Toshiba...Satellite laptop junk! Best Buy lemon a plague...

Satellite Model L455-S5975

A lemon!

Don't let the sleek high-tech outercase fool 'ya.

Or, be tempted to snap up the conveniently-sized laptop because Best Buy is seemingly selling it at generous bargain-basement prices.

It fact, it may be wise to take a gander of my review of BEST BUY, too.

Post: 12/27/09

http://ijulian.blogspot.com/2009/12/best-buydeceptive-business-practises.html


The truth of the matter?

Toshiba's Satellite Model L455-S5975 is a piece of junk!

Uh-huh!

I am one of the hapless consumers who purchased the Toshiba laptop at Best Buy on a Christmas Day sale and I've been regretting the purchase ever since day one.

The cursor zig zags across the screen at whim (a hover adjustment won't correct the snafu), posts vanish into thin air shortly after I hit the publish button (in spite of the fact the data was saved), and odd-ball error warnings confuse the heck out of me.

For instance, after drafting and editing a post to publish to the "Tattler" web site - instead of flashing onto the world wide web post- haste at the flick of my finger - a dialogue box may pop up that is downright perplexing.
"Could not perform function due to conflict of edits"

Huh?

Once a piece is edited, it's edited, isn't it?

How could there be a conflict?

And, on occasion when I publish a post, the caption remains intact but the "body" of the story has gone missing for some inexplicable reason.

At this juncture, I have to scramble to the edit bay to "delete" the skewered post before my readers do in order to save face.

No, those are not always typos (or misspellings) folks!

During some bull sessions when I am half-way through penning a feature, the screen suddenly hazes over, and a dialogue box pops up.

"Windows has stopped working"

At this juncture, I am offered the option of shutting down the program until Windows finds a solution to the problem or continuing.

Either choice will deliver up the same annoying results.

Windows "shuts down" entirely - at which point - I lose all my work (in spite of the fact the material was saved).

Curiously, on other occasions - when I choose the "shut down" option - a dialogue box will immediately pop up on the screen indicating that the page has been restored.

Sometimes, the edit box bay opens up where I left off.

More often than not, though, all the clever turns-of-phrases have disappeared into the ether!

Inputting data is often a frustrating experience as well.

For instance, while I am in the midst of writing a paragraph - every two letters or so - the cursor jumps back of its own accord.

If my eyes are not constantly on the screen paying attention, the paragraphs will end up a lot of gobbly-gook that run together and require a total rewrite.

Then, there is the issue of  WiFi connection.

In the midst of a session online, the computer will suddenly switch to another service in the neighborhood that I do not have access to.

Although Toshiba has installed an option which allows for the user to remain "fixed" on one WiFi service - it simply does not function - when commanded to do so.

The hover feature also appears to have a mind of its own.

On occasion when my fingers glide a hair's breath over the keys - functions start up unexpectedly - causing a big snafu on screen.

Text switches from big to small without warning, requests to close a session register as "unexpected shut-downs" -  later require special action by the user to undo - you name it.

Argh!

Apple, you're lookin' better every day.

http://www.julianayrs.com

Google...Swiss residents irate over privacy issues!

Officials who hail from the land of the majestic Alps are hopping-mad with the suits at google for ignoring Switzerland's privacy laws.

According to Hanspeter Thuer, the Federal Data Protection Commissioner, images that Google captured on the sly for inclusion in their world-wide mapping service failed to obscure the identities of pedestrians in plain view on Swiss streets required by law.

Ooops!

The precision watch-makes are touchy enough about disclosing bank account numbers.

Surely - the worldly-wise data crunchers at Google were hip to the fact that capturing a mug on camera in Switzerland without permission - was a definite no-no from the get-go!

On the heels of a demand that the revealing photographs be deleted from web sites currently offering them up to Internet users here and abroad, the powers-that-be at Google allegedly agreed (red-faced, no doubt) to "work" with the Swiss Government to resolve the issues.

I thought googling myself was bad.

Now I can't even do that in private, eh?

http://www.julianayrs.com

Germany...forced speech. Bloggers comply or face fines!

I have heard of free speech, but forced speech?

The startling news astounded when it first streaked like lightning around German websites in recent days.

The public library system was going to force every blogger and website to submit material for their digital library files or face a potential fine of $12,700 (U.S. Funds).

Turns out, the "thought police" were not in an arm-twisting mode, at all.

Not yet, anyway.

In a bid to document "pop culture" on the world-wide-web in a digital format for future reference, officials have been painstakingly selecting specific material from a handful of websites that are presumably representative of "voices" on the net.

To ensure the project is completed without a hitch, the Government took the unusual precaution of legislating applicable penalties that may be levied against any blogger or net surfer inclined to object to use of material.

It appears that the Government may be taking a nod from Europeana - the new European Union digital library - which has been actively digitalizing 2m books, recordings, and paintings and films for their files.

The archives may be helpful to researchers in the future who may want to take a reliable peek into cultures from earlier ages - no matter how advanced or primitive - and at break-neck speed.


When the Europeana digital library went live last month, the site promptly crashed.

No wonder.

They're boasting a staggering 10 million hits a month from around the globe.

The beauty of the digital library is its permanency.

Currently, the information highway offers up no guarantees.

Internet pages shut down, for instance, as bloggers close-out their accounts and start fresh elsewhere.

Because technology will leap ahead, too - documentation of the "dark ages" in the "wild" on the Internet - may be of interest too.

So, there is an ongoing effort to coral that data.

A U.S. based archive is currently involved in an ambitious effort to collect data on these shores, but the task is monumental.

And, there is the question of storage space.

So - have libraries prioritized data collection at this point in time - or are scholars going about the project willy-nilly?

Where do a blogger's daily ramblings rank in the scheme of things, for instance.

"We don't have any predefined criteria," noted Rory McLeod, the British Library's digital preservation manager.

"The library captures large slices of the web, but what is important to retain is the Internet's changing technological specifications so that future researchers can reconstruct them."

My vision for the future?

A holograph library!