Best Buy Lies Again!

The Consumerist found that Best Buy's "optimization" service was useless. According to the Geek Squad blog, the service will "enable up to 100 system tweaks that improve PC performance and functionality, including optimized startup and shutdown, improved menu navigation, quick launch and taskbar cleanup and program shortcut creation."

The problem is that the PC's performance is not improved. They tested 3 laptops(6 technically, one "optimized" and one not for each model) and found that 2 had no performance change, and one had a 1/3 drop in performance after optimization. Clearly not worth $40.

In addition to this, there are their many offers they have for new computers. One is "Standard Security and Performance" for $69.99. This service is just the optimization plus installing an antivirus(and it doesn't even include the cost of the antivirus). It would actually be cheaper to just buy a year of service on one of the trialware pieces of crap that they have preinstalled (it's the same quality of crappy, virtually useless antivirus, I'd suggest uninstalling the trialware crap, and installing Microsoft Security Essentials. It's lightweight, and works great)

Some of the lies that were told about the optimization service amazed me. "One shopper was told that optimization made the computer's processor "200% faster." The same shopper was told that he could try to optimize the computer on his own, but without assistance he would not be able to increase the processor speed." This is ludicrous! One might be able to speed up the operating system by 200%(if the installed crapware slowed it down that much), but not the processor. Tho only way to get a real noticeable increase in processor speed would be to overclock it, and that is not a service Best Buy provides.

They even lied about the time optimization takes. One rep said that it would take 6 hours to just download Windows Updates! What are they basing that on, a 56k connection? That is a ridiculous overestimate. It shouldn't even take 2 hours.

Another rep said that it wasn't recommended that you go online without their optimization, as it has no antivirus. "You’ll get online, get a virus, and end up spending $200 to clean it up." That $200 is only if you go to someone who sucks, like the Geek Squad. They were going to charge a friend $250 to come to the house to fix a screen flicker issue and a printer issue. I managed to reduce the rate of flicker from once every few seconds to once every minute or 2, and got printing working on her mac, but not windows. She gave me $50 that I didn't want to accept since I didn't get it fixed. She told me what Best Buy was going to charge as justification for giving me the money, and I told her that that was no reason to overpay me. The fact that Best Buy charges 10x what they should for services, and then charges for other services that shouldn't be charged for, doesn't mean I should get paid more than I deserve.

That customer who was told that she would end up spending $200 on removing a virus was also told that installing an antivirus herself violates the warranty, and "that the manufacturer's warranty was "obsolete" and had been "replaced" with Best Buy service contracts (which she would need to pay for, of course, and that were not included in the optimization price)." This is an outright lie. the only thing that voids a warranty is if the case is opened, at least in most cases.

Best Buy angers me with shit like this. I have long refused to ever buy a computer there, and this just reinforces it.

Ok... This Post is Just to Brag!

I've been constantly tweaking my pc ever since I upgraded to 7. I am impressed now. My pc Idles at ~470mb ram(the extra 30 mb and cpu spike seen here were from the img capture program. it usually sits at 0-2% cpu.

I am happy with my results! All the features of a 2009 operating system with the memory use of 2001's XP.

Violence and Video Games

Just thought I'd post this. It speaks a great amount of truth.  Just because I have been playing violent games since I was 4 doesn't make me a maniac.

Windows 7 Review

Im now using windows 7(after staying up till 3:20 am in the morning yesterday setting it up). I really like it. It is the fastest and easiest to use operating system I have ever used. It required some tweaking(less than any other os though), but this is expected given that I want it to fit me perfectly, and now it does.

7 is faster and more responsive. My bootup in Vista was around 1:15, and 7 was just 37 seconds(although to be fair, Vista was a used install, and 7 is brand new). It uses less ram too. It idles at around 940 mb of ram, as opposed to just over 1.5gb ram in vista. this, combined with a better desktop manager, speed everything up a lot!

Jumplists are great. being able to right click my browser icon and open a page from the history is neat. The new taskbar is a little big, but im used to it now. I like being able to reorganize window order on the taskbar.

All in all, the new features are great, but the massive drop in resource usage is the big plus.

Windows 7

I have been hitting it heavy on the Atheism posts to start with, but, as I said in my introductory post, I am also a nerd, and will write about Tech. I decided today to make my first technology post about Windows 7. For those of you who don't know, it is Microsoft's next version of Windows, set to release Thursday. Windows 7 has many perks over Vista:

1. It's shiny! - The new Aero tweaks make 7 look cooler. One neat difference is that the taskbar and the title bar stay transparent when maximized, which was sadly lacking in Vista.
2. It's faster - it starts up quicker and is more responsive. A new desktop window manager driver update makes it use less memory as well.
3. Libraries - Having 1 music folder that displays everything from several locations is useful.
4. New taskbar - the new taskbar is very different from Vista's. It will get it's own post after I install 7 on thursday. It now puts all instances of 1 application in one icon. Yay for saving space! It also has a dedicated Show Desktop button.
5. Jump lists - little popups that come up with a right click on a taskbar icon. these can contain anything the developer chooses. Frequently browsed web sites in Internet Explorer, favorite songs in Windows Media Player
6. Tons of little things - Easier control of User Account Control, better wifi management, being able to easily 'snap' a window to 1 side of the screen.

All in all, 7 looks great. I cant wait for Thursday!

Frist psot!

This is the all important introduction post! I'll keep it short and simple, and tell you what this blog will discuss:

• Atheism, agnosticism, humanism, and the recent events effecting these groups, as well as other related groups.
• Technology. I'm not just an atheist, I am also a geek. so occasionally there will be tech posts, but this is first and foremost about atheism
• Random Shit: I have a life, and some of the events therein will spill into this blog.

Also, as I'm sure you can tell by bullet point number 3, there will be swearing here. It will be kept to a reasonably low degree, but I offer this disclaimer here and now so you don't expect this blog to be PG.

Another post coming soon!