Category Archives: Rants

Things that irk me and I feel like I have to share

Best Buy: Names Were Changed To Protect The Guilty

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Best Buy has long forced pushed sold offered a computer “Optimization” service when you buy a new pc/laptop, or take one in for repair check that.  In fact, they have gone so far as to “pre optimize” pc’s and laptops that are on sale so you are left with no choice but to pay the $39 fee because by the time you come along to buy your computer, all of the non-optimized ones are already gone.  How convenient.  Never mind the fact that if this were really true, that in every case the non-optimized units flew out the door before the optimized ones, that alone should tell Best Buy that this service offering is ridiculous.  But, I digress.

Before we go any further, let me explain and get you up to speed (if you don’t already know, that is).  The “Optimization” service that Best Buy is forcing down peoples throats is nothing but some basic maintenance tasks that almost anyone can do, especially with a little direction from a friend, Google or a handy dandy cheat sheet, etc.  We aren’t talking hard core hacking here, instead it’s along the lines of running Windows Update, removing the trial ware garbage that seems to get preloaded on all new PC’s these days, stuff like that.  Stuff that would get done anyway and that is definitely not hard to do, not complicated and NOT worth $39 bucks!

So, nowadays, after getting loads of bad press for these shoddy practices, thanks in no small part to The Consumerist who has been educating consumers for a long time now, Best Buy has finally decided to do something about this sham of a service.

  • Have they stopped doing it?  No.
  • Have they started offering it for free since it’s something any chimpanzee (Read: Geek Squad) can do?  No.
  • Have they decided the customer is just as well off doing it themselves and even printed up some handy instructions on 3×5 note cards?  No.
  • Have they decided to keep the crappy service and ridiculous price the same and just change the name hoping no one will notice? DING DING DING DING

Let’s tell them what they have won Al!  Well, we would tell you what you won if we had Al, and if you had actually won anything, and if this were really a game show of some kind.  Again, I digress.  The point is that instead of fixing the problem and making changes that are good for the customer, Best Buy and their Geek Squad have simply changed the name of the problem in hopes of confusing people, thinking that maybe the customer won’t notice or that they might trick them into thinking they aren’t actually ripping anyone off.  Alas, that isn’t the case, and Best Buy/Geek Squad will keep on taking advantage of the masses that don’t know any better.

This is where you come in folks, spread the word and tell everyone you know, let’s make sure that big stores like Best Buy know that we aren’t going to take their crap anymore.  Fighting back with your wallet or pocket book is the only way to make them take notice.  Thank you Consumerist for looking out for us little guys and helping to keep us from getting reamed.

Read more about the “Optimization” service here.

Read the article about changing the service name here.

Finally, a good charity that does it right!

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Cp_logo_croppedOK folks, this one is important so listen up.  I get calls all the time from “charities” soliciting money for their cause.  When you ask a few questions you find out this is a front company for the “charity” and they are skimming as much as 80% to 85% of your donation to cover “administrative fees”!!!  Talk about getting screwed.  We might donate $100 (it makes the math easy), and $15 or $20 might make it to those who need it.  That to me is not acceptable so I don’t give them any of my hard earned duckets.

Now, that isn’t to say that I don’t give money to charity, on the contrary, I do.  But I have been burned in the past so I try to check them out now.  That’s why this post is important, I found a great charity that helps children in need, it was started by a pair of cool guys (Yep, the same pair that brought us Penny Arcade) and they take almost nothing in “administrative fees”.  Instead of taking 85% off the top, these guys take as little as possible and make sure it doesn’t go over 2% or 3%.  Yeah, you read that right, it’s not a typo.  Have I got your attention now?  Good.

The charity is called Child’s Play, and they work to help children who are stuck in hospitals with long term illnesses cope with the mental anguish, fear, boredom and everything else they go through.  Tons of money goes into the medical research side of things which is good, but these guys are trying to help the other side, the kids and coping with whatever hardship they are going through.  They are hooked up with over 70 hospitals all over the world with more getting added all the time.  Most donations are made through a third party like Amazon.com.  You can go to the Child’s Play website to pick the hospital of your choice, and then buy something on amazon for that hospital.  It can be a toy, a game, a game console, books, whatever moves you, it’s all good.  However, instead of shipping it to your location, you can instead ship it directly to the hospital.  Wanna know the best part?  100% of that donation just went to the hospital that you picked.  You can donate money too, and other things/ways/etc that are spelled out on their website, and almost everything goes straight to the intended target.

So, check it out, take a look at the site, spread the word and when you feel like giving, do some good with a charity that is working as hard as you are to help kids that need all the help they can get.

Thank you.

NO! I don’t want the stupid Yahoo toolbar

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I know times are tough, I got it.  And I know that folks have to make a living pretty much any way they can (I do mean legally of course).  So, it shouldn’t and doesn’t really surprise me when I see some insipid phrase telling me how I really in fact do want to install that Yahoo toolbar piggy backed onto whatever the real application is that I am installing.  I mean really, are you software authors getting that much out of it that it’s OK to piss off your users?  Every time I turn around some application or installer or updater is trying to slip that damn Yahoo toolbar into my computer.  I feel like I should get dinner and a drink first at least.

Now, I have used the Yahoo toolbar in the past, long time ago it snuck in on me.  As far as I am concerned it’s malware, cause you can’t get the damn thing fully un-installed.  To be fair, it’s gotten better over the years. The un-install part that is.  I remember way back I would uninstall it, and on the next reboot it would be back.  I’d uninstall it and then delete all of the files, registry entries, everything.  And it would come back when I booted up next.  It was like that creepy guy at work that always wants to watch what you are doing over your shoulder, it wouldn’t go away.  Still, why the hell do people bundle it all over the place?  Unless something has changed it only works in Internet Exploder … er, Explorer anyway, and I don’t use IE.  Neither do more and more people as we see the browser stats shift from IE to Firefox and Chrome.  Besides, what does it really get you?  Aside from hijacking your browser which is good for Yahoo I guess, but I don’t see any benefit to the end user.  I think it’s one of those Microsoft strategies, take a crappy product, put it EVERYwhere in front of people and hope that if you tell them that they need or want it enough times, they will be stupid enough to believe it.  Or at least incompetent enough to not know how to get rid of the damn thing.

Here’s to you Yahoo, making the Internet suck just a little more each day.  Thanks.

Burger King Continues Trend Of Stupid Commercials

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I have been watching Burger King commercials and shaking my head for years now as they make some of the dumbest commercials I have ever seen.  From the “Coq Rock” chicken commercials, to now the plastic King figure acting like a drunken frat boy in perpetual party mode (“don’t fall asleep before the king”).  This is just sad that someone actually thinks these are good commercials.  I like the food at BK, but their commercials make me not want to even go there.  And to think, they are paying someone to consult with them and design these commercials LOL  Wow.