I need to do something about my wisdom teeth. It's about that time.

So on the 7th my laptop's hard drive blew up, started having massive failures on various sectors. These days my laptop is basically the only computer I use, and all my small amounts of computer money I have to play with have been directed in its general direction, rather than any other computer that would otherwise be working if it weren't (I spend far less on computers than one might think).

So finally today I picked up a 6GB compact flash while I'm working through western digital's stupid red tape to get my 1.5 month old, purchased retail drive with a 3 year warranty replaced.

It works as a hard drive but sucks when doing heavy writing, like installing software. But the read times are good and I'm thinking if the battery benefits are high enough I may simply roll with this and put the big drive in an enclosure and carry it in my backpack of doom. I'll have to see how I adjust to this. I don't listen to mp3s on this machine, or watch movies, it's basically a web browser with terminals and an IRC client, so 6GB might be all I need when I'm not messing with my digital photos, which I can just whip out the external drive to do.

The kid's in good condition, we're both pretty pleased about that.

Some dickhead hit my cousin's future father in law with a car, and ran off like a coward and left him to die. He ended up bleeding out due to having his hip bone crushed. That's fucked up and angers me.

Work's awesome.

We're doing okay on the grief front w/r/t Becky's mom. Thanks to those who sent flowers, etc, and thanks to those who didn't (we only have room for a few vases, as we're busy taking in stuff from mom's and sorting through it). We appreciate the support we've received from everyone. Thanks!

On March 31, at 10:00pm exactly, Becky's Mom passed away. We spent the 26th to the 1st in West Michigan spending all our time at the Holland Hospice. I don't know if any of you have spent time watching family members die, but it's not the best process in the world, as one would expect. You get interesting materials that basically describe the exact step by step process that a person goes through while in the process of dying. It's kinda surreal. I'll have to post that stuff sometime.

Anyway, obviously it was a sad time. We're doing okay, generally having a week to prepare yourself for the moment makes it a lot easier to come to terms with and cope. It doesn't take away the pain but that's to be expected. We'll miss you, mom.

Our little one is doing great. We've given him/her the placeholder name of "Bean" until it is old enough to have genitals.

	7 weeks (#1)
	7 weeks (#2)

* Becky's mom has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, she has days, maybe weeks (doubt it) to live. We got her into hospice and have started to make final arrangements.

* While on the way to the hospital, the UPS failed at work. No network disruption happened but the issue did affect a few colo customers, albeit for a short period of time. 🙁

* When I got to the hospital, I tore my pants wide open in the ass when I sat down next to becky's mom's bed.

* When I was working today, I upgraded a copy of Adobe Acrobat standard 9.0 (not the reader) on our provisioner's computer and the fucker started on fire, confined to a short puff of smoke coming out of the power supply, which was too hot to touch for several minutes afterward.

It's not been our finest weekend…. Hoping things look up from here.

* 1+1=3 = Successfully in progress

* At work, we're going gangbusters. It's really a blessing to work somewhere where I know there's a job waiting for me in the morning every day. I wish I could hire all of you. 🙂 (well, maybe not ALL of you, heh)

* My APRS IGate is running strong. I just got a bunch of copper pipe to make a jpole for the dedicated igate hardware so I can return my expensive ham radio to normal use rather than a really, really nice 2 meter radio. 🙂

* My car sucks but still works just fine. My TM-D700A is working great with the new power supply for the GPS that Dan M sent me last year and I finally hacked in the last month.

* I finally got the tiles i tore off the ceiling in the basement the day we moved in cleaned up. That was harder work than it looked, and required a respirator due to all the dust. It only took 2.5 years. Go me! Yay!

* I finally got the Tripplite RMA back. Thanks to Becky for finally shipping the goddamn thing out for me, after 6 months of me procrastinating. Thanks also to Tripplite for being pretty chill about the fact I RMAed a product, and took 6 months to ship the damn thing.

* It's been a great run recently. I'm hoping desperately it continues.

Summer's coming up guys – we should have a cookout or some shit. Am I right?

http://smithfamilyfuneralhome.com/Visitations/View.php?id=955

Dankaye's dad passed away.

The Rev. Daniel M. “Dan” Kivel, 58 of Algonac, passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 in Mt.Clemens Regional Medical Center. He was born to Ronald and Helen Kivel on August 12, 1950 in Port Huron, attended the Port Huron schools, and graduated from Port Huron High School in 1968. Dan then went on to receive his BA degree from Oakland University in 1978 and then his MA in Social Work from Wayne State University. He was a long-time adhesives chemist for Evans-St. Clair, also worked for C.T.I. Corp. in Detroit, and worked as a consultant on various other projects. He was a life-long spiritual seeker & teacher, and was a former President of the Autism Society of Michigan. Dan is survived by his wife, Margie; three children, Charon (Gaston) Nogues of Los Angeles, CA, Shelley (Eric) Schmidt of Madison Heights, and Brian Kivel of Clarkston; a grandson, Jude Nogues; ten brothers & sisters, Rhonda Kivel of Grand Rapids, Gary Kivel of Port Huron, Linda (Dwayne) Beem of Port Huron, Steven (Wendy) Kivel of St. Clair, Nancy (Michael) Pinkster of Kalamazoo, Brenda (Mark) Privette of Port Huron, Theresa Leneway of New Baltimore, David Kivel of FL, John (Frances) Kivel of Dexter, & Jeffrey Kivel of Port Huron; and several nieces & nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents and a son, Daniel M. Kivel II in May of 2007. The funeral service will be at 1:00 p.m. Tuesday, January 27, 2009 in Smith Family Funeral Home-South preceded by one hour of visitation. Contributions may be made in Dan’s memory to the Autism Society of Michigan. To send condolences, please visit smithfamilyfuneralhome.com A memorial service in Dan’s memory will take place in the future. For information regarding this service, please contact Debbie Aliya at 616/475-0059 or e-mail daaliya@aol.com