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DEL.ICIO.USDon’t get mad, get even
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What makes you mad?
Whoa, now. Don’t tell me about traffic, taxes and dogs that bark late at night. Let’s narrow this down to technology: the things that push you beyond the point of annoyance and into real anger when it comes to gadgets.
It’s always fun to vent, but the real benefit is that maybe I can provide a big platform for your complaints. If enough of us holler, it’s possible that, together, we can make a dent in the worst problems.
No promises, of course. But I think it’s worth a try.
To get the ball rolling, I’ll offer some areas that often pop up when readers pop off to me by e-mail, letter or phone.
The No. 1 offender: customer service and tech support. Most of you think - and I agree - that service would have to improve just to reach the crummy level.
Anyone who has ever tried to get help for a specific problem knows that, with rare and wonderful exceptions, the manufacturer abandons you as soon as your money is in hand.
Next on my list would be needless complexity. Part of the fault is yours, I’m afraid. Consumers seem to reward devices that can perform a lot of tasks.
Case in point: the cellphone. Nowadays, these phones include a camera, an MP3 player, and the ability to connect to the Internet. They can even serve as a very bad video camera.
I couldn’t help but laugh at reviews for the Apple iPhone. It got great marks for handling the Web and e-mail, and its MP3 player is one of the best around. The only problem area was that the phone isn’t all that great. Honest. Cruise the reviews.
When you try to cram dozens of features into a single gadget, you can almost bet that some of the features won’t work that well, the device will be complicated, and the price will be higher than it needs to be.
The third item on my list of technology peeves: the time needed to do maintenance and security tasks on a home computer. You need to install anti-virus software and then keep it up to date. You need to make sure you have a firewall. Another program is needed to filter out spam e-mail. Still another for adware/spyware. Then you must be sure that any wireless system you have is secure. The list goes on.
The day will come when some smart company delivers a secure and safe connection to the Internet. I pay someone to take care of my yard. I’d be glad to pay extra for someone to keep the weeds out of my computing.
I’ll list one more of my gripes, then I’m going to turn this thing over to you. Why can’t all of our gadgets get along? The examples are endless here, but I’ll use the bottom left drawer of my desk at home to explain.
It’s filled with wall warts: the transformers that plug into the wall and bring down the voltage for your printers, cellphone chargers, MP3 players and digital camera batteries. Would it be too much to ask to come up with a universal standard for these things so that one serves most devices?
Or in the same vein, how about one universal-sized cellular phone battery? Or a system of digital audio files that would let me use a tune I bought in any player? That’s it for me. Now it’s your turn. E-mail me at bhusted@ajc.com or post here. I’ll pick the best responses for a future column.
Don’t get mad, get even.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns
Comments
By Tony Womble
September 9, 2007 10:12 AM | Link to this
Recognizing the problems that ISPs have in protecting users, I find that Bellsouth’s email design is extremelty poor. They have decided that I should not be able to send emails from Outlook, unless I am at my home location…or at least in a Bellsouth connected location. Since I travel frequently this prevents me from using Outlook and I am constrained to using the Bellsouth email web site. However, all incoming emails are saved to Outlook and deleted from the web site. Thus I cannot reply to emails when I am not at home.
It seems that requireing a user response before sending emails would provide the protection that Bellsouth is trying to impose, without causing a significant impediment in using my email programs. Responding with a pin number or entering some text from a bit-mapped image, as many sites are now using, should eliminate the spammers use of my computer for sending out their illegal spam.
Bellsouth (now AT&T)needs to use more vision in their design approaches.
By Jan M
September 9, 2007 5:01 PM | Link to this
Ditto to Tom’s Bellsouth/AT&T email interface concerns. I too use Outlook (not Express) and can’t receive responses to my Outlook originated messages from Bellsouth/AT&T webmail users. AT&T tech support offered no solution.
My other pet peeve is the lack of compatible memory card media on digital cameras.
