Best Buy has long forced pushed sold offered a computer “Optimization” service when you buy a new pc/laptop, or take one in for repair.  In fact, they have gone so far as to “pre optimize” pc’s and laptops that are on sale so you are left with no choice but to pay the $39 fee because by the time you come along to buy your computer, all of the non-optimized ones are already gone.  How convenient.  Never mind the fact that if this were really true, that in every case the non-optimized units flew out the door before the optimized ones, that alone should tell Best Buy that this service offering is ridiculous.  But, I digress.

Before we go any further, let me explain and get you up to speed (if you don’t already know, that is).  The “Optimization” service that Best Buy is forcing down peoples throats is nothing but some basic maintenance tasks that almost anyone can do, especially with a little direction from a friend, Google or a handy dandy cheat sheet, etc.  We aren’t talking hard core hacking here, instead it’s along the lines of running Windows Update, removing the trial ware garbage that seems to get preloaded on all new PC’s these days, stuff like that.  Stuff that would get done anyway and that is definitely not hard to do, not complicated and NOT worth $39 bucks!

So, nowadays, after getting loads of bad press for these shoddy practices, thanks in no small part to The Consumerist who has been educating consumers for a long time now, Best Buy has finally decided to do something about this sham of a service.

• Have they stopped doing it?  No.
• Have they started offering it for free since it’s something any chimpanzee (Read: Geek Squad) can do?  No.
• Have they decided the customer is just as well off doing it themselves and even printed up some handy instructions on 3×5 note cards?  No.
• Have they decided to keep the crappy service and ridiculous price the same and just change the name hoping no one will notice? DING DING DING DING

Let’s tell them what they have won Al!  Well, we would tell you what you won if we had Al, and if you had actually won anything, and if this were really a game show of some kind.  Again, I digress.  The point is that instead of fixing the problem and making changes that are good for the customer, Best Buy and their Geek Squad have simply changed the name of the problem in hopes of confusing people, thinking that maybe the customer won’t notice or that they might trick them into thinking they aren’t actually ripping anyone off.  Alas, that isn’t the case, and Best Buy/Geek Squad will keep on taking advantage of the masses that don’t know any better.

This is where you come in folks, spread the word and tell everyone you know, let’s make sure that big stores like Best Buy know that we aren’t going to take their crap anymore.  Fighting back with your wallet or pocket book is the only way to make them take notice.  Thank you Consumerist for looking out for us little guys and helping to keep us from getting reamed.

Read more about the “Optimization” service here.

Read the article about changing the service name here.

There is a website out there that I ran across a while back, and I just have to share it with you. Now, I am sure that some of you folks know about this site already, but just in case someone stops by that hasn’t seen this before, you really ought to check it out. It’s a website called ‘Bits du Jour’ which means ‘Bit of the Day’ to the rest of us. What this really means or represents to the visitors of this site is daily deals and discounts of software products. Each day they post a sale or maybe better called a deal on a particular software package for 24 hours, and let me tell you, some of these deals are quite good. It’s not uncommon to see 50% off or more on some really nice software. I know that I have picked up several things that either I didn’t know about or probably wouldn’t have shelled out for until I saw them on this site and at a nice discounted price. You ought to check it out, and do so quite often so you don’t miss anything. One nice feature that they have is that they have a list of what is coming in the future, so you can see if there is anything that you want to look out for. In addition, you can mark items that you want to be notified about when they come up for sale so you can make sure you don’t miss any. That’s pretty cool. OK, enough banter from me, go check out the site now!

*Note: No compensation or consideration of any kind was received by Solarum for this post/review.

Links referenced in this article:

http://www.bitsdujour.com/

I don’t know about any of you, but more than network cards, I cut my networking teeth on 3Com gear.  Routers, switches, hubs and more, in fact, I still have a 10baseT FMSII hub around here somewhere.  I know, I know, stop laughing, it’s a keepsake more than anything.  I start this pedantic rant down memory lane because it appears that HP (Hewlett-Packard) is going to snap up 3Com in a deal worth almost $3 billion.  Wow, that’s a lot of coins in the couch cushions!  I hope they don’t destroy 3Com like they did Compaq after Compaq destroyed DEC (Digital Equipment Corp).  I am still a fan of 3Com gear, especially when they kept U.S. Robotics (who made the best modem in the world as far as I can tell) mostly whole after the two merged.  I thought this was an interesting tidbit, so I wanted to share it with everyone.

Check out HP’s press release at www.hp.com …

This is an interested tidbit of information, at least it is to me.  I read the article linked below that talks about the developer that brought you the Facebook app for the iPhone, Joe Hewitt, deciding to hang it up after he had basically had it with Apple and their tyrannical approval processes for their iPhone app store.  It’s an interesting read, check it out.  It kind of surprised me though, since Apple seems to (me anyway) present this image of being the cool, somewhat aloof non-company company, whereas here it seems like they are acting just like Microsoft or something.  I guess big companies are still big companies, and most of them just can’t get away from whatever it is that makes them a**holes.  Maybe I should start a list of companies that I have dealt with that are good folk to work with, that care and help a guy out, and then those that are jerks.  Hmmmm.

See the whole story at www.techcrunch.com …

OK folks, here is a tidbit for you, if anyone has been checking out Windows 7 and thought that an upgrade might be in their future, well they would have been dismayed to find out that there is no direct upgrade path from XP to 7.  That means you can’t insert you good ol’ Windows 7 disk and upgrade your XP machine.  The only upgrade path is from Vista to 7.  At least that is the story from Microsoft.  I have read a few people who have posted hacks and workarounds, but I haven’t tried any, maybe they work maybe not but it seems like a lot of trouble nonetheless.  So, what’s the point of this post?  Glad you asked!  A colleague passed on this link to a tool that is supposed to support the allusive in place upgrade of Windows XP to Windows 7.  Now, I haven’t tested it yet since it’s a commercial app, but I am going to see if I can get a demo in order to do a proper review.  If anyone has tried it, or does try it please drop a line and let me know how it works out for you.  Enjoy!

http://solarum.com/v.php?l=0949Ka29