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[Before I start, I want to send my heart to Maggie's grammy and the Deegan family. Maggie is home in Rochester and I miss her dearly.]
The Pentium III 600 MHz I've had to hack apart is almost completely reborn. I've named it "Cicatrix", the word for a major scab or ulcer, as it's a pretty word and it pretty well describes the last year or two of life this computer has left. It's running Win2k, it's clean and up-to-date, it has all of the owner's files back in the right directories. All I need to do is install the new CD burner and its software and the electrons under the scab will be healed.
If you've already tuned out, please tune back in. I've got something to say that will save you and each of your loved ones a couple grand each. Since I don't want to get used, I'll simply say this company's name rhymes with "bait day" and you can guess...
Baitday lives the phrase "planned obsolescence". They build a computer so that the parts cannot easily be replaced. They make sure the motherboard mounts are slightly askew so that the cards you may need to install won't fit or will twist a little and thereby get ruined. They make sure all of the hottest exhaust from various parts flows onto a chip that should have its own cooler and fan but has neither (a northbridge, in this case). They do not understand how buttons should work or just get the crummiest ones to insure the buttons wear out in time for a "major upgrade".
My employer got a buttload of stuff from Baitday around Christmas. a Couple of months later, Baitday closed its retail stores because they were losing inventory out the back door from lack of tracking. Coincidence?
When Baitday started (their name was slightly different then), they were known for selling a cheap but durable computer. They put slightly more style into their work, rounding the edges of keyboards and putting stuff into cute boxes. Even the budding geeks bought their wares (mind you, this was in the era of the 486 chip and you couldn't really build your own yet). They had worked hard to achieve a place in the market.
Then they got cocky and overdiversified. They were selling flat-panel TVs that didn't always work. They sold an MP3 player made from a USB memory stick and a battery pack with a switch and a tiny joystick: the memory stick has no moving parts, so it'll last a long time. The toggles died in less than 24 hours of use, the batteries would drain pretty fast but the battery meter would lie.
Some stuff doesn't suck and you can't tell why. The digital camera I won works really well and is very intuitive; my coworker got the same camera and nothing but grief from Baitday's support line. I got their wireless router and couldn't be more pleased -- perhaps its lack of buttons or any moving parts outside of the antennae guarantee its durability.
Here is my advice to Baitday: sell a solid-state-only computer very soon. I realize 80 GB of flash memory will cost a lot, but in about three years the price should approach affordability. Don't even put an on switch on the front panel: just have a toggle on the power supply and a big shiny "ON" button on the keyboard, like Macs have. You'll have a computer with no moving parts other than the cooling fans. It'll have dreamy throughput speeds and it'll sell amazingly well. You can't make a toggle that lasts, so take 'em off.
Okay, I've said my piece. You can now build a modern computer for less than $600 (I did it for $310 but I had a spare hard drive). The prebuilt models come with a bunch of problems, such as XP Home Edition.
The Pentium III 600 MHz I've had to hack apart is almost completely reborn. I've named it "Cicatrix", the word for a major scab or ulcer, as it's a pretty word and it pretty well describes the last year or two of life this computer has left. It's running Win2k, it's clean and up-to-date, it has all of the owner's files back in the right directories. All I need to do is install the new CD burner and its software and the electrons under the scab will be healed.
If you've already tuned out, please tune back in. I've got something to say that will save you and each of your loved ones a couple grand each. Since I don't want to get used, I'll simply say this company's name rhymes with "bait day" and you can guess...
Baitday lives the phrase "planned obsolescence". They build a computer so that the parts cannot easily be replaced. They make sure the motherboard mounts are slightly askew so that the cards you may need to install won't fit or will twist a little and thereby get ruined. They make sure all of the hottest exhaust from various parts flows onto a chip that should have its own cooler and fan but has neither (a northbridge, in this case). They do not understand how buttons should work or just get the crummiest ones to insure the buttons wear out in time for a "major upgrade".
My employer got a buttload of stuff from Baitday around Christmas. a Couple of months later, Baitday closed its retail stores because they were losing inventory out the back door from lack of tracking. Coincidence?
When Baitday started (their name was slightly different then), they were known for selling a cheap but durable computer. They put slightly more style into their work, rounding the edges of keyboards and putting stuff into cute boxes. Even the budding geeks bought their wares (mind you, this was in the era of the 486 chip and you couldn't really build your own yet). They had worked hard to achieve a place in the market.
Then they got cocky and overdiversified. They were selling flat-panel TVs that didn't always work. They sold an MP3 player made from a USB memory stick and a battery pack with a switch and a tiny joystick: the memory stick has no moving parts, so it'll last a long time. The toggles died in less than 24 hours of use, the batteries would drain pretty fast but the battery meter would lie.
Some stuff doesn't suck and you can't tell why. The digital camera I won works really well and is very intuitive; my coworker got the same camera and nothing but grief from Baitday's support line. I got their wireless router and couldn't be more pleased -- perhaps its lack of buttons or any moving parts outside of the antennae guarantee its durability.
Here is my advice to Baitday: sell a solid-state-only computer very soon. I realize 80 GB of flash memory will cost a lot, but in about three years the price should approach affordability. Don't even put an on switch on the front panel: just have a toggle on the power supply and a big shiny "ON" button on the keyboard, like Macs have. You'll have a computer with no moving parts other than the cooling fans. It'll have dreamy throughput speeds and it'll sell amazingly well. You can't make a toggle that lasts, so take 'em off.
Okay, I've said my piece. You can now build a modern computer for less than $600 (I did it for $310 but I had a spare hard drive). The prebuilt models come with a bunch of problems, such as XP Home Edition.
