10 Responses to “Miscellaneous bullshit”

1. # Dr JD Azil on March 31st, 2007 9:56 PM

   Couldn't have said it any better. I think I'll add some stuff later.

2. # Simon Zerafa on April 1st, 2007 6:07 AM

   Hi,

   Yes, I have to agree that Acer were a bit behind the times with formatting their drives as FAT32.

   A quick CMD prompt and the following magic:

   CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS

   will convert the formatting to NTFS on the next reboot. You can do the same with the DATA partition if you wish to.

   Having said that Acer to make some really nice laptops in both the low end and higher end of the market.

   I have never sent an Acer back within the first weeks because of a manufacturing fault and compared to some of the poor designs of NEC, Toshiba and HP / Compaq I would rather have an Acer any day.

   Still if you have money to spend there are other manufacturers to choose from, not the least of which are Dell or Apple :-)

   Kind Regards

   Simon

3. # DjLizard on April 3rd, 2007 8:58 AM

   Unfortunately, converting to NTFS after-the-fact causes the MFT to be placed in the center of the drive — the least optimal place.

4. # jimmsta on April 4th, 2007 7:36 PM

   Here's a new one-

   Why doesn't Dell test their installations of Vista? I've seen two different systems now (desktop and laptop) which came pre-loaded with a Sonic CD/DVD burning software suite, which is not in the least compatible with Vista. Both systems crashed when we put blank media in the drive and attempted to burn a dvd or cd. Dell's support pages offer no patches for the software, and the only solution is to remove the cd/dvd burning software. This is fucking ridiculous, seeing as most Dell users are not about to use anything but what Dell pre-installed for them.
   —

   There's one thing that really bothers me - why is it that I constantly encounter systems where all the screws for the PSU are missing, or the PSU is hanging off of 1 screw? I like to think that every customer with this problem just has a curious child that took a screwdriver to the system, but a lot of these systems are owned by elderly people, who don't have kids or any family that would even attempt to open their magical computer box.

   I especially love the systems where the hard drive is hanging by the ide or sata cable, and the hard drive cage is nowhere to be found. For these customers, I ask who was the last person to work on the system. It's usually the customer themselves, who say to me "it came that way". SURE... for the thousands of Dell systems I've seen, I've never seen one come without a goddamn hard drive cage.
   —

   In regards to to the Convert to NTFS suggestion, I usually don't convert drives unless the customer specifies, or in the case that the system is new (FUCK ACER), I reformat with the restoration DVD/CD, which usually asks whether I want to use FAT32 or NTFS... Or I just nuke 'n restore the system with an OEM copy of the OS, and send it on its merry way.

5. # DjLizard on April 4th, 2007 10:38 PM

   I also noticed that Sonic problem.

   I always convert without asking... the customer doesn't know what they need. That's why I have to tell them what they need (more memory, etc). I'm sure they'd appreciate the lack of data loss associated with NTFS as opposed to Data Loss City, USA with FAT32.

   A computer I worked on today had C:\FOUND.000 through FOUND.026. Each folder contained one or more useless .chk files.

   Note that FAT32 doesn't have a journal and has no idea where files really end in this situation — *.chk files found from FAT32 filesystems end on sector boundaries (16,384 bytes; 32,768 bytes; etc) and contain cross-linked garbage that nobody can use. NTFS can find the entire file, put it back in the index/directory it belongs to, and even name it correctly. Nobody should be stuck with FAT32, ever.

   Heh, notice the fitting tagline at the top of the page.

6. # Simon Zerafa on April 5th, 2007 8:00 AM

   Hi,

   I would have to agree with Dj on this on. Customers rarely know what they need let alone what they want.

   How many XP system are there with 192 MBytes or 256 MBytes of RAM which are slower than molasses on a cold winters' day. Upgrade them to 512 MBytes+ and show the customer the results.

   NFTS is far more secure and robust that FAT32 so just convert them and it's sorted.

   It's a shame that the CONVERT tool doesn't place the MFT in a senseable place.

   Do any of the other partition format conversion tools do it correctly? Or do I need to search for a third-party defragmenter which can relocate the MFT?

   I have recently seem a Packard Bell OEM System using Windows Vista Home Premium which has Macrovision software installed which is not apparently compatible with Windows Vista. Vista keeps disabling it automatically because of compatibility issues.

