How many times have you tried to sell or reinstall a piece of hardware such as a digital camera, sound card, or other peripheral and can’t find the driver disc? Or, is your desk drawer cluttered with a wide assortment of discs that you will probably never use any time soon?
It’s time you cleaned up that clutter and consolidate your OEM software and driver discs by archiving them.
While it is true that there are a lot of sites that offer hard-to-find drivers, you should know that using them is ‘at your own risk’ and quite unofficial. Additionally, there are often trimmed-down OEM software discs that come with the hardware which you just can’t download freely (at least not legally!) from the manufacturer’s website.
Consolidate your discs!
Here’s something that I’ve started to do any time I get a new piece of hardware: Make an ISO backup of the discs that come with the hardware. If you have the drive space available, save each ISO to a folder on your drive, or, copy them onto a single DVD. That way, even if you can’t find the installation media when you decide to sell or reinstall the device later on, you can still go back and use the software that came with it.
Most driver discs hardly use the capacity of the CD that they come on, so you could feasibly fit quite a large number of them on a single 4.7Gb DVD.
How to archive to ISO?
Practically all of the major CD burning programs such as Roxio, Sonic, and Nero offer the ability to create ISO images from CD/DVD’s, but a super quick and easy way (and free!) to accomplish this is by using a tool like LC ISO Creator. Once you’ve archived them, then check out Tim’s earlier post regarding ways to read ISO files as a virtual drive letter if you need to access them later on.
…and beyond…
Of course, archiving isn’t limited to just your OEM and driver discs. If you are ambitious enough, backup the rest of your discs as well…One thing to note is that some discs (games are notorious for obvious reasons) are burned with a copy protection algorithm that makes it downright near impossible to generate an ISO backup or copy with most out-of-the-box tools.
With the onset of frustrations with overseas tech-support in favor of saving a buck or two, the topic of customer service has been shoved into the limelight like an kid with his fly open and a “kick me” sign on his forehead at the 6th grade talent show.
The issue of overseas support for me, has been twofold:
The support from our friends from across the world has been less than stellar.
The outsourcing of jobs overseas is leading to a dependence on foreign nations, undercutting our own workforce which contributes to America’s job rate decline.
While I would agree that I have had some bad experiences with overseas support from “Nick”, I also have had very good experiences, so my opinion is somewhat positive overall (but then again, I’m usually talking to the 2nd or 3rd level support folks) with the quality of overseas support.
Honestly, these are probably the same results as what you would get if you got support from the “real” Nick located in Austin, TX.
And so, I submit to you, ‘Exhibit A’:
I recently helped out a friend from work who had a 1 1/2 year-old eMachine which was having a lot of spyware and virus issues. Best Buy quoted him $299.00(!) to clean up the problems - at that point, you can just buy a new computer…
The beginning chapter of our little tech support nightmare was that the PC wouldn’t boot after it was sent to the Geek Squad (but I’ll file this under coincidence) for analysis.
Apparently, various eMachine desktops experience an issue where the power-supply overloads and shorts the motherboard. Knowing that eMachine is notorious for not providing support if you have a 3rd party replacement part (and also, the eMachine rebuild disc will not work if it is a 3rd party motherboard), I decided to purchase a factory-direct replacement for the board at a not-too-bad $89 from an online vendor, and use a 400-watt power supply I had on hand at home.
Upon arrival and subsequent installation, I was elated that the PC booted without issue.
Windows XP determined that there was a significant enough change in the computer hardware (this was expected) after the new mobo was installed, and prompted me to activate Windows once again. I could not activate Windows via the Internet (I would later discover there was malware preventing Internet access…yikes!)…so I had to call Microsoft to manually activate.
Or so I thought.
When I contacted Microsoft initially, the friendly Microsoft tech (who sounded like he was about 10,000 miles away from me) told me that this was a special eMachine code (denoted by a truncated number at the tail end of the activation key), and I would need to call the eMachine support number.
I dialed eMachines number, and got a technician on the line.
Call Center or Root Canal…, which would you prefer?
Me: “I need to activate Windows, and when I try to call Microsoft to perform the manual activation, they told me to contact you.
Tech: (We’ll call him ‘Doug’) After giving him the serial number of the PC…“This computer has never been registered with eMachine. Can you give me the owner information?”
