H.O.M.E - Haters Of Mooing Evil's Journal [entries|friends|calendar] H.O.M.E - Haters Of Mooing Evil [ website | Gateway Really Sucks ] [ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ] [ calendar | livejournal calendar ]

Lindows = Linspire [25 Jul 2004|06:58pm] leopardwolf [ mood | amused ] So much has happened in the world of computers since the last activity we have seen around here. It's time to dust things off. Hello to all you new people who spontaniously appeared here! My mate recently got a job in helpdesk work, so I am certain I will have plenty of fun stories to share about it, given time. For now, I offer amusement for those of you who still happen to watch for posts here: http://www.linspire.com/RunLinspireFlash.php post comment

[21 May 2004|03:52am] rileywestwolf If you like and support George W. Bush, THEN YOU'RE AN IDIOT http://www.congress.org/congressorg/issues/alert/?alertid=5834001&content;_dir=ua_congressorg 3 comments|post comment

Offshore tech support... aarggh! [12 May 2004|11:04pm] codeman38 [ mood | annoyed ] I remember when I first got my Gateway laptop a few years ago through my university as part of a scholarship reward; though the company had already entered the large-corporate-entity, store-owning stage of its life by that point, they were still at least somewhat respectable. I actually had to call tech support a number of times that very year because of various driver conflicts I was encountering, and was met on the other end by people who actually understood what I was talking about, offered solutions that worked, and didn't try to treat me like I was an idiot who had no working knowledge of computers whatsoever. And that continued for another year or so. Despite the fact that Gateway was becoming even more of an evil corporate entity, their support was still quite decent; I had to make a call to support when my lapcow's screen fell off its hinges, and it was still quite easy and painless. Oh, if only that were still the case. But it's not... and that's mainly because Gateway's offshored their tech support call centers to India. I recently had to make yet another call to support because the AC jack on my computer had come loose from within; not being able to charge up a laptop is a bad thing, indeed. So I have to call support to send it in and have the part replaced. And after waiting on hold for a Very Long Time, I'm greeted by someone with an impenetrable accent who most likely finds my own accent just as impenetrable. Needless to say, I had a rather difficult time explaining that I needed a part inside my laptop to be replaced. The conversation went something like this: (me) "The AC jack on my laptop is broken." (tech) "The AC jack on your laptop is broken?" (me) "Yes. The place where the power cord plugs in. It's not there anymore. There's just an empty hole." (tech) "Just an empty hole?" (me) "Yes. Just an empty hole. There's no jack there anymore." (tech) "No jack?" (ad infinitum...) Seriously, it felt like talking to one of those AI chatbots... except I had to strain even harder because I couldn't just read the response off the screen, and had to actively parse the tech's rather thick Indian accent to understand what was going on. (Of course, it also doesn't help that I have various issues understanding spoken language to begin with, but that's another rant entirely...) Somehow, I managed to actually get the tech to put in a request to have the old lapcow shipped off; I myself am not entirely sure how I did it. But perhaps the worst thing is that this was just a relatively routine call for a replacement part! I can't imagine how much more insane it would have been if I actually had to go through and follow directions to fix something, rather than just requesting that the computer be sent off for service... 3 comments|post comment

Why the cow? [10 May 2004|08:43am] kanamimi I'll prolly get in trouble for this, cause it was told in confidence by a senior tech, who had been working for Gateway for many years... But dont give a shit anymore. The Cow K, apparently a long time ago, when the guy who started Gateway (cant recall his name at the moment)... lived on a farm, in a hick town. He had to drive along this long road, every morning to his job in town, where he 'worked'. In his spare time he tried his hand at computers, trying to buid the perfect one. (in his fathers barn no less).... Well one day he was driving along this same road... and came across a dead cow in the middle of the road... He got out, examined the beast, making sure it wasnt still alive.. and just out of curiosity, (I imagine he didnt see many dead cows, living on a farm and such.) And BINGO!!! He got it!!! THE COW!!!! For who knows what reasons, the dead cow lying in the middle of the road was his imspiration for the famous 'cow box', in which all Gateways are packaged.. and now the lovely and entertaining 'mow' character on all the television commercials. You probably think Im making this up.... :shakes head: nope... wish I were.. after hearing that story I felt rather dirty for working for Gateway and having to keep my little horrible secret, that the Gateway cow is in fact and has been for many years..... dead.... lying on the side of a country road... Gives a whole new meaning to the 'cow box'..... doesnt it? post comment