   Other top annoyances with OEM PC's:

   1. They are never shipped fully patched or in some cases with no OS patches at all. Why? The manufacturer can image a fully patched setup as easily as an unpatched one. It's not even as if they are six months old, there are just no patches at all.

   Not everyone has access to broadband to download 120 MBytes+ of OS udpates when they go online for the first time. Thank god for Autpatcher XP!

   2. Why are OEM systems never even correctly configured on the bare OS's they do ship? They cannot even activate ClearType on laptops (or systems sold with TFT's screens) let alone installing all the really useful tools such as Sun Java 1.5 / 1.6, Flash, Shockwave or other good media players.

   Better still they ship out of date or versions of software which have known security issues such as Sun Java 1.4 or old versions of Realplayer which crash Windows XP regularly.

   Forget setting the Desktop options to something useful like displaying useful icons such as Internet Explorer and My Computer or even configuring Windows with secure settings.

   3. They are however fond of shipping GigaBytes of useless time limited demos and Internet access software packs which no one uses though! The PC Decrapifier does a good job of uninstalling those though :-)

   Anyway my £.0.02p worth ;-)

   Kind Regards

   Simon

7. # Dr JD Azil on April 5th, 2007 4:53 PM

   Why does HP insist on making the installation of an all-in-one take 400-700MB and take 30 minutes to install while Brother, Lexmark, Canon, etc. can have the same functionality with an installation file that is 30-60MB and takes only 2 minutes? Why must HP shovel so much junk into your system? Here’s an idea you ass monkeys…let us decide which parts of your bloated, useless software to install…not a normal and supposedly minimal installation – custom would be dandy. My favorite is trying to load specific drivers from their craptastic software…hmmm, my printer setup is messed up…I’ll just point to the print driver folder and let it install that way…nope, you mental midgets make it so that the main application is called and you have to go through the entire installation process. Thanks, that is a really terrific feature your jerks. Don’t get me started when an IP address changes on an HP printer. I’m starting to think you outsource your programmers from Symantec.

   I am so anti HP now it’s sad…their products aren’t bad it’s the steaming turds of useless, bloated software they jam down your pie hole. It’s their completely useless customer support. Do me a favor HP…when you claim your computer has a warranty, please clearly state that if there is a problem and the purchaser of one of your fine products has a problem and pays a technician to help them that the technician must go through Mujibar/Steve in your tech support department. Please note that while Mujibar has had 2 weeks of English lessons and maybe 1 month of technical training that he is the expert and that no matter how much you try to explain to Mujibar that there is a hardware problem, Mujibar will insist that for any warranty work, you will have to box up your computer with all of your sensitive data and ship in to New Delhi or God only knows where to have it “fixed.” Great business decision you geniuses …hell, forget the shipping costs of a 40 lb computer 2 ways compared to sending a hard drive to a technician who knows a what he/she is doing. Mujibar knows best.

   Why on Vista is the default option for at least 10 of laptops I’ve worked on have the start menu’s power button set to hibernate? Is it Microsoft making this default or are the manufacturers setting this? I don’t know why this should bother me but it does for some reason . Why is the option to change its functionality buried? Why not make the button right-clickable so that it can be changed that way? Why doesn’t the icon change according to what it’s set as, like zzzzz’s for sleep and maybe a bear for hibernate? Why has whoever is settings this taken upon themselves to change the universal symbol for power on/off to do something other than what it was intended…. I can see Aunt Lucy calling Verizon tech support and they ask her to shut her computer down she’s going to hit the “Power On/Off” button and guess what? It hibernates.

   Sorry, I know this is all petty crap and that I’m probably overlooking easy solutions but things that should be simple no-brainers are just gigantic pains in my highly irritable ass.

8. # DjLizard on April 5th, 2007 6:32 PM

   Craptastic.

9. # Dr JD Azil on April 5th, 2007 6:43 PM

   Indeed.

10. # DjLizard on April 6th, 2007 7:49 AM

    Why does Macromedia/Adobe set Special Permissions to Deny on the files in WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\Macromed? It's hard to delete them when you want to reinstall Windows and you don't know much about NTFS permissions. That, and it's even harder if you're in XP Home Edition.

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