Posted on 02/11/2012 1:33:46 PM PST by CARTOUCHE
So I'm on the phone with Samsung Tech support in SOUTH CAROLINA - not Bombay or Sri Lanka, (thank you very much Samsung) to troubleshoot the connection problems with the other half's inability to print wirelessly from across the room to our recently acquired Samsung Color Laser Printer CLP-325W. (The HP 6300 was a gross waste of time, talent, and energy, NEVER AGAIN as they say in Tel Aviv))
And I'm musing that the process is not much different than when I would accompany my long past Dad with a paper bag full of Philco TV tubes to the local drug store where a TV tube tester was available. And, where replacement tubes were sold at exhorbitant prices for the TV denied family.
And I'm thinking with a wry smile, how little has changed in the human condition. And the Samsung 325W, while working perfectly for a week with crisp color laser printed images, including some from this website, is in need of some tube testing at Thrifty Drug's tube tester.
Fortunately, I paid for the extended warranty so that the Samsung 325W will assume room temperature back at Office Max and we'll try again next week on a hopefully fully competent new Samsung. Imagine trying to describe 2012's screen shots, printed in laser sharp color of a 1958 Honeymooner's episode from TV Land to a frustrated father whose tubes wouldn't light-up in Thrifty's tester?
What will I expect my grandkids to say of grandpa whose frustration with an actual American English speaking young man from South Carolina is expressed in this archived 2012 FR Treatise? Granpa, that is so 2012. What is Tech Support?
Have CA security thru TW Cable. It was updated last weekend I believe but not on the laptop. On my tower. No config changes that I can think of.
Have CA security thru TW Cable. It was updated last weekend I believe but not on the laptop. On my tower. No config changes that I can think of.
Not at all the same. While those drugstore tube testers were worthless, you as an owner could at least fix many problems by substitution and keep your TV going, or at worst case, hire someone to do so.
Now you’ve got throwaway hardware. Got a motherboard with bad electrolytics? Toss it. Lighting zapped your all-in-one? Take it to the curb. Maybe your drivers just got clobbered but your PC manufacturer was too cheap to supply actual restore CDs and now you can’t read that partition on the hard drive? Sorry Charlie.
It’s kinda like a stimulus, you know? It’s not that the Amish don’t get the job done, more like they use technology that can be repaired and maintained. The rest of us poor saps just get to buy new stuff.
CA? Worse set of scum than the communist Kenyan.
I would guess that’s your problem. Can you disable it?
Agreed
The second computer I bought was a Gateway in 1996. I had trouble with the modem, but the tech support was stateside, and excellent. I was online within an hour. And, all the backup software was on the supplied CD's.
The third was an HP, the tech support was overseas, and not so good. It took hours for them to tell me I couldn't install a second internal hard drive and get it to work properly. The HP-installed software/OS wouldn't allow it. Maddening. Could have gone with an external drive if I'd wanted.
I’ve had very odd issues similar to yours with my HP OfficeJet. It will work fine, then develop a disorder. After I rant and rave and reinstall (the three Rs of fixing computer problems), it works again. This is with Windows 7, though. I didn’t have these issues with Vista. My guess is that the Win7 drivers were very half-assed by HP; they probably wanted me to buy the newer version OfficeJet.
You’re California centric. No, No, out here it’s Jacob Yoder, who is this?
You’re California centric. No, No, out here it’s Jacob Yoder, who is this?
Most all troubleshooting, whether mechanical, electrical, electronic or whatever is simply a process of elimination.
I am quite capable of such looks. Wanna see one?
Pardon me while is take a moment to eliminate.
Americans used to love problem-solving. Do It Yourself was the hottest thing our there. Popular Mechanics was a best selling magazine.
Now we want everything done for us and we gripe if we have to think for any length of time.
Disable it? Itshay. I could destroy it in one swoop fell if I knew there was an alternative for 29.95 a month somewhere.
No thanks. One a week is my limit. :)
The reason most tech support is hunt and peck is because the customers don’t know how to usefully describe the problem. 90% of all support calls the info you get out of the customer is “it’s not working”, they can’t describe the symptoms, they can’t describe what changed (usually they say nothing which is almost certainly BS), most of the time they don’t even know what “working” actually means. This leaves the guy on the phone flying completely blind so they have to start with the big obvious ones and slowly work their way through a 20 questions-esque narrowing down of a problem that almost always boils down to you changed a setting you shouldn’t have, or you got some malware.
“Computer Dark Ages. We need an Enlightenment.”
Your #13...spot on. Been preaching the same thing myself.
Please, please, please. I thought about my old lady’s problem from 0630 until at leat 0633 before I decided I’d call tech support. Please don’t diminish my concern for her
technical well-being. She thanked me enormously at 0638.
It’s times like these that you have to remember the good old days when we had DOS powered 8088 processors and 1200 Baud rate telephone modems.
:)
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