MSWord Gets An Upgrade! [09 May 2004|10:25pm] leopardwolf [ mood | amused ] Be amused. http://www.hamncheez.com/media/pictures/msword.jpg post comment

1st post here [28 Apr 2004|08:28pm] luminaraunduli HA HA HA! I had just thought of making a community like this, to realise somebody else already had... GOD BLESS YOU! OH man... I've had my gateway comp, otherwise known as piecosh!t... affectionately, for a little over a year now. I wish to shoot it with a very large gun almost every minute of every day. I've gone through SO much with this comp... replacing the motherboard after only 2 months of owning it, various other problems with it, a total reboot from the beginning... reinstalling windows cause I did what I was told - downloading microsoft windows updates... which I never do anymore, and the most recent... a device driver failed, yet didn't say which one. When I called in, I spoke to some Indian guy.. ya'll know who I'm talking about? And because my warranty had just ended, he wanted me to pay another $300 for coverage to which I said no, I could buy another comp with that, and then wanted to charge me like $5 a minute for help... which knowing them, and I do, takes HOURS! I told him a few things, including that he could kiss my... well, you know. But yeah, tons of problems, and it's never ending. I was told I was getting a pretty good comp... yeah, pretty good eh? Anyhoo, it's nice to know that I'm not alone in this... but not nice to know this company sucks so bad. Anyhoo, nice to greet all you other folks in here. 7 comments|post comment

[28 Mar 2004|10:59pm] michty I'm a sys admin for the University of Michigan. Anyway we buy all Dells. I wanted a new laptop and shopped around, looking at options, cost and so on. Anyway Gateway had the 200 laptop for sale that weighed about 4lbs with the optical drive built in to the system. Super thin, light, long battery life, centrino processor. I ordered it. I should have canceled in the beginning. First they said it would be one to two weeks for delivery. It took six weeks, thus I had no laptop for the first four weeks of my class that I bought it for in the first place. Then when I got it the thing had problems with the wireless card. The guy wanted me to wipe the damn hard drive which really pissed me off. I work on computers. You don't wipe the damn hard drive everytime something doesn't work, but that's not what Gateway support people think. Anyway now the stupid thing isn't charging correctly so I have to send it in. They tell me it will take five business days just to get the damn box. Then five more business days after they get it before I will get it back. WTF? Two weeks with out my laptop? I had no idea they were this damn horrible. I deal with Dell all the time. Turn around? 24 hours. First year warranty, everything is done on site. My laptop isn't even six months old and now I have to go without it for two weeks. This company is just horrible. I not only work as a Director of an IT group for a University, but I also own a business that does professional consulting. All the time I have people asking for recommendations. I have to say that the first thing I say is "stay away from Gateway!" They are terrible. The whole "wipe you drive" everytime a key sticks is retarded and time consuming. I'm a damn sys admin. I cannot even imagine if we bought twelve of these and I had to sit on the phone for hours for a fifteen dollar part evertime something broke. Seriously. When you call because your $25 intel wireless card doesn't work they should just replace the damn thing. They must be losing money making people wipe their computers while on the phone. Ugh. Anyway... /end rant 3 comments|post comment

New [03 Mar 2004|05:35am] kanamimi Any warning to any who try to get the 'at home service'. It's only meant for people who cant PHYSICALLY take out and put in a PART, in their gateway. It's NOT at home technical support. The person that comes to your house is only supposed to take out a part and put a new one in. Their hired from people like HP. I've even heard horror stories of these guys TRYING to do technical support on the computers and voiding the warranty on the computer, because they werent supposed to be doing that crap in the first place. Oh and dont go to a gateway store... save yourself the headache. They usually just erase your HDD and halfway reinstall windows. NEVER hand over your computer to someone unless you ave your stuff backed up first. Cause you can never tell, they dont listen to you when you say, "dont delete windows please." 3 comments|post comment

