The Daily Afternoon Shut-Down/Cool-Down

It's about that time. The computer is painfully slow, freezing once every two minutes (for three minutes a shot) and unable to handle gmail. Usually this is the time I shut it down, turn it over, and put ice-gel packs on the bottom of it to cool it down for about a half hour.

Fortunately, I won't have to suffer this piece of crap very much longer. A reader (whom I won't name, because I don't know if she wants to be named) contacted me about her husband, who works at Dell. He forwarded my complaints to a guy who just might be the coolest guy in the entire world, and Dell has very generously agreed to not only replace this computer with a new one, but replace it with a newer computer that's about two or three times the machine this one is (assuming it worked properly; a working machine would be ten times the machine this one is, even if it were a very low-end model).

I'm told Dell is trying to improve its once-heralded, now-derided customer relations/tech support divisions, and while I doubt that everyone out there would be lucky enough to have a connection working on his behalf, at this point I'm pretty high on Dell again.

The new computer is in "testing," and after that, they'll overnight it. Testing is taking a while, but they can test for two weeks if they like. I just want the thing to work.

A big thank you to my unnamed advocate and to Dell's customer service rep who's hooking me up big-time. (I won't name him either.)

Anyway... it sure will be nice to be able to watch videos without the computer freezing up and stuttering and shutting down.

And with that, the shut-down, and the ice-packs.

posted by Ace at 01:06 PM

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