Quertet Whiteboards

I wanted some quality whiteboards to hang in new basement office. So instead of buying the "flimsy" whiteboards at Walmart, I decided to go all out and pay for some quality.

As I was shopping for some stuff at Bureau en Gros, which I'm guessing is part of Staples Canada, I saw these two really nice -- and expensive -- whiteboards.

They were of the Quertet brand. They were nice and large, with a really nice black stylish border. They looked great and I figured that for the price, I was getting something of quality.

Quite the opposite. Within a few weeks of having hung them in my office, the whiteboard portion of the boards completely unglued from its frame. It is SERIOUSLY annoying, since it the whiteboard "bubbles" and seems to move around somewhat when we write on it.

How could such expensive whiteboards be sold with such poor quality? Does Bureau en Gros (Staples Canada) not check it's products for quality? I'm not talking about 2 or 3 years later ... I'm talking about a few weeks later that the white marker area became loose.

I would have had better value simply buying a product from Walmart at a fraction of the price!! Really disappointed by this product.

I could simply try to take it apart and re-glue the back ... but I've got no time for this. When you pay the price, you shouldn't need to do this.

Ah well, I guess every time I write on my boards I will be reminded of this lesson for the next few years.  :)

Gold & Silver - Do NOT Purchase From Mint.ca

I'm subscribed to the Royal Canadian Mint's (RCM) email updates and will frequently receive gold and silver coin offers.  And recently I've even seen some TV commercials where they are advertising a Superman $20 silver coin for $20.

I wanted to post this blog to inform everyone that the RCM does not offer any deal whatsoever.  Not only is it a total rip-off in regards to what you get for the price they are charging, these are considered numismatic coins which do not - in most cases - add any value.

The primary reason why these coins they are offering are such a rip-off compared to what you could be purchasing for the same dollar amount is simply because contrary to how they spin their offer, there is actually very little silver or gold contained in the coinage.

As an example, take a look at their latest Superman $20 fine-silver coin advertised on their website where they state the following:

$20 For $20

Fine Silver Coin

Mintage: 350,000 Canada/U.S only
Limit of 5 per household
An easy and affordable way to own a silver coin that is among the purest in the world

Rare—only 350,000 coins worldwide can ever be struck

Composition:  fine silver (99.99% pure)

Now, all of the above highlighted marketing looks pretty amazing, right!  And it is the truth, there is no lies about it.

But when you take the time to actually look at the specification:

SPECIFICATIONS

No.	148023
Mintage	350,000
Composition	fine silver (99.99% pure)
Finish	specimen
Weight (g)	7.96
Diameter (mm)	27
Edge	serrated
Certficate	not serialized
Face Value	20 dollars
Artist	DC Comics (reverse), Susanna Blunt (obverse)

You quickly realize that there is only 7.96 grams worth of pure silver!  Wow!

It may be 99.99% pure, but it's only 7.96 grams worth of pure silver and not the 31.1034768 grams in a troy ounce.  So you essentially only have 25.59% of a full ounce of silver.

Why is that significant?  Well, simply because as I write this post, the cost of silver on the spot market is $15.17 (source: New York Silver Spot Price, Sep 27, 2015 at 08:14 EST).

So by dishing out $20 for only a quarter of an ounce, you are essentially paying $34.88 per ounce of silver, or in simple terms, TWICE AS MUCH!!

And believe me, you get absolutely no additional value for your coin because it has a DC Comics' Superman stamped on it or the fact that there are only 350,000 that are minted.  Absolutely NONE!

So if you want pure silver (99.99%) and an entire full ounce of it, where should you buy it?

Well the answer is very simple.  There are a ton of them out there, you simply need to look for them.  

But I personally like Kitco Minerals and Metals simply because they have no minimum purchase required.

If you were to buy a Canadian Maple silver coin from Kitco right now, you would pay $20.57 for a full ounce (that's a full 31.110 grams, not 7.96 grams).