New [03 Mar 2004|05:09am] kanamimi hello all. I have to admit I was a bit amused when I saw this community. I've been a Gateway hater for many years now. But let me tell ya why.... I used to work for them.. ( Read more... ) End of story.... I bought a dell..... and have only called in once..... to buy a printer. Oh, BTW... Anybody wanna know the REAL story behind the Gateway cow? 4 comments|post comment

[03 Dec 2003|12:55pm] kokopoko Massive layoffs happening at the Gateway N. Sioux City, SD location today. post comment

daa daaaaa *MOO* *stabbs* [27 Sep 2003|10:29am] naryu [ mood | blah ] Allo all :) NarNar here. Nar is here to tell you how much her gateway piece of shit sucks and a few other stories about how their service sucks. first off yes, it arrived at my door all spick n span in its shiney new decieving box of COW SPOTTED HELL. it runs the evil system of "ME" of windows (*le cry*) with this pice of crap i have gone through 5 hard drive crashes within the last 3 years one of which was within 1 month of getting it >:P~ i spent HOURS on the phone with their shitty MC ShitShit servie Reps all telling me differnt things on what to do, how to do it.. etc.. all an all thi took up 6 hours of my night and a few thoughts frustrated tears later. The next crash wasnt a crash at all, but 4 weeks in a service department because you cant open a gateway tower yourself without fucking with the warentee >.> *innocent whistles* well my floppy drive died. only reason i NEEDED a floppy was because it had the drivers for my ethernet card (sp?) which let me use my cable modem. so we had to take it into "doctor death's" waited... next thing they tell me is "oh well your CD rom is broken too.. our error..*waits* 3 weeks and 900 phone calls later i get it back... take it home, plug it in, the ASSHOLES forgot to connect my 2 CD rom drioves and my ZIP. *screams* shove inbetween that a few HD fuckups because "moo makers" did not like what i put on my HD and decided to blow up in my face... so yea.. lesson leaned kiddies.. gateway blows. dont buy. "k1LL t3H K0wZ?!?!?//!" i'm done :) hello.. my name is Naryu and i have a gateway problem :P 3 comments|post comment

Amusement! [26 Sep 2003|09:12pm] leopardwolf [ mood | giggly ] [ music | Random MP3 goodness ] Cross posted to my LJ. asdfhjkl!! - THE best 404 Error ever! I laughed SO hard. FISHY!! - This is SO addictive! Moreso than the Speartoss game! post comment

Yet Another Patch [11 Sep 2003|10:48pm] leopardwolf [ mood | headachy ] Look alive everyone! Microsloth found yet another security hole in its programming! Gasp. What a big surprise! It does just like those before it... the security flaw leaves your system open for attack in which the attacker can take over your system and all that other fun stuff we've already seen too many times before. The article And I quote from it with grand amusement: "Since early last year, *Microsoft has made software security a top priority* in an attempt to address rising customer concerns about the spread of viruses and hacker attacks." You have to love the way they try to cover their asses for mass production of faulty programming. post comment

I want one of these. [01 Sep 2003|12:07am] leopardwolf [ mood | amused ] [ music | Computer hums and Smokey cat yowls ] The Ultimate Coffee Machine What more could the office worker ask for? 1 comment|post comment

