Vista’s not that bad, I guess.. Just not that good.

Might be a market too niche for Apple to get into, but tablet PCs have their uses and they are especially useful in my work. Also, it’s strangely addictive to just scribble nonsense on the screen.

A worthy purchase I made two days ago. Besides, it has pretty much earned back its cost!

Over the past week I have gotten myself a new iPhone! A white 3GS with 32GB of storage space. I still remember the days of 500MB hard disks on my computer, so I think 32GB on a phone is pretty impressive. After fitting in random videos, apps, photos and my entire music library, all 11GB of it, I still have a sizable 10GB left, which makes me wonder why I didn’t get the cheaper 16GB instead other than the fact that I’m a spendthrift.

So, meet the family:

I’m starting a collection.

I tried to like it, but it’s so jarring I can’t believe anyone at Apple could have allowed it to be released as is. A little Googling later, here is how my Exposé looks like.

Much better.

In the land of unsightliness known as the PC world, this one isn’t quite bad every all.

Move over, yet to be launched ASUS T91, and in comes the less well-known Gigabyte Touchnote T1028M.

Time for some serious consideration.

It is perfect. ASUS has designed this for me. It has everything I want. It is extremely light, it is very small, it is affordable and it sports a touchscreen. Everything I could wish for but an Apple logo.

Speaking of which, my half-a-decade love affair with Apple is now on the rocks. I don’t have the latest iPhone anymore; I have an outdated MacBook Pro; I have not much urge to upgrade any of my current Apple gear. In fact, my family just got an antiquated white MacBook instead of the much lauded unibody ones because it was just $360 cheaper. I’m kinda having buyer’s remorse over not spending a bit more for the unibody, but hey – $360 is a third of the T91.

I want the oft-rumoured Mac tablet, but it’s nowhere near fruition. Apple, you break my heart and I have to find comfort in ASUS. Forgive me for cheating.

This is good stuff.

Tethering also works very, very well. I can hook my iPhone to my Mac effortlessly via cable or Bluetooth, and the speeds are really nice for something that’s mobile.

<3

Wide-screen texting is nice. Also seen is copy/paste and the MMS icon.

SMS forwarding… I’ll claim my money from him tomorrow when I see him.

Emailing of multiple photos.

The most recent OS brings features such as MMS, copy/paste and SMS forwarding, amongst many other features, to the iPhone. These missing features have been the biggest complaints by detractors, but I cannot remember the last time I ever needed to MMS or forward an SMS.

Oh well, they are still nice to have. The real nice thing that I’m looking forward to is all the push-enabled apps that will hit the App Store next week. Finally, I can be on MSN Messenger 24/7 on the go!

People are probably wondering why I’m so happy about this news, especially since I’m an avid Apple fan. Most people don’t realize iShop is just an Apple reseller, so they are not related to Apple at all. While Apple is laughing all the way to the bank with their new unibody notebooks and JesusPhone, iShop apparently has problems with sales.

Not surprising really. In my part-time stint there I didn’t have much of a good impression of the management. Admittedly I made mistakes here and there while working and incurred their wrath now and then, but I don’t think it’s a subjective opinion when I think that the management made many unwise decisions.

Oh well, water under the bridge now. I wish the staff all the best, and I will try to be less gleeful about the shop’s misfortune.

Interestingly, people buy extended warranties on their electronics so that they don’t need to spend money to replace them when they break down, but are unwilling to spend a bit to protect themselves from hospital bills. Talk about priorities.

Anyway let’s begin on what to do when your gadget stops working the way it should.

What you need:

• Time (anywhere between 20-60 minutes)
• Invoice of product
• A phone
• Computer with internet access
• Being patient but firm
• Product itself in front of you

See if anyone has the same problem

First it is good to Google the web to see if other people are experiencing the same problem as you are having with the electronic. If it is a known issue and you have used the product properly, they will fix it promptly.

Then again, even if it broke under not-so-proper usage, there’s still a good chance of getting it resolved – but that’s an article for another day.

Hot Line Tip

The second step is obvious, and that is to find the company’s technical support hotline.

Be prepared to press “1 for English”, “3 for monitors and other accessories”, and “0 to speak to a customer care officer” more than a few times as you may have to make more than one phone call, so it might be useful to jot the numbers down so you can just press them instantly instead of relying a computerized voice laced with fake enthusiasm repeatedly telling you which numbers to press.

Prepare your Serial Number

Thirdly, prepare your personal particulars, which is a no-brainer. Usually they will ask you for your name and then what problem you are having, but the most important detail of all would be the product’s serial number.

You can give your name as Bill Gates if you’re dealing with Microsoft’s hotline, but the more useful thing would be to mentally prepare a list of country names to represent each letter of the alphabet as you recite the serial number to some worker in India or Australia where the tech support jobs are outsourced to.

“Troubleshooting”

Of course, they will ask you to describe your problem, so just accurately tell them what is happening to your product. If the problem doesn’t happen all the time, tell them that it is an “intermittent issue”. They should tell you a few steps to troubleshoot the product, but you don’t actually have to do it since, you know, they can’t see you, so just say that you have tried everything they have suggested.

Resolution

Once they acknowledge the problem, they will log a case for you and may prescribe a resolution on the spot. Regardless the case, they will provide you with a case ID. Jot down the case ID, an alphanumeric string that is now more useful than the serial number itself.

Once you have the case ID, you just need to quote it at anytime should you call the hotline again. They will have your details and thus you won’t need to spend time repeating your personal particulars and things like that.

Depending on what the outcome is, they may either ask you to go down to a service centre to get your item checked, or they may just replace it for you at your doorstep. I have nothing good to speak of non-Apple computers, but I am very pleased with Dell’s management of my Dell monitor’s problem. Within two days of completing a twenty-minute call (a relatively short one when dealing with tech support), they had a DHL guy come to grab my monitor and give me a new one.

Should they not offer you a resolution that you are satisfied with, you may attempt to reason with them. Explain calmly but firmly that whatever fault the product is having is inconveniencing you, and that you were just using it properly (haha!). If that still fails, request them to escalate the case. I am not sure if all companies practise this, but I do believe most tech support hotlines have a hierarchal system. All new cases will go straight to tier 1 support staff who have less power to resolve the situation. If they fail to resolve it they may escalate your case to tier 2, especially if you request for it. Personally I have only reached tier 2 only a few times, and problems were solved there and then.

If all else fails, create a topic about it in a popular online forum of the company’s products and wait for the responses.

It’s Steve Jobs speaking at a Standford graduation ceremony several years back. It may be an old video, but I think what he said then is truly inspirational and even more relevant now in light of his medical circumstances.