And the best part is that all the Maple coins that Kitco sells is actually made by the Royal Canadian Mint.  That's right the same people!  So why doesn't the RCM simply not sell Maple coins to the public instead of that numismatic crap?  I really don't know.  And when I asked them (several times), I only get a well written marketing response.

Microsoft Windows 8.1

I've recently purchased a brand new DELL PC and it came pre-installed with Microsoft's latest Windows 8.1 OS.

You can read about my DELL purchase:  Read post here

In this post, I'm going to rant about my new experience with Windows 8.1 that was forced down my throat.

First, I'd like to make it clear that I'm not a big fan of Microsoft or most of it's products.  So this post is definitely biased.

When I purchased my new PC, given a choice, I would have loved to have Windows XP installed on it.  I believe that Windows XP is the most stable of all Windows products and probably one of the simplest to use.

Unfortunately this was not possible.  Microsoft is muscling its clients, such as DELL to force it's crap down customers throats.  So I became a victim of a government enforced monopoly of the OS market.

OS Configuration

The day I received my PC, I first turned it on.  Having purchased a brand new laptop, a few years back, with Windows Vista on it, I knew that I would be asked a few basic questions such as my preferred OS language, name and username, etc.

But when I booted my Windows 8.1 PC, I was horrified by the questions that Microsoft was asking me.

They were asking for my name, age, gender, etc.  It's not like you could simply skip those questions either.  How could they be legally be allowed to do this?  I'm configuring an OS for gods sake, why would they need to know my gender?

Microsoft Account

And things even became worst when Microsoft was asking me for a Microsoft account in order to sign into my PC.  WTF?  PC means "Personal Computer", so what does Microsoft NOT understand about "personal"?  Why would I be forced to have a remote account linked to my OS?

Worst part is that I feel like I'm being "monitored" every time I log on to my PC.  I've tried to find a way to revert this back to a normal username/password configuration but it doesn't seem to work.

What Microsoft has done in Windows 8.1 should be totally illegal by all standards!

Desktop

I got my first introduction to the wildly controversial new user interface ... Metro UI I believe they call it.  It isn't enough that Microsoft created havoc with the Ribbon UI, now they were spreading the plague across the OS as well.

It's not the design that is so bad, it's just the fact that it doesn't seem flexible or configurable.  I'm computer literate and working with Microsoft's products seem close to impossible.

So I did what most people did.  I searched for a few third-party desktop add-on and experimented with them.  My choice easily became Pokki Start Menu.  My Windows experience is getting back to what I expect it to be now and not what Microsoft wants it to be.

Software Incompatibility

But what is catastrophic about the Windows 8.1 OS, is not the little details that were mentioned above.  It's not about the colors, the UI or the user experience (UX).  To me, compatibility is crucial.  

I can accept software or devices not being compatible when innovation is such an advantage that incompatibility is acceptable.

But one thing I quickly realized with Windows 8.1 was that many of my old software and games no longer worked.  I'm not a gamer whatsoever.  But I do have some very, very old games which I love to play a few times per year.  None of them work now!  That is unacceptable, period!  They worked on Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and every Windows in between.  So why the hell would they simply not work in Windows 8.1?

Hardware Incompatibility

If only the incompatibility was limited to software.  Most frustrating of all is that I have several USB devices, such as two Cannon scanners that no longer work.  That's correct, two scanners which I depend on... NO LONGER WORK!

I install the Cannon software and drivers.  When I load the software, nothing is detected, nothing works.  When I conduct a Google search (screw you BING), I seem to get thousands upon thousands of other cases similar to mine.

How can a USB device, abstracted through layers and layers of protocols no longer work?  I get a sense that this is intentional.  I get a feeling that Windows 8.1 was designed for legacy software/hardware obsolescence.

Note that Cannon is also to blame here.  Why wouldn't they provide a new Windows 8.1 driver for their devices?

Do Microsoft and Cannon expect millions of people to simply throw away their devices and go buy new ones?  What kind of lunatic technical world do we live in?  Don't companies such as Microsoft and Cannon have a certain level of integrity?

It would seem not!  You are a puppet and they are the puppet masters!