Night Of Computer Bashing! [21 Aug 2003|11:22pm] leopardwolf [ mood | amused ] [ music | Random stuff ] I am laughing soooooooooooo hard right now. Damn do I hate it when I have computer problems, but it's so amazingly amusing when you have dealt with computers of all varieties enough to understand the inside jokes and general geek humor, or random vid clips you might come across. Anyone who hasn't already seen this will get a grand kick out of it. Especially if you are familiar with both Macs *and* PCs! Computer humor ganked from drakenhart: http://www.waveworks.net/mac.html So here I am, replaying the addictive thing for about an hour now, and talking with drakenhart..... Drakenhart: *is still laughing over the mac.swf* Lhunpaurwen: ::Giggles lots:: I showed it to a handful of friends who'd understand from their own experiences, and they all cracked up laughing. Drakenhart: hehe :) Lhunpaurwen: LMAO! Drakenhart: ^.^ Lhunpaurwen: One of my friends even has a Mac herself, and she just tried to launch the vid, and the program suddenly just closed, poof! Drakenhart: LOL Drakenhart: *dies* Drakenhart: you should post this convo serious that's just damn funny! Lhunpaurwen: LOL I'm gonna! Lhunpaurwen: I can't stop replaying the damned thing, LOL Drakenhart: ^.^ ditto! Drakenhart: Mac killed my Inner Child! Drakenhart: XD Lhunpaurwen: LOL Ahem! Then earlier there was the musing over the way Microsoft has been releasing so many damned critical updates/patches recently, especially for IE related things, and especially for security issues. Here I go to do the update and read their generic message... ----------------------- Security issues identified in Microsoft [*insert product name here*] could allow an attacker to compromise systems with [*insert product name here*] installed (even if [*insert product name here*] is not used). For example, an attacker could run programs on a computer used to view the attacker's Web site. Download this update from Microsoft to help protect your computer. After installation, you may have to restart your computer. ----------------------- .... and I think to myself... didn't I already install this? Well, that's Microsloth for ya. The fix really doesn't fix anything! Yet all of their coding and program errors leave users open to the same damned thing .... ----------------------- Security issues identified in Microsoft could allow an attacker to compromise systems with any Microsoft product running (even if it's being run in a non-Microsoft environment.). In fact, even if the word Microsoft is mentioned anywhere on your system, an attacker could use this as a platform to launch a malicious attack against your system, giving them the ability to launch any code they wish. Just by reading this notice, you are at risk. Downloading this patch will not fix the issue, because it is made by Microsoft. Click OK to continue. ----------------------- Microsloth Goodness™ post comment

Another Unsatisfied Customer [31 May 2003|01:20am] leopardwolf [ mood | awake ] [ music | Crickets and water outside ] Today I went in to the local little place I use to mail packages to people. Postal Plus, family owned and operated by very nice folks. Miss Hilda, one of the owners, is extra sweet, and she's got such a wonderful sense of humor. Today I took in my OLD and trusty Gateway CPU to send up to a friend in NY. I honestly have to say, that first computer I bought through them, and that first sales rep we spoke with, were simply AWESOME. The rep got us a better deal for our money, more for our money, and the system lasted forever, and came to us without any major malfunctions. But as I have stated before, we got that Gateway about six or seven years ago. That was when they were first coming out on the market and trying to make a place for themselves. That was before their Country Stores. That was before their service dropped. So anyway, Hilda and I are packaging up the CPU and padding it good, and I pay, and she asks about the computer. I told her it was an old Gateway that would probably get made into a slave or assimilated. Then she just suddenly blurted that they had a Gateway at home and it had never been anything but trouble. She explained that when they got it, it would turn on and begin booting, then randomly turn off. She couldn't explain more to me for lack of computer knowhow, but she said after trying constantly to get it fixed, they never had. So they just dealt with it. But she said she'd never buy one again, and she'd never recommend them to anyone else. So I mentioned the way Gateway screwed us over. She was amazed and appalled at the same time, and said she'd be sure and warn others. Anyway.... let me see if I can dig up that little report I did... post comment

Sharing Thoughts [16 May 2003|10:40pm] leopardwolf [ mood | awake ] [ music | Wind outside ] I know we're not an incredibly large group, though perhaps that will change with time and word of mouth getting around. At any rate, for my final english essay this term I wrote a little something dealing with computers. I was actually trying to wait till I got the final grade before I posted the writing, but I haven't heard from my english teacher. So I shall have to try calling her perhaps. At any rate, the copy of the essay is on my other computer, so I have to transfer the file over. I plan to try and do this later tonight or tomorrow. What is the essay about? Simple really. Random ramblings about the differences between buying a brand name computer from a vendor like Dell or Gateway, or making your own system. Real nice food for thought. So stay tuned! post comment

