So my old PC kicked the bucket the other day. The whole experience has been quite eye-opening as to what is going on in the world of PCs (which ties in to the internet as well).
A couple of interesting (and very frustrating) things happened in my journey to get back online...
1) My visit to Best Buy and FutureShop was shocking. They basically only had about five PC's to choose from, all of them somewhat overrpiced for what you were getting. Not only that, but the store was empty. In both FS and BB there might have been 15 people in the store total.
Clearly not a good sign for the economy if you ask me and if store traffic is any indication of anything, BB isn't a stock I'd want to be holding going forward.
I ended up buying my PC at Computer Canada, which while not the best experience, was fairly priced.
2) I've now had my introduction to Windows 7 and I have to say there is absolutely nothing of value that is new in the OS. Stick with XP or Vista if you can.
What blew me away was MSFT has yet again botched supporting older devices. So now my two netgear boxes (which worked fine on Vista) don't work because of Windows 7 and its horrible ability to network share with older devices.
There is a workaround where you can load a virtual copy of Windows XP on your Windows 7 machine, but you can only do that if you have win 7 professional. What the heck is that about? MSFT gives home consumers the big middle finger for absolutely no reason? Forcing them to buy a 'professional' edition of win 7 if they want things that worked with Vista to keep working?
3) The best investment I ever made was my one terabyte external drive. With the insanity of today's OS systems, I simply refuse to keep files on my actual PC. Everyone (especially PR folks) should be working off an external harddrive so that if your PC ever crashes beyond recovery you don't lose any of your files.
4) Windows 7 reinforced the trend of lack of innovation and merely feeding a replacement cycle with the least amount of new features possible to get people to buy the new product. Windows 7 is a real let down (I personally think that Vista is better!).
MSFT has managed to make doing almost anything a pain in the butt. So many features of XP and Vista that I loved have simply been tossed out and not replaced. And best I can tell there are no new features of interest.
5) Thank God I have Skype. I had to call a few service provides in the US in the process of setting my PC back up and with my $2.99 unlimited North American calling account with Skype, I didn't have to pay a ton of dough waiting in queue on a long-distance call.
Which by the way brings up an interesting company I heard about a few months ago called Fonolo. They basically let you contact a business by indicating that you'd like to be called back, this way you don't sit in queue (we'll you are in queue, but Fonolo handles that), you simply get a call when a service rep is ready to talk to you.
For the situation I was in yesturday it would have been a great service because waiting on hold for 20 minutes during a long distance call is a giant waste of money. My Skype solution worked great, but the Fonolo solution would have been another great option.
What this whole experience has impressed on me is that the big-boy companies (MSFT, BB) are not what they use to be. They are pushing really poor products and selection out to market. Whether it be over-priced computers with parts that all need upgrading or software that has horrible backwards compatibility (causing your hardware products to no longer work with your PC), across the board it's just really kind of sad compared to who these companies were back in the day.
It's funny that it's actually the new generation of companies that I'm loving (folks like Skype). They charge 75 per cent less than the brand names and deliver better service.
Perhaps the funniest thing in all this? Despite all the annoyances of Windows 7 and my new computer (not to mention my annoying Cisco router)... the only product that seemed totally unaffected by anything was my Apple iPod. It simply detected my Internet connection, networked in, and was off the races as though nothing had changed. It didn't care what was up with my router, or my computer, or windows 7... it just rips through all these flawed products, gets what it needs, and works perfectly.
I don't know why there are so few innovative companies out there making great products (well, I do, but I won't go in to it in this post), but hopefully the future is filled with more companies like Skype and Apple and less MSFT and Best Buy.
Buyer Beware I think will the mantra of the next five or so years as the big boys leverage brand recognition to push crappy product to market and make whatever profit they can before the next generation of companies usurp them and send them to elephant boneyard.
A couple of interesting (and very frustrating) things happened in my journey to get back online...
1) My visit to Best Buy and FutureShop was shocking. They basically only had about five PC's to choose from, all of them somewhat overrpiced for what you were getting. Not only that, but the store was empty. In both FS and BB there might have been 15 people in the store total.
Clearly not a good sign for the economy if you ask me and if store traffic is any indication of anything, BB isn't a stock I'd want to be holding going forward.
I ended up buying my PC at Computer Canada, which while not the best experience, was fairly priced.
2) I've now had my introduction to Windows 7 and I have to say there is absolutely nothing of value that is new in the OS. Stick with XP or Vista if you can.
What blew me away was MSFT has yet again botched supporting older devices. So now my two netgear boxes (which worked fine on Vista) don't work because of Windows 7 and its horrible ability to network share with older devices.
There is a workaround where you can load a virtual copy of Windows XP on your Windows 7 machine, but you can only do that if you have win 7 professional. What the heck is that about? MSFT gives home consumers the big middle finger for absolutely no reason? Forcing them to buy a 'professional' edition of win 7 if they want things that worked with Vista to keep working?
3) The best investment I ever made was my one terabyte external drive. With the insanity of today's OS systems, I simply refuse to keep files on my actual PC. Everyone (especially PR folks) should be working off an external harddrive so that if your PC ever crashes beyond recovery you don't lose any of your files.
4) Windows 7 reinforced the trend of lack of innovation and merely feeding a replacement cycle with the least amount of new features possible to get people to buy the new product. Windows 7 is a real let down (I personally think that Vista is better!).
MSFT has managed to make doing almost anything a pain in the butt. So many features of XP and Vista that I loved have simply been tossed out and not replaced. And best I can tell there are no new features of interest.
5) Thank God I have Skype. I had to call a few service provides in the US in the process of setting my PC back up and with my $2.99 unlimited North American calling account with Skype, I didn't have to pay a ton of dough waiting in queue on a long-distance call.
Which by the way brings up an interesting company I heard about a few months ago called Fonolo. They basically let you contact a business by indicating that you'd like to be called back, this way you don't sit in queue (we'll you are in queue, but Fonolo handles that), you simply get a call when a service rep is ready to talk to you.
For the situation I was in yesturday it would have been a great service because waiting on hold for 20 minutes during a long distance call is a giant waste of money. My Skype solution worked great, but the Fonolo solution would have been another great option.
What this whole experience has impressed on me is that the big-boy companies (MSFT, BB) are not what they use to be. They are pushing really poor products and selection out to market. Whether it be over-priced computers with parts that all need upgrading or software that has horrible backwards compatibility (causing your hardware products to no longer work with your PC), across the board it's just really kind of sad compared to who these companies were back in the day.
It's funny that it's actually the new generation of companies that I'm loving (folks like Skype). They charge 75 per cent less than the brand names and deliver better service.
Perhaps the funniest thing in all this? Despite all the annoyances of Windows 7 and my new computer (not to mention my annoying Cisco router)... the only product that seemed totally unaffected by anything was my Apple iPod. It simply detected my Internet connection, networked in, and was off the races as though nothing had changed. It didn't care what was up with my router, or my computer, or windows 7... it just rips through all these flawed products, gets what it needs, and works perfectly.
I don't know why there are so few innovative companies out there making great products (well, I do, but I won't go in to it in this post), but hopefully the future is filled with more companies like Skype and Apple and less MSFT and Best Buy.
Buyer Beware I think will the mantra of the next five or so years as the big boys leverage brand recognition to push crappy product to market and make whatever profit they can before the next generation of companies usurp them and send them to elephant boneyard.
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