Me: “Sure.” (I give him the name, phone number, and address of my friend who owns the machine)
After a few minutes of typing…
Doug: “This computer is out of warranty. You will need to pay us $39 for an out-of-warranty service call.”
Me: “But all I want to do is activate Windows (not mentioning the fact that their inferior hardware and awful QA is the reason that we are at this point in the first place). This is just a quick 5-minute thing. Can you help me with that?”
Doug puts me on hold for a few minutes.
Doug: “We cannot help you with that since Microsoft has all the possible numbers to do that.”
Me: “Uh- wait a minute…What? You should have some sort of program there that will allow you to take my activation code and it will convert it so I can activate the software manually. Its just an algorithm, not a static code.”
Doug basically doesn’t understand how this works, so we go back and forth for a few minutes, telling me that I need to call Microsoft back, etc. - and finally I ask if I can speak with someone else, anyone, a supervisor maybe?
I get put on hold. For 30 excruciating minutes.
Finally, “Mindy” comes on the line (this was the name she used, I’ll never forget it).
Mindy: “Hello Randy?” (the name of the person that I was helping, and now the registered owner of the PC - remember earlier when I gave them this information?)
Me: “Actually, my name is Rob.”
Mindy: “Who are you?”
Me: “I’m the tech-guy helping out Randy with his PC.”
Mindy: “We cannot help you because you are not the registered owner of the PC.”
Me: “I just gave you that information a few minutes ag- Look, Randy is not really able to talk to you since I have his PC at home and I am working on it for him. Nevertheless, this is just a simple Windows activation issue. Can you help me with this?”
I am told again that I will not be helped since I am not the owner.
Me: Exasperation now taking over “You don’t even know that I am not the owner…!”
Mindy: “You just gave us that information, sir, and you said your name was Rob.”
You can see how this is a little frustrating. I really should have recorded this call.
At this point, I am more than just a little agitated, and we go back and forth, with me telling “Mindy from eMachine” (yes, this is how I referred to her on the phone after awhile) that I am a network administrator, and many people come to me asking me to refer them to a good computer to buy, and not only this, but I contribute to various blogs with a decent readership, and she wouldn’t want this customer service experience to affect their bottom line, would they?
Deaf ears.
After a bit more yelling on my part (and she tried to talk over me, quite unsuccessfully, too), I told her that I am just trying to be a nice guy helping out my friend, and why do we need to make this more frustrating that it has to be…she interrupts me with this little gem:”Sir, I am flagging the computer serial number, denying support for anyone who calls in on it, unless they can provide (i.e. fax) information showing they are the registered owner.”
I ask her for her representative number, so I could call in and complain directly to eMachine customer support, to which she replied by hanging up.
Summary
So, what has happened to customer support? It used to be that the company cared about customer opinion, and held them in the highest regard. How do you make money without customers? It seems that I have had more and more experiences like this lately…it wasn’t like this in the 90’s, I’m sure of it.
I spent nearly an hour of my life yelling at the indifference that was so clearly present on the other end of the phone, only to be hung up on, and there was no effort on the part of the technician or manager to reduce my frustration or handle me in an appropriate way.
In retrospect, I’m sure these were not eMachine employees (probably outsourced to a US call center), but herein lies the problem: If you don’t work for the company directly, you will less likely have any loyalty to that company…there’s always more contracts coming in, right? What is the likelihood that the Call Center will lose their eMachine contract because of this bumbled support call? I mean really, what’s one disgruntled customer?
Maybe it should be asked from a different angle: Why should a computer manufacturer spend good money on a US Call Center for sub-par support, when they can get that overseas, right? On paper, the companies you are contracting under most likely have a similar opinion of you which you have of the people that call in for support (and hang up on).
I beg of you, managers of Call Centers, send your representatives to customer service class. If you don’t, you are just as guilty of contributing to overseas outsourcing as the major companies who have gone that route already.
Bad customer service is like a pyramid scheme. It only takes one really bad experience for one person to trickle down to their friends (potential customers) and they will tell their friends (potential customers), etc.
You should always, always, always take care of your customer.
I’m sure many of you have considered donating your old computer to a school, church, or other non-profit organization. While I encourage you to do so (tax writeoff!), you need to be aware of the potential danger to your personal security if you do so.
