HP insisted six ways from Sunday that the issue with my laptop just up and dying when the battery level indicated that there was still a 40% or more charge left had something to do with anything but the battery. Two weeks of emailing and troubleshooting and me sending my HP Pavilion dv7 to them resulted in the _ _ _ _ _ _ _ being replaced. Go ahead, fill in the blank. Here’s a hint: it begins with B and ends with ATTERY (and no, that’s not baby shower invitations).
Way to fail, HP, way to fail. You were so concerned about potentially losing out on a $50 laptop battery that you probably spent twice that amount on paying your tech people to correspond with me, and then another $100 or so to cover the shipping of my laptop both ways. Oh, and you then had to fork over a battery.
Oh well. It may have cost me a bit of time and the use of my laptop for two weeks, but at least I got what I was after — a replacement battery!
HP was lightning-fast with the repair of my laptop (I’m still not sure what they did to fix the issue; I assume I’ll find out once I get it back!), and I wish I could say the same for FedEx. They’ve had my laptop in their hands since May 1st, 2010, and here we are, seven days later, no laptop in sight. It apparently got held up somewhere, as the original delivery date of May 7th (Friday) was changed to May 10th (Monday). I don’t get it… aircraft parts & supplies can be shipped overnight to anywhere in the world practically, yet I have to wait NINE DAYS for a box to make a measly trip from California to the east coast? Ergh.
So here I sit, twiddling my thumbs. Thank god for my netbook. Otherwise, I’d be really screwed!
I have a one year old HP Pavilion dv7t. A few weeks ago the battery began losing power, big time. It went from keeping the laptop running until it was down to 6% to completely dying — and in turn causing my laptop to die — by the time it was reaching 20%. Then 30%. Then 39%. I troubleshooted everything I could think of, and then contacted HP, who made me jump through several hoops and troubleshooting steps before agreeing to bring in the laptop for service. I sent it in last week. They received it on April 29th, and then sent it right back out to me on April 30th.
I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of concerned at the short period of time that they had the laptop for. Did they simply replace the battery? The whole system? Absolutely nothing! I’m dying for details, but of course the order confirmation email and service update email says nothing. :(
Microsoft Outlook 2010 is a sexy piece of software, but unfortunately it is also quite buggy. If your installation of Outlook 2010 hangs on send/receive, here is what has personally worked for me:
- Navigate to File > Options > Add-ins, click on the Go next to Manage COM Add-ins, then uncheck any active add-ins (this will disable them)
- Close Outlook
- Ctrl + Alt + Del to bring up Task Manager, and close any instances of Outlook that may still be running
- Restart Outlook in Safe Mode by holding down Ctrl when double-clicking the Outlook icon
- Navigate to File > Account Settings > Account Settings and delete all email accounts from the list
- Close Outlook (do Ctrl + Alt + Del to check for any instances of Outlook that may still be running; close them if they are present)
- Restart Outlook in regular mode
- Add email accounts one at a time, doing a send/receive after the addition of each
This will hopefully clear up the problem! It just worked for me today, after Outlook crashed while I was trying to scroll through an email about baby shower games. Upon starting it back up it started this mess again. Argh. I wish Microsoft would get its act together on this issue, since it’s very well-known!
As the subject states, if you have an HP Mini 311 and it freezes up (black screen) if you start it up while there’s a USB dongle or mouse nano transmitter in one of the USB ports, the fix is as simple as downloading the latest version (F.15) of the BIOS. You can get it here.
(You can thank my impatience for finding this fix. ;) When you do a lot of emailing, IMing, surfing, writing on tungsten wedding bands, etc., the last thing you want to have to worry about is making sure you unplug your mouse’s USB dongle when you restart your computer!)
I don’t know if it was my blog entry that did it (yeah, I wish heh) or what, but the PayPal application is back in the Android Market. My husband actually texted me the other day to let me know, because he knew how much I missed it.
The winner of the $25 iTunes Gift Card Giveaway is Kecia. Congratulations! :)
Last spring I downloaded PayPal’s application in the Android Market. I was a frequent user of the application, since it made it insanely simple to check my balance and even send funds to family and friends. So when I got my new know T-Mobile myTouch 3G a few weeks ago, one of the first apps I checked for in the Android Market was the PayPal app. Only… it wasn’t there. It’s nowhere to be found, and I can’t find any information about it online, either. Does anybody know where it went? :(
Just for kicks, I took the time to look up all of the cell phones I’ve had in the past ten years. My first one was something like the Motorola V120. I don’t think that’s the exact one, but it’s close. I remember getting it from VoiceStream in the fall of 2000, and using pre-paid cards with it. It was purple, and it had a radio. Ooh!
My second phone was a refurb Motorola V60, picked up for $50 from a Verizon Wireless store in the spring of 2003. Ooh, flip phone! Jenn’s movin’ on up in the world.
My dad co-signed with me on a contract account with T-Mobile in the early summer of 2004, since he was worried about me driving back and forth to work, what with being pregnant with Alyssa and all that. Say hello to the Nokia 3595.
In the winter of 2005 I used a small portion of our tax return to upgrade to the uber sexy Samsung E315. Color screen, spiffy LED indicator light on the outside of the flip phone… I had it made!
Tax Return ’06 enabled me to upgrade to the Motorola Razr v3. I went to the T-Mobile store with no idea of what I wanted, and walked out with the Razr. I called my mom, only to find out she picked up the same phone the day before. She lorded my supposed “copycatting” over me for years. Literally, years.
In the winter of 2007 I purchased two used T-Moble Sidekick IIs from from Anna. I kept one, and sold the other to my mom. That phone forever spoiled me with a QWERTY keyboard.
In the summer of 2007 I absolutely drooled over the T-Mobile Dash, and used my unused ’07 upgrade to get it for $100. Sa-weet! I loved that phone, until the battery started to die, that is. It gave out after nine months, and ceased to hold a charge for longer than a half hour.
Finally, winter of 2009. Yes, I managed to hang onto a phone for more than a year. Imagine that! I was totally sold on the T-Mobile G1 after checking out Jason’s, and made it my own. In white. I mention the color because at that point, the G1s had just come on the market, and white was a very hard color to find it in. I had to drove down to Philadelphia and hit up four different stores before I found one!
And here we are, winter of 2010. The need-for-a-new-phone bug hit again, but at least this time I had an excuse to act on it. And since I sold my G1 first, I only had a $18 difference to make up. ;) Hello T-Mobile myTouch 3G! We’re going to become very good friends.
Before I even sent my very first text message on my new T-Mobile myTouch 3G, the first thing I did was purchase a protective case for it. I got it right from the local T-Mobile store for $9.99. It’s made out of hard clear plastic, and it definitely holds on firmly — it’s nowhere near as flimsy as the G1′s clear case was. That’s good, except if you want to open it. I spent a good ten minutes trying to pry the case apart without breaking my nails or damaging my phone, when I noticed a sliver-type opening on the lower right side of the case. On a whim I wedged the edge of a credit card in there and wiggled it around, and poof, the clear case came right apart!
So there you have it — if you have a T-Mobile myTouch 3G and you can’t figure out how to open or remove the clear case/cover, simply wedge a credit card in the open area on the lower right side of the case/cover, and you’re good to go!
Hi! I'm Jenn, aka Tech Girl. I'm practically chained to my computer, and I love all things technology. I may not be an expert, but I certainly have interesting posts and tidbits of info to share! Psst... you can find my personal blog at 
