Is HP being run by a bunch of idiots?

I purchased an expensive laptop, again, from HP and they offered to send me a printer (free after mail-in-rebate). After I received the printer, I opened the box and tried to set everything up, but was left scratching my head after not finding the USB cable that is required to connect the printer to the computer.

So I thought I’d chat with an online HP technician and that is exactly what I did today.

Imagine my surprise when he told me that HP does not ship USB cables with their printer!

What kind of a stupid, idiotic, moronic company is this?

To be precise, who are the stupid, idiotic, moronic people that run this company?

Who made the decision to not ship a cable to connect the printer to the computer?

How do these brilliant, over paid, over rewarded MBAs expect people to use the printer after paying for them?

I am a pretty loyal customer of HP and have bought a number of laptops and printers from them before. I am definitely going to think thrice before ordering a HP product now. Especially printers, considering how HP printer cartridges are a rip off!

I made my displeasure very clear to the support technician. Here’s the chat log:

Dileepa Prabhakar : I ordered an HP HDX16T (Online Order HXXXXXXXXX) and received a free HP Deskjet D2680 printer. However, the printer did not ship with a USB cable to connect to the computer. I am now left with an unusable printer.
[An agent will be with you shortly.]
[You are now chatting with Yyyyy .]
Yyyyy : Welcome to HP Total Care chat support for Imaging and Printing Group. My name is Yyyyy. Please give me a minute while I review your problem description details.
Dileepa Prabhakar : Hi Yyyyy. Sure. Ping me when you are ready.
Yyyyy : Sure thanks Dileepa. As per the records with me you are referring to a HP DeskJet D2680 Printer, with WIN VISTA installed as an operating system. Am I correct?
Dileepa Prabhakar : Yes.
Yyyyy : Dileepa, I would like to let you know that the USB cable is not a part of the printer and is not shipped with any new printer. It is ordered and purchased separately. I apologise for inconveniences.
Dileepa Prabhakar : Oh, really? Wow… I don’t know how to say this, but that’s stupid (on HP’s part).
Yyyyy : Once again, I apologise for inconveniences. Would you be interested to order the a new USB cable from HP directly?
Dileepa Prabhakar : No. Don’t want to pay double for a USB cable from HP when I can get it for far less elsewhere. Thanks for letting me know though. Tell your management that they are idiots, pardon my strongish language.
Yyyyy : Okay, is there anything else I may help you with?
Dileepa Prabhakar : No. Thanks. Good day (or night, wherever you are).
Yyyyy : It’s been a pleasure assisting you today. Please note the reference ID of this chat ZZZZZZZ. Thank you for contacting HP Total care and giving us an opportunity to serve you.
Yyyyy : Have a good day!
Yyyyy : Thank you for contacting HP Total Care Real-Time chat support. If you need further assistance, please contact us again at:
http://www.hp.com/support/chat
Chat support is available 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week.
For information on keeping your HP and Compaq products up and running, please visit our Web site at:
http://www.hp.com/go/totalcare

New WordPress theme & logo refresh!

I’ve changed my WordPress theme to P2 — P2 is a WordPress theme with Gmail-like keyboard shortcuts. I’ve also refreshed the logos that I use on various online services. Have a look!

DigitalPersona 4 and Firefox 3.5

HP recently made DigitalPersona 4 (4.0) fingerprint management software available for download on it’s support website. This version of DigitalPersona resolves two important issues with the software:

• DigitalPersona 4 is compatible with Windows Internet Explorer 8
• DigitalPersona 4 works great on Windows 7 (Release Candidate)

Grab the 32-bit version here and the 64-bit version here.

DigitalPersona 4 is also compatible with Firefox 3.0.x, but they weren’t prepared for Firefox 3.5, which has been in a long beta & RC phase and was released today. And now Firefox 3.5 reports that DigitalPersona 4 is incompatible with it.

Now, I use the fingerprint login capability provided by DigitalPersona extensively and didn’t want to miss out either on this feature or on using Firefox 3.5. I had been using Firefox 3.5 pre-release versions with extension compatibility checker disabled, but didn’t feel like doing that with the release version.