Preparation ends at deleting personal files? Not so much…
Of course, the first thing that comes to mind when donating or trashing an old computer is “I’d better delete my files”. While this is obviously a splendid idea, make sure that you are making every effort to protect your privacy by understanding what ‘delete’ means.
In the Windows world, when you delete a file or folder from your computer, they are essentially “marked for deletion” - think of it as taking the label off of your videocassette (ah, memories…) with your favorite episode of say, ‘Falcon Crest‘, but not actually re-recording over it until ‘TJ Hooker’ is on later during the week.
When a file is marked for deletion, it tells the operating system that “this block is available if you have anything to write here”. However, your OS may have plenty of other blocks to write to before writing something in this newly available block (in keeping with our example, you have plenty of new blank tapes to record “The Hook” on, so you decide to use those first, instead of compromising video quality on a pre-used cassette). So in essence, your data is still there on your drive, ready to be restored at any time; a number of utilities exist, free and payware, with the ability to restore your deleted data quite easily, and by computer-novices.
Case in point:
I worked for a large corporation as a desktop support agent. One of my younger colleagues forgot to back up a computer before loading a new cloned image on the PC, essentially overwriting all the data from the previous configuration.
Or, so he thought.
In an act of desperation, I ran a Norton file recovery and undelete command on the drive, and was able to restore EVERY file from the previous configuration (probably saving my young friend his job!).
Things you can do to help yourself:
Get the help of a techno-nerd friend to securely delete your data. Entice him/her with pizza and gift certificates to NewEgg.com if necessary.
Delete your files using a secure erase program (see below)
Defrag your hard drive often, especially after you uninstall a lot of software, or delete large amounts of data. This will overwrite the empty blocks quicker (if the amount of data surpasses the point on the drive where your deleted file was located). This is not a surefire method, but it will enhance your performance in addition to latently increasing the chances you are overwriting your ‘marked’ files.
If you are trashing your computer and no longer need the hard disk, remove and smash it with a large hammer. Seems a bit barbaric, but it is extremely satisfying. If the hard drive is sizable enough, consider buying an external USB enclosure and using it as a backup drive.
Giving can be a wonderful thing; it gives you that warm-fuzzy feeling when you’ve done something nice…don’t let one second of that familiar “oh…no…” moment (you know what I’m talking about) ruin your “feel-goodiness.”
News sites have been noting recently that Myspace and Xanga (and their ilk) have been a place for friends and social networks to grieve for those who have passed away - while this is notable and a very cool use of the technology, it was bound to happen.
If you have been online for a time, you have probably posted here or there in various forums, commented to blog entries, or even (if you are old enough) have posted on various UseNet groups and good old newsgroups (which I still love!)…
The point I am making is that the vestiges of our Internet personas will be, for all intents and purposes, immortal - - well, at least the information will be around far beyond our lifetimes. It is the closest we will be (as far as we know so far) to becoming eternal and be able to prove it to those that are still breathing and logging on to the ‘Net…
With that, I suggest you go Google yourself and see what the Internet has to say about you while you are still here.
There are several articles that talk about this and have great tips if you want to limit or do something about your sensitive information on the ‘Net:
I’m somewhat hesitant to admit that I do this quite often… Usually, my goal is to see if I can innocently catch up with someone. Is this a new form of stalking?
However, I did Google a person that I was entering into an auction transaction with. The auction was for a set of wheels and tires, and I discovered that this person was in a car accident recently, as stated by his local paper (I searched for the name of the person, and the city he was from). Of course, this brought up the question, was the set from the car? Would this affect the transaction?
If I did this with a person I was paying money to, it doesn’t take a stretch to realize that potential employers can do the same thing…be aware if you are job-hunting!
So, if you do find information on yourself that you don’t like - here is an interesting…work-around: A search tool that can create higher-scoring search results with more favorable information that you specify (you can read about it via this Wired article). Particularly useful for the shadier folks among us.
Now that I’ve fed your paranoia bug, go Google yourself!
Oh, I still went through with the wheels and tires - my car looks sharp!
How many times have you tried to sell or reinstall a piece of hardware such as a digital camera, sound card, or other peripheral and can’t find the driver disc? Or, is your desk drawer cluttered with a wide assortment of discs that you will probably never use any time soon?
I’m sure many of you have considered donating your old computer to a school, church, or other non-profit organization. While I encourage you to do so (tax writeoff!), you need to be aware of the potential danger to your personal security if you do so.
News sites have 