By Arvind Jain
September 10, 2007 9:54 AM | Link to this
I also do not like the Web interface for Bellsouth. I was not able to find an attachement that came to me on the Web mail. As for the problem of incoming mails being deletd from the website, I have the settings in the Outlook as follows: Option “Leave a copy of the message on the server” is ckecked. Option “Remove from server after n days” is set for 5 days. This allows me to view all the mail from the Web evenif it has been viewed using the outlook interface. Arvind.
By Ssgreeno
September 10, 2007 12:27 PM | Link to this
My absolute main gripe is with the Instructions/manuals that come with everything. Some are written by third world workers and aren’t even decent English. Most are by computer whizes. I am an ordinary person with no real talent for electronics. Make it plain enough for me to understand. I am tired of “grappling” with how to work/set up things. Thank God there are others like me on the internet who can usually answer questions that the instructions Should have covered!
By Tim
September 10, 2007 12:51 PM | Link to this
As for the Bellsouth email issue, there is a simple solution for it if you are willing to pay a little more - use a separate email provider from my ISP. By doing such, you can get your own domain name, email address and many times website that you keep forever. It allows you (me) the flexibility of switching ISPs when the pricing changes and not have to worry about changing my email address, yet again. I have used ICDsoft.com for many years and been very happy. I’m sure there are many others, but the trick is finding a provider that allows you to send/receive email using their email servers, not your ISP’s.
As for my pet peeves, allow me to play DRM-enabled music on multiple devices. I’d like to play my apple-purchased songs on another MP3 player or on my Tivo-based DVR. I may just have to go back to purchasing my music in CD form and ripping it again. I understand the right mgmt issues and that artists want to get paid for their efforts, but don’t make me (the consumer that pays your bills) to suffer with more difficult usage of the technology!
By Bill Knight
September 10, 2007 5:25 PM | Link to this
Greetings Bill: I’m something of a slow-learning dinosaur, trying not to get run over by changes in technology. So pardon this humble question: Can I subscribe to an email feed of your column? I learn a lot by reading you but feel I need to do more. If so would you please guide me through your page/site to do this? Thanks. Bill Knight. – runbill131@yahoo.com
By Bill
September 10, 2007 9:16 PM | Link to this
Hi Bill, you can use an RSS feed that will update automatically to your computer. It isn’t an e-mail list (ListServ). But you’ll get something that you can view in Explorer that’s delivered to you. To find out how to do it - it’s pretty simple - just click on the link on the left side of the page that offers an RSS feed of this blog.
And thanks.
Bill
By Michael
September 11, 2007 5:42 AM | Link to this
Boy, do I see a lot of noobish complaints.
If you want to check your e-mail everywhere, sign up for a free e-mail account from Google or Yahoo. You can even use Outlook or Apple Mail to check gmail.
Compatible memory cards for cameras? I’m not exactly sure what your gripe is, but most consumer-level cards use SD cards (except Sony, which uses the proprietary Memory Stick). Professional-grade cameras use Compact Flash. As confusing as it all may be (it’s not), you can find USB card readers that will read at least 12 different formats for maybe $15.
If you don’t like listening to music outside of iTunes and using an iPod, why are you buying it from there anyway? Every other MP3 player on the market is a second-rate piece of junk compared to the iPod line, so you’re getting what you pay for. Another secret related to this: You can burn audio CDs (not mp3 CDs) from the music you buy from iTunes. These can then be ripped anywhere as DRM-free MP3 files.
Speaking of which, I haven’t seen a review saying the iPhone “isn’t all that great” when handling calls. Problems? Sure. But even my Motorola RAZR can often not be loud enough unless I push it into my ear (same goes for the Motorola bluetooth headset I have).
Of course, as an Apple person, I must laugh at all the complaints about viruses, firewalls, spyware, etc. We Mac users keep telling you these problems are avoidable in Mac OS X. When your big, bad computer keeps giving you all those problems and you persistently keep buying the same darn things, whose fault is it that there are so many problems with your computer?