Gateway Horror [24 Apr 2003|04:31am] leopardwolf [ mood | amused ] Here's a number of websites with many different stories from various people and their experiences with Gateway. http://www.epinions.com/content_2665848964 For the one above, once you read the main article there, if you decide to "read all comments" to see what others said, you have to start at the bottom of the page that is displayed for any of it to make any sense. The bottom is the oldest posts, the top the newest. So you have to read bottom to top for the replies to make sense. This is the one Mike and I responded to. http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2002Dec/gee20021209017656.htm Harr harr, what a greaaaat deal. 2,000 Preloaded songs. But miss a payment? All your songs go poof. Melting hard drive? This one gave me a good laugh. It's some people going back and forth on a forum, one person's hard drive died, but it was a defect drive and they got a refund. But one of the replies mentioned a Gateway computer's hard drive melting. In stock... or not? Long list of feedback from various people. Handful of good, but the majority bad. The common complaint seems to be that Gateway has developed yet another nasty habit of claiming that a product is in stock, even sending notification to let you know your orders are on their way, when indeed they are not. http://itskevin.com/rants/gatewaystory.html Nice little rant from yet another person who got screwed over by Gateway. Even wrote to the CEO! Not that it helped any, I figure. And that's all for now. That should leave plenty of reading material to anyone really interested. 1 comment|post comment

[18 Apr 2003|03:58am] rileywestwolf You don't know jack shit about a gateway untill you have to suffer with a P5-200 for 4 years. hahahahahahah..I did post comment

Gateway SUCKS? Part 1 [10 Apr 2003|06:27pm] leopardwolf [ mood | bitchy ] Our own fun with Gateway. Mike (my boyfriend) and I have been sitting here going through websites we have found where other people have complained about how badly they have been treated and how much trouble they have experienced. Without further delay, here's a post Mike compiled in response to one comment on a website we found. Gateway sucks? Come on, give me a break... You're being too nice!! Gateway is far beyond suck. Now, I remember when I first heard of Gateway. Granted, I didn't know much about computers at the time. Well, I did, but nothing compared to what I know today. Gateway seemed to be pretty cool. Go online, buy a PC, have good support. Simple, right? So what happened? Gateway got big. It went from a guy in his barn with his cow, to a mega corporation. The second they became popular, their service dropped. Here's another horror story to add to the long list. My girlfriend had purchased a Gateway PC before I met her (back when Gateway was still pretty respectable *cough*). From what I can see, it wasn't a bad system, and I'm not aware of any problems she had with them afterwards. The real problems started when they contacted her two years ago about their upgrade program. Now, before I continue, let's see what upgrade actually means. Definition as a noun. Main Entry: [1]up·grade Pronunciation: '&p-;"grAd Function: noun Date: 1873 1 : an upward grade or slope 2 : INCREASE, RISE 3 : IMPROVEMENT 2b Definition as a transitive verb. Main Entry: [2]up·grade Pronunciation: '&p-;"grAd, "&p-;' Function: transitive verb Date: 1901 : to raise or improve the grade of: as a : to improve (livestock) by use of purebred sires b : to advance to a job requiring a higher level of skill especially as part of a training program c : to raise the quality of d : to raise the classification and usually the price of without improving the quality e : to extend the usefulness of (as a device) Now, it would seem Gateway seems to pay most attention to the second to last one, D. Increase the price, decrease the quality. The friendly sales rep called and assured my girlfriend that she would receive a full upgrade of her current system. She was supposed to get the latest everything. So, who would turn down a deal like that? She accepted, and was promptly billed for the system. When the system arrived, she was on vacation at the time, so her mother set it aside in a room, and it sat there for about two months until she returned home. I was there, and we set this beautiful brand new system up. Low and behold, it was already fishy. On her last system, she had a DVDROM drive, a CDRW drive, and a ZIP drive. It seemed this only had a CDRW drive on it. Odd. 5 comments|post comment

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