Well, we got two shows in before everything went to hell again!
When last we spoke, I told you that Alienware, the brand of the computer that’s turned my life into a living hell for the better part of the last year, helped me get the machine up and running. In fact, it was operating better than it had since… well, since I’ve had it. But it still wasn’t right, and Alienware’s next mode of attack was to send someone out to replace the audio card and motherboard to which it is attached.
This was my fourth visit by an Alienware-contracted techie. Seriously. And he was the worst! I had a bad feeling when he took the new motherboard out of its protective sleeve before he even opened the computer, looked at it, and had trouble putting it back in its sleeve. And it went downhill from there.
After two hours and what should have been a 20 minute procedure, he couldn’t get the thing to boot. (Never mind the fact that at least twice he closed the back without having plugged everything back in.)
Long story short: Another complete reinstall of Windows! After doing one a few days earlier. AND to make matters worse, I had just gotten most of the software and files reinstalled and set up correctly, and now I’m back to square one again.
Actually, I’m two steps behind square one because this thing is running worse that I can remember.
They finally agreed that it’s time to replace this lemon. The problem is that it’ll take up to 10 days. So, I’ve been trying to get this piece of shit computer back up and running enough to do the show in the meantime.
I tried to be ready for this morning’s show. I failed. I spent most of today on the phone with tech support again to get some bugs ironed out. It’s now 5:12 and I’m finally posting this blog. I’m going to try to sleep for a bit, because tonight is GOP debate #2!
I plan on being back tomorrow… glitches and all (and there WILL be glitches). But we have Driftglass and Howie Klein standing by for tomorrow and, sorry – can’t help myself – the debate is tonight.
So keep your fingers crossed and I’ll talk to you in the morning, radio or not!
🙁 Been there. Done it. Hate it. Hang in there, Nikki…
Wow. Your computer is so broke, somehow Laffy’s avatar came up here for my comment! 🙂
Wow Brad, you’re looking much better these days. Weird.. that glitch has nothing to do with the computer, but wordpress. Off to troubleshoot again
Nicole, Alienware primarily makes gaming rigs. The irony is that gaming systems are more demanding on computer performance than most office use systems are. Now, I know, many folks like you get Alienware for non-gaming systems because they believe that high performance will translate into other areas. Thing is, that may not be true outside of graphics performance … what you want is streaming-audio capability, etc.
I suspect a Mac won’t cut it for everything you need to do, because you run into the emulation/reboot tradeoff for running the specialized Windows software I bet you need. But maybe you should start looking in the PC world for something other than the Alienware brand. Is there a website for folks doing Internet radio streaming … and do those folks recommend a certain kind of PC rig/setup? That’s where I’d go.
Well, I’ll explain the latest today… we got everything up and running on a temporary basis while Alienware ships out a replacement. I’ll give the new machine a try… and if I still have problems, I’ll buy a new one and sell the replacement. $1700 is too much to just write off…
In the meantime, the reconfigured Mac should be here tomorrow. I made an appointment to get it loaded up on Sat, and will have it set up to handle half the workload. Fingers crossed…
BTW, Nicole, I know you’re not religious (and I would say on the observance scale I score about 10 out of 100; I’m mostly secular/cultural, used to belong to the Reform synagogue Beth Am) … but anyway, Happy Holidays.
Hopefully, silver lining will eventually show up on dark SoFla clouds.