Woman of the Law has a really good rant about a customer service nightmare with Sallie Mae, her student load provider.

I'm hoping the links in this post will improve her search engine score for the phrase "nightmare with Sallie Mae". Or maybe I should link to it with the more traditional "Sallie Mae sucks," or my personal favorite, "Fucking Sallie Mae!"

In any case, I wish her luck in her efforts to smear a major corporation on the web. I'm sure they have it coming.

I just threw away the 12-page manual that came with my small desk fan, including 2 pages of IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO PREVENT INJURY.

So if I suddenly stop blogging, you'll know what went wrong.

I was just visiting the Consumer Reports site to look something up, and for the fun of it I decided to see what they had to say about my Nikon D200.

Here's every digital SLR camera they rated:

1. Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT
2. Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D
3. Canon EOS 20D

That's it. No Nikon DSLR's at all. The Canon v.s. Nikon argument can go either way, depending on your needs, but you can't argue that Nikon has some important cameras out there. The D70 is legendary for starting the whole DSLR revolution. Even more damning, the article is dated July 2006, but they haven't rated the three hottest DSLR's of the past year—the Nikon D200, the Canon 5D, and the Olympus EVOLT E-330.

Suddenly I'm not so comfortable using Consumer Reports to make buying decisions...

I was installing new hardware in a friend's computer today, and I discovered I needed an internal power supply cable. This is a four-wire cable with white nylon connectors at each end. I figured I could just run out to good old Radio Shack to get one.

When I got there, however, the sales clerk didn't have a clue what I was talking about. I looked around a bit, but they didn't even carry parts like that.

The PC industry has been using these for at least 20 years now. Here's a picture of one at MicroCenter. Radio Shack is a shadow of it's former self.

My wife's Toshiba laptop was having trouble a couple of weeks ago. Using my limited hardware knowledge, I figured the problem was some part of the communications path between the CPU and the hard drive. This could be the circuits on the hard drive, or it could be the controller on the motherboard. Either way, it was beyond my ability to diagnose further.

I was sure our warranty had expired, so all Toshiba had to offer was their depot service which takes about 10 days. That was too long for my wife to be without her laptop.

Instead, I called Precision Computer Services in Moline, Illinois. They're listed on Toshiba's web site as a Premier Service Provider, meaning they can fix Toshiba computers fast. The person I spoke to looked up the part number and serial number and confirmed that it was out of warranty. They told me it would take 3-4 days to repair (unless they needed special parts) and gave me a service order number.

I packed up the laptop and sent it via UPS ground on Tuesday for delivery Wednesday. The technician called me on Friday and we discussed the problem (bad disk) and my options. I called back to tell him I wanted to get the old disk so I could try to get some more data off of it. I called him back again to tell him that if it worked I'd like him to send it back with Saturday delivery so we could restore the data over the weekend. For each of these calls, I was able to speak directly to the technician working on my computer.

I got the laptop back on Saturday morning. It works fine. I hooked the old disk up to my desktop computer and was able to recover all the data. (I had it packed in ice to keep it cool.)

They charged me $185 for the disk drive (a slight markup), a $100 labor minimum, and $50 for Saturday return shipping.

My only peeve is a small one: I had sent the computer packed in the original Toshiba box, and they sent it back in a generic laptop shipping box. I think I can live with that.

So, if you live in the Chicago area, or anyplace else in easy shipping distance of Moline, Illinois, Precision Computer Services was fast, flexible, easy to deal with, and not too expensive.

I've fucking had it up to my fucking ears with those fucking fuckers at Sprint! Fuckers through and through! Fucker-coated fuckers with fucker centers! Fuck! I fucking hate those fuckers!

Ahem...Sorry about that. There's something about cellular rate plans that just pushes me over the edge...

I'm about 15 months into my 2-year contract with Sprint when my wife's phone starts to crap out. Sprint will get me a free phone if I sign up for a new 2-year contract. If I don't sign up, a new phone will cost my about $150. Or, I can quit Sprint and switch to a 1-year contract at Verizon and also get a new phone. Then Sprint will charge me $150 for a new phone. Either way I have to pay $150 dollars to get my wife a new phone without renewing with Sprint, but the second way gets me out of the contract 9 months sooner.

So, done. Got the bill today. $150 as expected. But, oops, I forgot something. My phone and my parents' phone are still on the plan, but now that my wife is off it, I don't need 1400 minutes per month anymore. I'll lower it to just the 500 minute plan.

So I call Sprint, and the nice person on the phone tells me that he'll be happy to provide "excellent customer service" (so they say) by doing that, but I'll have to restart the 2-year plan again. I tell him thank you and hang up. For some reason, I had been under the impression that I could change the number of minutes. Apparently, not only do they charge you for taking a phone out of the plan, but they want to exact a penalty for lowering your plan to compensate for the person no longer in the plan.

I do the math: Finishing out the current plan will cost $40/month more than switching to a new plan. Over 9 months that's $360. Leaving Sprint right now will only cost $300 in cancellation charges. Looks like Sprint is going to pay me $60 to drop them.

Well, no. I'm going to have to pay Sprint $450 to get out of this stupid, stupid plan. I've just figured out a way to avoid paying them $510.

Fuckers.