My DELL Experience

In the final months of 2014, after over 6 years of loyal service, my PC suddenly decided to die on me.

Pretty much all my life, I've purchased my PC's from local stores.  The previous one, I went out on a limb and purchased it from a famous online store - refurbished at that.

No regrets!  I saved almost $1000 at the time and it worked flawlessly (excluding Microsoft in this equation) all the time.

Having had such a great experience, I decided that I would try DELL for my next PC purchase.

What a total disaster that was.  The PC itself was not really the problem (writing this post with it).  It was the DELL service that was exceptionally bad.  And on contrary to initial belief, neither was the deal.

Here was my DELL experience.

Shopping

When I started to navigate the DELL web site, I pretty much knew exactly what I wanted.

1. Latest Intel i7 processor
2. Minimum of 16 GB of RAM
3. Minimum of 1 TB of HDD (at minimum of 7K RPM)
4. A decent 'discrete' video card (no on-board stuff)
5. An SSD drive of at least 128 GB (for my work)
6. Preferably no Windows OS (at least not 8.x)
7. No other gadgets or peripherals

I saw a bundle that pretty much met my requirements - with a few upgrades.  I saw no place I could upgrade my PC.  I looked and searched to no avail.

Had I been provided with the option, I would have added another 8 GB of RAM.

I would have added another 128 GB SSD drive (a tiny one came with it but was reserved for Microsoft to boot from).

Why does DELL not allow to upgrade their PC's?  I mean they had every other option, such as choosing a Microsoft OS or other software product.  Choosing keyboards, mice, printers, screens and sorts of gadgets that I did not want.

But upgrading my RAM and adding an SSD drive was not possible - go figure!

Order

So when came time to place my order, I started to fill in all the required personal and financial information.  To my surprise, DELL would not accept (as typed by me) the city where I live.

DELL decided that it would be a great idea to force a choice and not allow the client to provide their city.  So having no choice in the matter, I simply chose the closest thing offered in the list of cities.

That was a BIG mistake in the making!

Purolator Delivery

DELL has chosen Purolator for my parts of the woods which is just outside of Montreal.  There is a large Purolator facility about 30 minutes from my home so this was convenient for me to pick it up there.

When I received notification from Purolator that my order had been delivered and was ready for pickup, I missed a few hours of work to go and pick it up.  What a waste of time that was.

Because Purolator has a policy that both the full name and address of the individual picking up a package must match the name and address of an ID card, well you can guess what happened due to the city mishap provoked by DELL's bad form entry.

That's right, Purolator refused to release the package to me.  Even though my full name matched my ID, the street name and number, postal code ... essentially everything match except the city, I could not take my new PC with me.

I was told by Purolator that this was a DELL policy.  And told by DELL that it was only Purolator that enforced it.

So I immediately attempted to call a DELL representative so that they could correct the mishap they created and allow Purolator to release my package.  But that would have been too easy.  It seems that once the city correctly entered into the DELL system, takes about a day to propagate itself to the Purolator database!

That mean, no PC for me on this day!

I had to wait two days before I could take some additional time off to go and get my PC.

Wrong PC

When I got home, the first thing I did was to unwrap my PC and physically inspect it for damage or issues.  Once that was done, I plugged it and turned it on so that I could conduct an inventory of it's expected parts, brands and models.

[I will soon blog about the horrendous experience setting up my Microsoft Windows 8.1 PC!!]

After a full hour of setting up my computer, I was horrified at what I saw!  The PC was exactly as ordered, except I had a quarter of the RAM.  Only 4 GB instead of the expected 16 GB of RAM.  WTF?

So I figured that I could quickly call them up and get the remaining RAM sent my way. Oh, that would have been way too much to expect.

Service

I first navigated the DELL web site for the "missing parts" recommended number.

When I placed that call, it was the beginning of an adventure...

At first, I was greeted by an individual that I'm guessing was working for the Customer Support.  They confirmed my identity and product order, etc. I spoke with the individual from the "missing parts" department for approximately 3 minutes and it soon became apparent to me that he had no clue on how to resolve a "missing RAM in my new DELL PC" issue.

