Shitty Products

[Sylvester]

http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/th...h_the_economy/

The Problem With the Economy

My computer's memory fills up a few times a day, and then the system crashes. It doesn't seem to matter what applications I use. And closing applications doesn't free up memory. This has been true on every computer I have owned, both Macs and PCs. Rebooting periodically is the only temporary fix. To which I say, "SERIOUSLY?? WTF???? IS THIS REALLY AN UNSOLVEABLE PROBLEM, LIKE FRICKIN' GRAVITY???"

So yesterday I did some searching and found online a piece of software that would allegedly monitor my memory use and allow me to free up the stranded parts when needed. It got excellent reviews from professionals in various magazines. The thing I knew for sure is that one of two things would happen:

The software would do absolutely nothing.
The software would crash my system.
On the plus side, it did not crash my system. But neither did it do anything. I just sent an e-mail to the support address to ask if the buttons are some sort of placebo or practical joke. I can press all sorts of buttons on their unfathomable interface and the little graph that shows my memory use stays exactly the same. And just to make things ironic, THE FRICKIN' THING USES MEMORY!!! It's like buying paint remover that is actually paint.

This leads me to my point. I think the problem with our economy is that most products are complete and utter crap. Suppose, for example, that I want to buy a shirt that looks okay on a guy my age. I have a choice of styles that include surfer dude, preppy douchebag, grandpa's barber, and human billboard. No one even bothers trying to make stylish clothes for the LARGEST SEGMENT OF THE POPULATION OF THE COUNTRY. Allow me to act surprised that Macy's is having trouble.

Try to buy some furniture. I dare you. It will take two months to arrive, if you're lucky. I am trying to figure out why no one jumps on the market opportunity to make furniture that can be delivered in only 6 weeks. Seriously. If the demand for frickin' chairs is that high, why aren't more people making them? Is EVERYONE busy making software that doesn't work?

How about my new printer? The box said it can fax, scan, copy, print, floss my teeth, whatever. Every time I want to print a page of text, I hold my breath and burn incense. It's an iffy proposition. I think the drivers actually rot. And God forbid I try to feed the device some important documents in the irrational hope of scanning or copying them. I kiss the documents goodbye before I send them to their destruction in the machine's bowels.

As I write this, I'm waiting for a response to why my memory-freeing software doesn't free any memory. I already know they will tell me to push exactly the buttons I already pushed, and when it doesn't work, they will act mystified and tell me they have never seen this issue before.

That's what's wrong with the economy.

[Jomama]

Spot on, and he's only scratched the surface..

[Klaus]

There are so many horror stories of programs like the one described above. One of my favorite places to shop was Best Buy but now I can barely stand going there for anything. The marking up of HDMI cables to $100 when they cost $5 to produce and the whole Geek Squad $50 to install memory just makes me angry..... And don't get me started on the warranties because I lose me mind. I read that BB is now installing programs like the one described above on every computer they sell and charging a premium to set up the computer etc.

[Dath]

I went to Best Buy a couple weeks back to get an HDMI cable and found it amusing how the salesman was pushing me to buy the $60 Best Buy brand as opposed to the $40 non-BB brand.

I told him I only needed 6 feet at max. Well, the $40 cable was 7 ft, while the $60 was an astonishing 8 ft. I could get a whole extra foot of cable that I don't need for $20 more! I pointed this out to the salesman who then proceeded to say that the $60 cable had a higher return rate. At this point, I grabbed both cables and pointed to each return rate. To his "amazement" the return rates were exactly the same.

That store lives off of car audio and TV add-on markups. Too bad their salespeople are a bunch of asshats. Hmm...that's where Akayra worked. Funny.

[Chadwick]

The best part is like klaus said, there are (in fact most) $5-$15 HDMI cables are just as good if not better than the $40-$140 ones. Back when i did not know this i bought one from best buy that was bad out of the box. Now i get the Belkin $15 ones from sams club (which i think are 8' long) and they have all been perfect. What a racket.

I also saw the whole news story about the best buy "optimizer" software package that they push to have installed before you take your computer home. Fuck BB.

[Klaus]

My favorite is to walk through BB and see how many employees ask you "can I help you find something"? I know they are required to but FUCK last time it was like 10 people. And then at the register it's always "did you find everything ok"? STFU yes I found everything or I would have asked one of the 10 people that bothered me.

[Jomama]

because i lose me mind....

yarrr!!!

[Kyrillian]

There are so many horror stories of programs like the one described above. One of my favorite places to shop was Best Buy but now I can barely stand going there for anything. The marking up of HDMI cables to $100 when they cost $5 to produce and the whole Geek Squad $50 to install memory just makes me angry..... And don't get me started on the warranties because I lose me mind. I read that BB is now installing programs like the one described above on every computer they sell and charging a premium to set up the computer etc.

I was reading on Consumerist that they would list a laptop in their sale flyer and then they would mysteriously only have the pre-optimized versions for 50 dollars more. The mystery shopper for consumerist went to like 10 best buys and surprisingly none of them had anything but the pre-optimized laptops!

About useless programs though, when I was in college I got a terrible virus from downloading too much crap. Wound up having to do a full hard drive wipe and start from scratch but my PC was never the same. I got a program called Zone Alarm that was listed as something to protect you from malicious programs/people trying to get in and out. I used the trial version of the program and every day I would get at least 1 alert about someone to break into my PC. So when the trial runs out I'm like I need to buy the full version to protect myself from all these hackers! I had the full version installed for 2 months without 1 single alert...

[Chadwick]

Fixed.

.....when I was in college I got a terrible virus from downloading too much porn.

Or,

.....when I was in college I got a terrible virus from sex with unclean women.