HP is influenced by the Frustration Corporation.

HP is slowly drifting into my black list. I am concerned when it comes to buying any more of their products. (Unless it was a calculator, because their calculators are still better than TI) The first really bad experience I had with a 4 gig thumb drive. It may have been a defective unit. I may have simply had bad luck in my selection, yet the fact still remains that every time I try to do anything with it, it will shut down and restart causing Windows Vista to ask me what I want it to do with the thumb drive. I finally gave up on it and got a micro SD to usb dongle. I find it works both faster and with fewer problems during use. (Hooray for Kingston) On top of this I also find it nice that if I ever need more room I can just go buy the relatively cheep Micro SD cards. They are small and so they can go easily with you.

My most recent evidence that HP is secretly influenced by the Fustration Corporation happened just a few days ago. I sent my laptop in for repairs two weeks ago because the internal fan stopped working (That is what I get for buying refurbished, I am still happy, it could have been worse.) I finally get my beloved laptop back expecting everything to work fine and dandy. I turn it on to find out that my wireless network card is not functioning the way it should. I press the button to turn the wireless on and then I get a notification on my screen that the wireless network is now off. I press the button again and receive a note that the wireless network is disabled. (GAAAHHHHHHHHHH, that is the sound of my head exploding.) I click on properties to see if anything might help. There is nothing indicating how to turn on the wireless. I check in with the help document which upon reading I find out that 90% of the document is devoted to telling people how to open the screen which I already had open. The other 9% of the document said that, to activate the wireless Internet, I should press the button which I had already tried. In frustration and with an exploded head I went to bed frustrated at the thought that I would have to call up the repair shop again and that they would possibly take my laptop for another week to run diagnostics. (which undoubtedly would reveal that my computer is in perfect working order)

I slept on it, not particularly well though. When I woke in the morning I popped open my computer again and gave it another shot with my re-assembled head. I started clicking random things to see if I could make any progress. Finally this is what got it working again. There is an option that says Show: independent controls for installed wireless devices. I selected this box and I was awarded a button that says "Turn On" next to my Wireless LAN. After a brief Alleluia I was back on the road updating Windows and McAfee.

Can you guess who made this program?.... HP. Who would turn off the option of seeing the controls? Who would put in the option to turn off viewing of the controls? This is clearly the Fustration Corporation in action.

Sigh.
~SB