After another few minutes of useless discussion with the individual, his only solution was to propose that I be transferred to the Technical Support department.  Realizing that this guy was not going to resolve anything for me, I accepted.

When I started talking to Technical Support, it was an experience that I never though was possible.  I was asked questions like "Where did you purchase your PC from?".  What?  I called DELL's referred number from their web site and the first thing they ask is where did I buy my PC from?

I would respond "I bought it online, not from a store".  They would respond with "from which company?".  I would then tell them "from DELL, online".  This lasted several minutes.  They would ask for my order number, personal information.  We were getting nowhere (again).

After half an hour, they proposed to transfer me (back) to Customer Support.  This is when I became extremely angry with DELL and vowed never to purchase another DELL product.  But I was stuck and had to resolve this one, so I accepted the transfer.

The call with the lady at the Customer Support was also going nowhere for the first half hour.  At some point in time, she proposed to transfer me back to Technical Support ... and this is when I really lost it!  I unleashed probably 60 seconds worth of accumulated frustration on her.  I told her to instruct me on how I can send the PC back and get a refund.

The 'refund' aspect of our conversation seems to have triggered commotion cause shortly thereafter, she was able to verify that I was given the wrong PC and proposed to have the correct one sent to me free of charge.

Finally, some results!  Too bad it was about 2 hours later after I first picked up the phone to call DELL.

I would have to wait another week or so to receive my new PC.

But get this.  Before going to Purolator to pick up my second PC, I asked them what the city was on the package.  Turns out DELL made the corrections 'somewhere' because it wasn't correct this time around (again).  So I had to call DELL and fix the city information a second time.

By the time I had received the correct PC and was ready to use, I had wasted close to 10 hours; 3 hours to get it from Purolator the first time, 2 hours the second time.  One hour to set up the wrong PC and another hour to setup the correct PC.  Plus the 2 hours that was spent on the phone with DELL.

DELL Advantage

At the end of the day, I realized that not only had I wasted close to 10 hours of my time, but I also had not really gotten a great deal on the PC I ordered directly from DELL.

I paid a little over $1000 for my PC and I learned a few weeks later that a family member had purchased the (almost) exact same PC from Bureau en Gros (a store very similar to Staples or Office Depot).

The only difference in our PC's was that he had a slightly less powerful video card.  Everything else was identical from processor, RAM, mother board, HDD, etc.

Except that he paid for his PC a little less than $200 from what I paid, but most importantly had it the very same day and did not waste his time with DELL's web site or customer service (or lack of).

I due regret ordering that PC from DELL, hoping that I was going to save a few dollars.

McDonald's Corporation

McDonald's Corporation is a $ 100 billion dollar fast-food restaurant chain. Back in the day, it dominated it's industry. Yet, today it's challenged by all it's former competitors and new ones.

Competition is ferocious, no doubt. But is McDonald's business stale due to the competition or is it self inflicted? I believe it is more the later than the former and here is why.

Part 1

The other day I was roaming the streets of Montreal after a corporate Christmas party. I was walking on St. Catherine's street (corner of University street) at 03:00 in the morning, desperately seeking a coffee to fight the cold weather.

It is important to note that this was a Saturday night and all the bars close at that same time. Most restaurants get flooded with clients exiting the bar scene, looking for some comfort food.

When I arrived at the counter, I immediately requested a medium coffee (black) and asked if they had any of those apple turnovers they sell. I was shocked by what the clerk responded; "sorry, we're closed for a few hours"!

What? Your closed? She said it was about routine cleaning or something (and yes, there was a few staff mopping the floors).

Can you believe it? One of the worlds largest fast food chain, downtown Montreal, at a time where tens of thousands of individuals are about to hit the streets and look for food, and McDonalds... was closed for business!

Part 2

Just last night, at around 21:40 (West off the island of Montreal), I was a little hungry. McDonald's is not normally my first choice, but I was tired and wanted something quick so that I could go home even quicker.