So I set out to see if I could get DigitalPersona 4 to work with Firefox 3.5 and I didn’t disappoint myself .

Here’s what you should do to get it to work:

• Close all open Firefox windows.
• Open an elevated Command Prompt and navigate to the DigitalPersona Firefox extension folder (type command in Command Prompt):

cd %programfiles%\DigitalPersona\Bin\FirefoxExt\

• Open install.rdf in WordPad (type command in Command Prompt):

write install.rdf

• Change <em:maxVersion>3.1.*</em:maxVersion> to <em:maxVersion>3.5.*</em:maxVersion>
• Make a note of the <em:id> value –  it was {ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384} on my computer.
• Save and exit WordPad

Update: Turns out there is an easy way to package this modified DigitalPersona Firefox extension and reinstall it in Firefox 3.5. Follow instructions in the highlighted post here and skip the steps listed below.

• Navigate to your Firefox profiles folder (type command in Command Prompt):

cd %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

• If you have multiple Firefox profiles set up, you will find a number of sub folders here. But for most users, there should be just a single folder in the following format: <random_characters>.default. Navigate to that folder (type command in Command Prompt):

cd *.default

• Open extensions.rdf in WordPad (type command in Command Prompt):

write extensions.rdf

• Search for DigitalPersona Extension. Four lines below that, you should find something like this <NS1:targetApplication RDF:resource=”rdf:#$GyBtJ”/>. Note the RDF:resource value.
• Scroll back up to the top of the file, place your mouse pointer on the first line and search for rdf:#$GyBtJ (i.e., the RDF:resource value you noted down in the previous step).
• Ensure that the NS1:id in the next line matches with <em:id> noted from install.rdf above.
• Change NS1:maxVersion=”3.1.*” to NS1:maxVersion=”3.5.*”
• Save and exit WordPad

• Restart Windows and resume browsing in Firefox 3.5, now with DigitalPersona 4 fingerprint login enabled!

Ask.com: What is Google?

I read the BBC article about the new Ask.com and thought I’d give it a try.

I thought I’d like to know a bit more about The Google and ‘asked’ Ask to tell me what Google is:

The top result says “They are bad. Dogpile. com is better. ihategoogle”. Would have even been funnier if it had said “They are bad. Ask.com is better.”!

But let’s see how Google itself answers that question:

“Google, a popular search engine, is a tool for finding resources on the World Wide Web. Google scans web pages to find instances of the keywords …”

Hmmm… that’s better!

But seriously, Ask.com is pretty cool. Great search results, pretty good search suggestions. I might even use it occasionally for general purpose search! Give it a try — you just might like it!

Windows Vista tip: Sticky Taskbar clock/calendar pop-up

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could ‘sticky’ the Taskbar clock/calendar pop-up in Windows? Very useful when you want to refer to the calendar while working in a different application. Vista allows you to do this, sort of. Here’s how:

• Click on the Windows logo (Start button) to display the Windows start menu.
• Click on the Taskbar Clock to display the Taskbar clock/calendar pop-up.
• Click on the Windows logo (Start button) again to hide the Windows start menu.

(With the help of the keyboard: Win key –> Click on taskbar clock –> Win key)

The Taskbar clock/calendar pop-up is now sticky! You can now switch to any other application, but the clock/calendar pop-up stays on screen and on top of all other windows. 

Click on the Taskbar clock again to hide the pop-up.

This ‘feature’ is probably a bug and may be removed (i.e. fixed) in the next version of Windows. Enjoy it while it lasts!

Google at 10: The real Google search page in 2001

Google is celebrating, well, 10 years of Google! In keeping with Google’s goofy ways of doing things, Google is allowing people to search its index from January 2001.

Go back in time and search the web as-it-was in January 2001!: http://www.google.com/search2001.html

But how did Google’s search page actually look in January 2001? Thanks to Internet Archive,one can easily find out! The earliest working archive from January 2001 is from 19th January.

