They completely ignored our letter telling them the mobo and usb board had been replaced less than a week before, replaced those, and shipped it back.
It naturally has problems, one of which is that Norton disappeared: they shouldn’t have touched that.
So I called repair again. An hour and a half on the line with one fellow—turned up the problem as related to need to set the usbs that draw power NOT to turn off after 5 minutes. Eh?
And apparently ‘power surge’ doesn’t mean power surge, it means—check your usb settings.
THis would be a software/setup problem. We adjusted it.
I proceeded to download Norton.
And started to restore my files.
Blue screen of death re a, yes, a conflict error…forget the exact terminology, but things weren’t matching up as they should. I note my system clock is some 2 hours and some minutes OFF. I call Dell. Get a different repair person.
Who updates a bunch of drivers and resets the system clock.
We are now downloading my files from Carbonite back onto that computer, and the word from Carbonite is, don’t turn off your computer and b) expect this to take ‘a few days,’ unquote.
Jane has had a mucky day of her own. I am not having a good one. I tell you, if I didn’t know a new system without such issues is arriving in a little more than a week, I’d be vewy, vewy angwy just about now, to quote Mr. Elmer Fudd.
It’s remotely possible that this machine will rise from the dead and perform immaculately, but after all that to-do, they send it back with a screwed up system clock and a protective program uninstalled? Yeah. I strongly suggested they send around a USB memo to the repair people online AND to their center down in Houston. I thought that was moderately phrased.
I’d still write a letter to Dell telling them exactly what you told us, and that it seems that their technicians either ignore notes from users or they read them and toss them away. It’s like the old-time doctors, “doctor knows best” at what’s wrong with you. Never mind that it’s your body, you’re the one experiencing the symptoms, doctor knows best.
When I did computer repair, it was like pulling teeth out of the customer to tell me what was wrong with the computer. If they gave me a note that said, “This computer is doing this and that when I do that other thing.”, I’d have a pretty good idea where to start. These folks should know better, but again, it’s that “doctor knows best” attitude, in where I’m the technician, you just sit back and let us “fix” your machine. Yeah, it sounds like they fixed it, all right……if this problem doesn’t clear up, I would still let them know, and not necessarily in nice, flowery terms, that they SCREWED IT UP even more. Just my opinion, though
No, not really “DKB”, more like a following what the “Knowledge Base” says to do for certain symptoms (which is only sometimes right), and being pressured to turn the repairs around so fast they don’t get much chance to actually see all the symptoms.
Well, reading the accompanying document to learn that the Knowledge Base fix had just been applied and abjectly failed would have been a good first step.
Suffice it to say, when I reported what Round 2 techs had done back to the Round 1 techs, there was a great deal of facepalm applied.
My case tech is now talking about replacing the machine. Another is saying it was a setting that should have been applied.
What Round 1 techs are also saying is that uninstalling a copy of Norton was not what they should have done, either. Especially since when I reinstalled it, it then reverted to cast-iron defense with no loopholes and screwed up the Carbonite Restore of files.
Fortunately this is not my first rodeo re computer repairs, but this is certainly one of the longest, most screwed up, most frustrating messes I’ve had.
Moderately phrased, huh? Does that mean that it only blisters skin, but doesn’t take the paint off the walls?
Or that it scorches paper, but doesn’t burn ears. Yet.
Oh, drat. CJ, I thought I’d copied down your recipe for a white/cream/cheese sauce for enchiladas, and a related recipe for a Mediterranean spice mix you make. I believe these were around November or December.
Er, could you please point me to the posts so I can copy those down again? Thanks!
I fixed some chicken the other night with a ready-made lemon pepper shaker and overdid the pepper content (for my taste). The next meal, I remedied this with a slightly modified stir-fried rice, plus a little sour cream. Now inspiration has struck for something else, for the next time I do this, and I think I have a recipe idea going which would use those Mediterranean spices.
I’ll write down a preliminary recipe and post that to my blog in a few minutes, then I’ll likely modify it after trying it out, probably next week. (After I use what I have and fix some shrimp with an étouffée kit just bought yesterday.)
http://new.wavewithoutashore.cwgservices.org/?p=6089
(Google is your friend: site:http://www.cherryh.com/ spice mix )
THank you, PJ!
Knowing the ‘site:’ syntax is helpful – that search had it as the first response.
The white sauce is easy: butter melted, sprinkle in a tablespoon of flour to make a roux, then add chicken broth, sour cream and a little spice to your taste, possibly including a tiny bit of nutmeg. Or you can buy the ‘Classico’ brand white sauce in a jar which is really quite good.
