General »

I recently had a client who’s hard drive failed.  I replaced their hard drive roughly a year ago.  I replaced it with this hard drive: Western Digital Scorpio Black 320 GB Sata 3.0 Gb-s 16 MB Cache 2.5-Inch Internal Retail Kit Drives WDBABD3200ANC-NRSN.

Upon finding out that it had failed using Hitachi’s Drive Fitness Test, I promptly went to the Western Digital website to start the RMA process.  This hard drive comes with a 3-year warranty.  I started the process and attempted to do an “Advanced RMA” which basically means that I give them a credit card and they put a hold on the card for the MSRP of the hard drive, which was $120.00.  Then they send me the drive in hopes that I ship the drive back.  Otherwise, they will charge the card the full price, which again would be $120.00.

I ended up getting an error message indicating that the “Advanced RMA” could not be performed.  I tried again, same thing.  In the end it told me I had to call in to Western Digital to process the RMA.

I call in only to find out that they DO NOT provide return shipping at no additional cost.  Instead, they make YOU, the user, pay for shipping.  So on top of putting the $120.00 hold they also make you pay for shipping back to them for their own failed product.  Ingenius, is it not?

Anyways, I’m only complaining because if this had been a company called Seagate, this would NEVER have happened.  First of all, you can pay a $10.00 fee (you do not get this back), and they not only ship you the drive next day air but they also provide a return shipping label which has been pre-paid!  Can you believe it?  Oh, I forgot to mention, THEY DO NOT PUT A HOLD FOR THE MSRP OF THE HARD DRIVE ON YOUR CREDIT CARD!

It’s simply amazing that a company would go out of their way to help a client get their replacement hard drive in the fastest possible manner!

From this point on you guys can already guess who I’m sticking with in regards to hard drive purchases, yes, you got it right, Seagate.

Internet Explorer news »

This build is stable as can be.  They fixed the IntelliPoint bug that I’ve posted about many times in the past.  They essentially disabled the accelerated scrolling.  Get it at Beautyoftheweb.

General »

Over at the official Netgear forum someone created a thread with pictures indicating how to tell if you’re buying a version 1 or version 2 of the Netgear WNDR3700 wireless router.  I’m planning on buying this soon and flashing it with DD-WRT.  Yes there is a DD-WRT image floating around.  Here is a link to the DD-WRT forum thread.