Google search page in January 2001

Google.com in January 2001 -- the search box.

As you can see, Google was already ‘Feeling lucky’. The logo is missing from the Internet Archive page, but you can see Google’s 2001 logo in the ‘Google at 10′ Search 2001 page:

Google at 10, Search 2001 page.

Google has come a long way from indexing just 1.3 billion pages in January 2001. In fact, by December 2001, Google had indexed over 3 billion pages and added ‘Images‘, ‘Groups‘, and ‘Directory‘ search options. Google continues to be the leader in Internet search in the US and in many other search markets.

Google on CrunchBase.

Exclusive! Office vNext UI revealed!!!

As we have seen from the UI in the Windows Live Wave 3 products and the leaked Windows 7 M3 screenshots, Microsoft is moving towards a more typographical UI. Which means they are eliminating all icons from the user interface and moving towards a more textual user interface, as can be noticed from the following screen shots:

In keeping with this new UI philosophy, the next version of Office, code named Office vNext, too will have a typographical user interface. And I have exclusive access to a screenshot of a very early version of this UI!

I present to you the Home tab of Word vNext!…

Compare this to the Word 2007 Home tab:

As we can see, Word vNext’s Home tab is really easy on the eyes and makes the user concentrate on the task at hand rather than the user interface itself.

Now, this redesign of the Office vNext UI is in a very preliminary stage and Microsoft is looking to eliminate all icons, including the Office button. Microsoft is also looking at bleaching the UI with white or shades of white in keeping with the new design philosophy.

Since Microsoft never makes drastic changes to the UI without some kind of feedback, it is believed that the new typographical user interface philosophy is driven by extensive user group study data.

Microsoft has not yet finalized on this user interface model and is further investigating ways to make the user interface even more typographical. Their ultimate aim is to hit the clear, confident and disconnected user interface of the classic MS-DOS editor, edit.com.

Windows Live Calendar (Wave 3) Screen Shots

Screen shots of Windows Live Calendar (Wave 3) on Firefox 3 under openSUSE 10.3 GNU/Linux.

Windows Live Calendar - Didn't load right the first time.

Windows Live Calendar (Wave 3)

Windows Live Calendar: View - Day

Windows Live Calendar: View - Week

Windows Live Calendar: View - Month

Windows Live Calendar: View - Agenda

Windows Live Calendar: View - To-Do

Windows Live Calendar: Add Event

Windows Live Calendar: Add To-Do

Windows Live Calendar: Options menu

Windows Live Calendar: Theme mouse-over live preview.

Windows Live Calendar: Wave 3 header and 'Menu' drop-down.

Is Google planning to install software without your permission on your computer?

Is Google planning to do an Apple?

May be!

When you install Google Chrome, Google slips in another application called the Google Update and Google sets up this application to automatically start up. Again, Google never asks for permission to install this piece of software and Google never asks if you want to allow this application to run at start up. Now, tell me why this is not spyware?

Even more interesting is the description of the GoogleUpdate.exe application. Have a look at this:

The ‘File description’ field says ‘Google Installer’. Is Google planning to install even more software without your explicit permission? Just like Apple did with Safari using Apple Update?

Google is Evil. Much more evil than Microsoft ever was and ever will be.

Why I uninstalled Google Chrome (and Google Chrome is spyware).

I uninstalled Chrome because Google Chrome is spyware. After uninstalling it, Google opened a feedback page, requesting for feedback. This is what I wrote:

1. You spy on me. Why do you have to associate each Chrome installation with a unique ID?
2. You spy on me. You indicate that you collect data, but not anonymously. So it is personally identifiable data.
3. You spy on me. So Google Chrome is spyware.
4. You spy on me. You import data from other browsers, including passwords, without asking.
5. When I use Chrome, my computer slows down to a crawl. Are you spying on me again?
6. When I uninstalled Chrome, you opened this feedback page in Internet Explorer, while my default browser is set to Firefox.

Really disappointed with Google and its obsession with spying on people and not being open about it. So much for Google’s Open Source bullshit when it’s not even open with its communication.