What happens when 80 people, dressed like Best Buy employees, descend upon a Best Buy store in Manhattan?
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I updated the driver to my Creative X-Fi soundcard a few weeks ago and the card just stopped working. I messed around with it for an hour and decided I’d just yank the card, return it to NewEgg and try out the onboard sound processor on my Asus mobo. The sound wasn’t all that bad especially when hooked up to Logitech Z-2300 speakers. But when I put on my Grado headphones, the sound quality vs. the X-fi was noticeable.

I send Creative an email before sending the card back. A CSR suggested I uninstall my old drivers that came on the CD with the card and use the latest drivers found on their website. I installed the X-Fi in a different PCI slot than I had before and installed the new drivers and turned on the computer. It works!

Onboard sound is probably fine had I never tested out the X-Fi but if you’re into games and music, the X-Fi is a worthy upgrade.

Thanks for the link, Dan.
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We had a Kenwood receiver with Sirius radio installed in our Honda Odyssey just over a year ago. We listened to satellite radio a lot when we were traveling from Utah to Seattle this past year. Having access to over a hundred channels makes the drive a bit more enjoyable especially in mountain regions where analog channels are absent.

A few weeks ago the Sirius channels would have audio for a few seconds and then go out. This happened on each channel. So I called Sirius tech support yesterday and the first guy I talked to was certain the transmission signal just needed to be sent to my receiver again. So he re-sent the signal and I waited five minutes for the stations to update. I’m not certain of the procedure but it sounds similar to flashing a computer’s BIOS. Because the technician was so sure this would fix the problem I was surprised when it didn’t.

So I called up Sirius again and this time I talked to another technician. His English was difficult to understand but it was very clear he didn’t want to help me much. He said there was nothing he could do and shuffled around some papers until he found tech support number for Kenwood. At this point I’m starting to feel like nobody wants to help.

I called Kenwood and talked to a guy who looked up my receiver model. He was very friendly and listened to my problems until he realized my receiver was a month out of warrantee. He told me that he couldn’t help and suggested I talk to the person who sold me the unit. I told him I bought the receiver in St. George, Utah which is about 20 hours from where I live now. He said I could try calling back on a weekday and see if someone else with more authority would “grant a one-time warrantee extension”. Hmmm….this doesn’t sound promising.

I’d had enough at this point and decided it’s not worth the hassle so I logged into the Sirius website to view my account and cancel my subscription. Sirius requires its customers to call in and talk with a customer service rep in order to cancel. Here is the lame email I received from them when I tried to cancel from the website:

Dear Brett,

Thank you for contacting SIRIUS with your request to cancel your subscription. At SIRIUS we value you as a customer and invite you to discuss this request with one of our Customer Care Agents.

We’re glad that you are part of SIRIUS and want to continue to provide you with the very best that radio has to offer.

Sincerely,

Christopher
SIRIUS Customer Care

I feel so valued! And how nice of them to “invite” me to discuss my wish to cancel my account with a Customer Care Agent. This agent only cares about keeping me as a paying customer. I can’t stand companies that make it easy to sign-up and spend money with them online but make it darn near impossible to cancel. AOL and all cell phone companies are famous for this type of customer abuse.

But I finally got patched through to a lady at Sirius who said she’d be happy to help me with my request to cancel my subscription. Not once did she ask why I was cancelling. Not once did she ask what it would take to keep me as a subscriber. Even after I told her that I really liked Sirius when it worked, she said nothing. She continued to type in the background and finally said, “A refund of $124 should show up on your Visa in three to five days”. I was stunned! If this experience is indicative of how Sirius views and treats its customers then it has no chance of surviving. People will endure dealing with cable and phone companies because many have no other options. But satellite radio is a luxury to most people. They won’t pay to be treated like their business means nothing.

What I learned is that I shouldn’t have to call tech support in order to listen to the fricking radio. If I’m paying $13/month to listen to the radio it had better work 24/7 and with no hassle whatsoever. This time the “grief to enjoyment ratio” tipped to far into the grief camp.

So the market shaved $32 billion off Microsoft’s value last week after a perceived weak earnings report. Even BillG took it in the shorts to the tune of $3 billion. Gates had this to say about the market’s reaction last Friday:

“We announced yesterday that our [research and development spending] is going up even more,” Gates said. “Some people are very enthused about those investments. Others were wondering why we think we need to invest so much. It really comes back to the optimism we have about these advances.”

Sources are still trying to locate that elusive person who was “enthused” about Microsoft’s plans.

Gates and company must be very frustrated watching Google and Yahoo continue to garner praise for their aggressive web strategies while Apple can seemingly do no wrong with its hugely popular iPod product line and fanatical following. The only Microsoft product with any momentum right now is the Xbox 360 which is sold at a loss.

These 2 Chinese student make the Backstreet Boys almost tolerable. Not quite but almost and at least I laughed for the right reasons.
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One of the first people I blogged about was Sun CEO, Scott McNealy. He’s even less relevant now than he was back then, but I’m definitely going to miss his quotes. cNet takes a look at some of his best:

“Probably the most dangerous and powerful industrialist of our age.” (Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates)

“Ballmer and Butt-Head.” (Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Gates)

“A giant hair ball.” (Microsoft’s Windows and Windows NT)

“When Steve Ballmer calls me wacko, I consider that a compliment.”

“General and motors.” (Microsoft and Intel)

“Windows More Errors” (Windows ME)

“Look Out” (Microsoft’s Outlook)

“The Corvair of Web servers, unsafe at any speed” (Internet Information Server)

Full list at cNet

There’s something downright refreshing about Sony’s crappy treatment of bands they represent (Cheap Trick, Allman Brothers) that’s in line with how they view those of us who buy their music. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that a record company which decides to sue thousands of customers would attempt to underpay those very artists on their label.

It’s great to see Cheap Trick and the Allman Brothers stand up for their rights. The crux of the suit appears to hinge on how a “sale” or “license” is defined within Sony’s contract with online music services such as iTunes and Napster.

Have far can one guy take signing his credit card receipt in many different ways?

Thank goodness the Republican’s care enough about our family of five to dream up the crackpot idea of a $100 rebate to help “ease the burden” on my family due to high gasoline prices.

We have been saving to take a vacation to Jackson Hole or, if we are really crazy, St. George, Utah this summer. This $100 rebate may help us get as far as Portland before we have to turn around. I propose the oil companies, who have been raking in record profits, kick in $1000 per family. That might get me all the way to Utah this summer.

The good news is the following oil company CEOs will be able to afford a vacation anywhere they chose. The number for Exxon below is not a typo.

Chevron’s CEO: $37 million
Conoco Phillips’ CEO: $17 million
Exxon’s CEO: $400 million