Randy’s random musings

Over the past month, I’ve had the decidedly unpleasant task of returning three out of four 500 gig Samsung hard disk drives (HD501LJ models) for RMA replacement. One had just been purchased from Newegg, and the others were a few months older, meaning I’d have to return them to Samsung for replacement.

Two of the failed drives had a “smoked” component on the circuit board, near the power connector. I’m not certain if the drives were defective, or if my computer’s power supply may have been to blame. However, the third drive had a read error that caused me to lose data, and didn’t show up until I’d been using it for a few months. A surface scan with one of the hard drive diagnostics included on the Ultimate Boot CD indicated hundreds of bad sectors that were unrepairable. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve had occasion to contact Newegg’s customer service twice recently, and was impressed both times.

The first time, I had purchased a Samsung hard drive that was dead on arrival. I didn’t even have to call Newegg. A few clicks on their website, and voila! A few minutes later I had my RMA number in my email inbox. I sent the package back, and a few days later, received an email from them stating that they’d received it, and the next day they emailed me a tracking number for the replacement item! Smooth like butter…

Today I had to call them about an order placed yesterday. I requested FedEx overnight shipping (due to my loathing of UPS), and was notified at 1pm that FedEx overnight service wasn’t available to my address! I had also requested (and paid for) rush processing on this order, by the way. They didn’t even bother to call!

Well, I called them up to give them a piece of my mind, and not only did they apologize for not calling, they even offered to pay for the UPS overnight shipping charges! I still ended up with my item a day late, but somehow, I’m not too upset anymore.

Even though they aren’t perfect, they really seem to care about keeping their customers happy, and as long as they keep it up, I’ll be a loyal customer.

I ordered some stuff from NewEgg a few days ago, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting delivery of my package(s). I checked the tracking number online this morning, and was greeted with the following:

Please note that I live in Spiro, OK–400 miles from Pampa, TX!

I called UPS, and the friendly representative could only say “Well, sir, it says it’s ‘out for delivery’ today”. I asked if that makes any sense, since it’s over 6 hours driving time to Pampa, TX. Well, after further digging, it appears an error was made scanning the packages, and they actually are out for delivery here in this area.

Last time I was supposed to receive a package from UPS, I waited at the house all day, and it never showed up! After looking up the status online, and seeing the exception, I called UPS. Eventually I learned that the driver couldn’t find our house, and just gave up!

Oh, how I despise thee, United Parcel Service! If only FedEx was cheaper, or DHL was more widely available from online stores, I would never use your service again!

So I purchased an ‘98 Accord recently, but didn’t realize until after I was driving it home that it had a problem with the horn. It worked, sometimes–as long as the keys weren’t in the ignition, or the wheel was turned a little to the left or right.

After a few guesses and part replacements (relay, “clock spring” AKA “cable reel assembly”), I realized I was going to have to bust out the multimeter and really trace the problem. I figured out that the horn switch is supposed to get a ground from the steering wheel, and when the switch is pressed, it passes that ground through the cable reel assembly to the horn relay. It turns out that the ground on the steering wheel itself was intermittent. And it got its ground from the center of the steering shaft, which was also intermittent. Read the rest of this entry »

My wife just told me about a “sneaky” phishing email she just received. I took a look at it, and it’s a phishing website that is collecting banking login names, passwords, as well as ATM card information. I took a minute to report it to the bank being spoofed, Heritage Bank. They already knew about it, but said their computer people were “out to lunch”. I took the liberty of checking DNS records to see who was hosting the website, and lo-and-behold, it was Yahoo! Read the rest of this entry »

After searching, downloading, testing, and playing around, I’ve finally come up with a few tweaks for those of us running TomTom on our Nav-Cam. Available for download are two different files. One is a restore utility to use after performing a hard reset on your device, and includes menu software to replace the factory menu. The other is a small helper utility to launch said menu. Read about it by clicking the link on the side, and then leave your comments or questions here.

NOTE: There was an error in the restore file, which has been fixed. Please download the file again, and unzip it to the root of your SD card. My apologies for the mistake. -Randy

Well, it looks like it’s “that time”, again. Tomorrow morning, I’ll pick up the moving truck, and we’ll spend the day loading it up, and cleaning up the house. I’m really looking forward to spending some time with Cathy’s family, I just hope we don’t wear out our welcome too quickly!

A few days ago, I wooted a GPS Navigation system. Living in Texas means, unfortunately, that I have to pay taxes on my woots, since they’re based in Texas, too. But it has its advantages! It looks like I was among the first to receive my unit, and I started playing around with it this morning.

First impression is that it feels a bit cheap. I’ve had the opportunity to use a TomTom One, which is a very similar unit, and the TomTom unit just feels better built, more solid. After taking the Evesham unit for a test drive, I’ve discovered that it has other shortcomings… Read more for my short review, and instructions for TomTom installation. Read the rest of this entry »