For western Med (Italian) spicing of anything from toasted bread to pizza, the base is salt, black pepper, basil; for a slight change, and involving anything tomatoey, add oregano.
For the eastern Med, add to the above: powdered clove, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. If you want to keep traveling east you can experiment with cardamom, which I don’t like that much.
I’m also not too fond of cilantro, either, which often goes in red sauce and salsa. And we don’t use onions or chives or shallots. Can get away with real garlic but not dried garlic.
We never keep milk around: it spoils too easily and we rarely use it. But if you are out, and the recipe calls for it—add water to sour cream. Works like a charm and lasts much longer in the fridge, besides being a good topping on its own.
Powdered milk in half the water it calls for works too, and the stuff lasts for years and years.
Diluted yogurt might work also. (You can even buy it ready to drink.)
I found a variation using your white sauce in a casserole with lots of shredded Parmesan, lump crabmeat, and artichoke hearts. It was from a Creole recipe book, so the primary white sauce spice was Tabasco. Cold, it makes a fine appetizer dip.
Aha! CJ, PJ, Chondrite, thanks all! I’ve now got the recipes copied down from that thread and this one.
Chondrite, that crab and artichoke dish sounds great. May have to try that soon! Light on the Tabasco, in my case.
I think the Eastern Med spice mix you listed, CJ, may make it into the recipe I have in mind. I’m not sure if what I’ve come up with has any specific regional / ethnic background (mutt?) but it started with American, Chinese-American, and Cajun-French influences.
I’ll have the preliminary, untested as yet version posted later this evening (in a few minutes) on my blog.
A preliminary, not yet tested recipe is on my blog at:
http://shinyfiction.com/blog/?p=55
I expect to try it out toward the end of next week and make adjustments.
Ben, do you have any sensitivities or allergies, or things you ought not to eat?
I don’t have any food allergies that I know of. 🙂 Fortunate, that way. — Milk and nuts are fine, for instance. — CJ’s and Jane’s onion and (lesser) garlic allergy surprised me initially.
I’m not big on hot-spicy/peppery, but my mom and great-grandmother were. My tolerance has grown over the years, though.
No pet allergies either. Very glad of that.
Molds and pollen can drive my sinuses nuts, but otherwise OK.
I still have recipes at: http://www.shinyfiction.com/recipes/ but I haven’t yet added a few I’ve tried recently. It requires a round-to-ft. Or even a not-so-round-to-it. 🙂
I was visiting my sister, and discovered she eats her oatmeal with pepper. There’s a blend sold by W*lM*rt that’s on the order of 2 tsp coarse-ground black pepper with 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper. It’s surprisingly good on hot cereal. (I got home and made a batch using 1/4 tsp cayenne and 1/4 tsp ancho powder to 2 tsp coarse black pepper.)
Many older folk eat their oatmeal, or grits, or polenta, or other hot grain breakfast substance as a savory, rather than sweet cereal. My mother puts salt and butter on her Cream of Wheat.
My current online hate is for the annoying autoplaying (LOUD!) ads that pop up on almost every news feed. Adblock catches many, but has some of its own twitches, so the only immediate recourse is to turn off your speakers.
There was a family story about one time when I was small and we visited my paternal grandparents, grandma and grandpa.
I was small enough that my mom and dad were not sure if I knew what it meant, when I said that my Malt-o-Meal or Cream of Wheat, whichever it was, was, yuck, too salty! So they took a bite to taste test. Hmm, yep, the kid knew what salty was! But how could it be salty…?
The answer was there on the kitchen table. There was a sugar bowl, capped. Either they or I had added a teaspoon or two of sugar to my hot cereal, and a little margarine. … Only there was salt in the sugar bowl. Hmm. Rural, mountain grandparents can have very different ways, it seems. LOL! … This was cause for a little puzzled discussion between parents and grandparents. For whatever reason, they had a sugar bowl with salt, instead of salt and pepper shakers and, well, a sugar bowl with sugar, or a shaker for sugar.
Mom and dad knew from then on that I had learned the difference between salty and sweet and spicy and sour, though!
I think they were just as puzzled as I was. (But surely more polite than the little guy who said it was “too salty!” Not sure if I said it was yucky or not. Heh.)
Uh…we were always careful to test what was what, when visiting after that. 😀
My opinions on what I liked or how it tasted were rarely questioned after that, with a few notable exceptions. (But spinach and broccoli were both fine, for instance. I was good about most things.)
So I guess I’m unclear, is it now usable or not?