So when I got to the counter, I asked for "the chicken sandwich which is grilled, not the 'cryspy' one, baked in oil" -- yes, I know that I don't know their menu too well. Every time I order a "chicken sandwich" without specifying the details, I always get the breaded one cooked in oil.

The lady at the counter responded that she could not serve that sandwich since "the grills are no longer available".

What? A major fast-food restaurant and you can't even serve grilled chicken in the evening? How sad is that!

I was too hungry and tired to go looking for something else, so I unfortunately had to eat chicken nuggets that were baked in disgusting oil. Probably the second time at that by the looks of them.

Bell Fibe

I wanted to view what all the hype was on Bell's new Fiber Optic network. So I went over to their web site (Bell Fibe) to get all the details. I was quite surprised! Not by the product itself, but on the fact that they proclaim it is the most advanced network in the country, but yet it takes about 1 minute to load a simple web page from their servers.

Clicking on 'Learn More about Bell Fibe Internet Plans' takes about 1 minute and a half. How can a company manage the most advanced network when they can't even manage their web server?

It was around 23:00 so its not like it is in peek hours of Internet traffic?  Also, I visited the page several times in the following days, so this was not a "down time" or anything like that.  It was consistent over several days.

Bell needs to first learn how to manage web servers, then move on from there.

Chrome OS Paranoya?

In his recent post entitled Intel and AMD threatended by Chrome OS, Charlie Demerjian shows quite a bit of premature enthusiasm.

Not to say that Google's latest product announcement -- Chrome OS -- won't be a great product, but I think our SemiAccurate author is, well not too accurate in his past history and predictions.

Intel has been facing stiff competition from RISC processors for decades (yes, I know Intel is RISC at the core). Many predicted Intel's demise too many times... and all have been proven quite silly.

AMD and Intel are going down the SoC road. This is where the true value is! No other company on earth right now can integrate more into a SoC than Intel and AMD... and it gets better each year. Sure ARM has a very small thermal footprint, but what else do you get?

Along comes Google and says, in effect, "You can do everything you need to on the net with our widget that uses only 1/4 the CPU power of a Windows machine, 1/4 the RAM, half the storage space, and we consume 1/2 the wattage". Compelling argument.

Or is it? What about the fact that it will have about 1/20th of the applications! Are you going to try and convince me that Linux apps are equivalent to Windows? Believe me, I sure wish they would be, cause I'm an Open Source fanatic and have been using Linux as my OS of choice since 1995. But no matter how much I've tried to introduce OpenOffice to a few secretaries and receptionists, Firefox on Gnome to friends and families, or just about any other open source application compiled for Windows, I pretty much get the same feedback! What is this!?

People have been accustomed to using Windows OS, applications and tools. And people like to stick with what they know.

Want proof? That's easy, just ask yourself where is Linux in the world today if you exclude all the Linux systems that run as a server and installed by geeks. The answer is practically nowhere! My point proven. And this is the reason why x86 is here to stay... and lead the way.

Even if there was a sudden movement where companies started porting their applications to a non-x86 architecture, it would take over a decade. Let's not even talk about the cost of all this.

Would you rather have a $1000 notebook with a 4 hour battery life that runs a few more apps, or a $200 Chromebook that has a 24 hour battery life? Apps compatibility isn't going to be much of a problem, Google has the clout to twist arms and the financial might to spend what is needed.

To get 24 hours of battery life, you'd be running a notebook with embedded graphics with the processing power equivalent to a decade ago. And who's going to sell you these chips? Apple? Nvidia? AMD's and Intel's will be embedded into their SoC and be twice as fast as the latest discrete GPU! Can an ARM chip match that?

But only time will tell. My bet is NOT on an ARM dominated industry!

But I do agree with one statement that you've made:

MS has an uphill slog for sales, and lacks a plan B. It has the stick, but no carrot, and not enough time to grow a few. MS is on the way down, fast.

And I'd like to point out that I've very happy to hear Google will compete with Windows. What the Linux world needed really bad in order to make it into the desktop world was credibility and support. Google will be able to bring that with force.