Intel always has to screw something up

At this point I am extremely happy that I never sold one of those Intel Atom computers on my Burrows Solutions site.  They were pulled from the site last week for a number of reasons.  I have expressed to all of you that I like to use hardware for at least 6 months up to a year before I promote it.  Everyone knows that the computer industry changes so frequently that this is sometimes a difficult feat.  Some items just never really change but with processors and such, they change quite often.  Recent DDR2 memory and DVD Burner price increases have really hurt the ability to build these systems on the cheap.

Intel went through some bad times with the P4 processors, I still stuck by them.  I built a few AMD systems for friends back then just because the processors were so cheap.  I still kept the hot, over priced, and lower performance processors on my desktops.  They hit a “home run” with the Core 2 Duo’s because they fixed the micro-architecture.  Now they continue to move with the nice Core i7 and i5 processors.  So I am proud to sell most Intel systems.  They did a pretty good job with the lower cost Atom processors, but messed this up also.  Now finally after all this drivel, I will get to my point.

There are two items that really bother me about the new Atom problem I recently discovered.  This happened with a customers computer at work and then I checked the system I have at home for William.  Our customer complained that it was noisy, fine the fan for the north bridge is failing.  I checked Williams and it is completely seized!  So they used junk fans for these systems and our Rep. confirmed that.  Now the thing that bothers me the most is the fact that the only way Intel will fix this problem is by sending the board in.  So WE have to go to the expense of shipping these motherboards back to them and then make our customers wait several weeks for a replacement??  Well luckily we have some account with Intel that allows us Advanced Replacement.  Basically it is cross shipping, then send one out now and we send the defective one back now.  That is fine and good for us but not for you.  Even with advanced replacement, we still incur the shipping costs.  So now, we must incur those costs and wasted time for their mistake.  They will NOT send replacement fans and I do not want to chance ruining the 3 year warranty.  Since the fan is a problem, who knows what else will happen in the next 2 1/2 years??  I am very disappointed.  I just wish they would allow us to replace them.  Can’t they just send us 5 fans?  A monkey can clip a new fan in place and I even joked with my rep. that they probably do use monkeys to attach them!  So I wonder if any of you seen problems with these boards?

$5.99 for a HP 4GB Flash drive!!

Need another USB flash drive?  You are in luck then because I have some HP 4GB drives for a low $5.99 plus shipping!!  I found a great deal and want to hook you up.  You will not find a better deal anywhere else.  I only have 5 of them and I’m sure they will go quick so click on over to Burrows Solutions and order one up!  While you are there, check out the other great deals I have.  I still have copies of XP Home SP3 and Acer 19″ LCD monitors each only $77.95 plus shipping!  The Acers are brand new with a full 3 year warranty.

Microsoft Win7 Cleveland Event

I found out about this event thanks to someone posting about it in our UBCD4Win forum a few months ago.  I have a TechNet account (for now) so I really didn’t need to go in order to get a copy of Win7, but I thought I might learn something and you can’t beat a FREE copy of Win7 Professional!!  To make it worth missing a day of work and the 1 1/2 hour one way drive, I suckered my wife into going too!  So finally this morning, it was time to make the trip and see what would happen.

Location: Wasn’t too bad really but in hindsight I wonder if I should have followed the map link for the Bing map inside the email instead of clicking the Google Maps link in Amy’s Gmail account?  We left with plenty of time so the 20 minute of driving in circles didn’t matter much.  Didn’t help that it was in a movie theater and at first I was in doubt MS would do that, but they did.  With a movie theater, there is little room for sponsor tables and it was very disappointing.  There were 3 or 4 tables and they did not offer much.

Partners/Presentations: This area was very WEAK.  The only big name there was IBM but I wasn’t biting on that.  There were two presentations (one by IBM) but I didn’t feel like dealing with that, so we waited for the MS sessions.  I really wish Cleveland was bigger, I would have loved something from Kaspersky.

MS Content: I focused on the Win7 sessions rather than the Server 08 R2 stuff.  The first few were very interesting, a lot of information about Win7 and Server 08.  Some of the things that are possible with the two together are pretty amazing, well to me at least.  I only build servers at work, I never deploy or manage them.  The final two dealt more with strictly Win7 and offered a few good tidbits of information.  Our presenter was pretty good and I enjoyed his “show.”

Bonus: When the information was in our forum, we were under the impression that we were to receive Professional.  I really didn’t want that because I prefer Ultimate, but hey….FREE software!!  So when we saw people carrying around Ultimate, I was happy.  The only downfall to the copy we received, it is 32bit.  What IT Pro uses 32bit anymore?  Ok, don’t answer that.  Anyways, it was nice and really made it more worth losing a day’s wages and about $40 in gas, tolls, etc.  Now I just have to figure out what media this is so I can get my hands on a 64bit disc to use for my install!

Conclusion: I would go again, but hope for a different location.  I did get a lot of good information so it was worth it.  I would encourage any of you to attend a Microsoft event, especially if there is free software involved!

Free Zone Alarm 2010

Just wanted to let everyone know about a free software deal a friend emailed me about today. Thanks to AppScout.com for the report. According to the report Zone Alarm is supposed to be offering a free copy of their Zone Alarm Pro 2010 firewall software this coming “patch” Tuesday. All you have to do is visit their site on Tuesday and you should find the opportunity to receive a free license from them. Here is the link: Free Zone Alarm 10/13/09.

Their firewall software is top rated.  While I personally do not like or recommend Firewall software, I figure some of you may be interested in the free copy.  I am secure and happy with my hardware Firewall.

Is socket 1156 as cool as I think it is?

I finally had the need for a socket 1156 motherboard last week so I ordered one up, along with a new Core i7 2.8GHz processor.  When I opened it and looked at it, I was intrigued.  The locking mechanism is kinda cool or at least in my opinion well thought out.  I do not deal with AMD processors so I really can’t say if this is Intel copying them (again) or if it’s something they came up with.  Pictures can only say so much so I thought I would do a video.  It’s too bad that all I have available to me right now is my crappy camera, but I wanted to get this done.  I apologize that it’s not that great quality, but you can see what you need to see for the most part.

I have been hesitant in doing videos lately because one of the guys in my Development Team said I look like a vampire (I’m too white.)  I’m also self conscious about my voice a little, I just think I sound like a dumbass sometimes??  Anyways, check these bad boys out if you haven’t already!

No traffic cause I’m a lazy bum!!

Man, how am I supposed to help you guys/gals out and in turn keep traffic to my site when I do not post anything??  I’m sorry everyone it’s just been non stop for months now and I keep putting things off that I shouldn’t.

The main purpose of the post is to yet again talk about Burrows Solutions.  A few nights ago I decided to email out a newsletter with some October specials.  I thought I would mention a few of them here again so help get these items moving.  I still have 19″ and 20″ Acer LCDs and actually just knocked a few dollars off the price.  They are very nice monitors with a full 3 year warranty!  I do not plan on selling OS software but I do have 3 copies of XP Home SP3 that I had purchased in anticipation of selling the Intel Atom computers on the site.  Since I have not sold one, I at least want to sell the copies of XP Home.  I think I have the lowest price you can find online for a copy, only $77.95 plus shipping!  Check out the WD 1TB external hard drive too, that $84 plus shipping special offer expires tomorrow.  So please venture over to Burrows Solutions and see if I have anything you may need, I promise low low prices!

I will continue to get caught up on stuff and post something with better content in the next few days.  A few weeks ago I finally took the plunge and installed Win7 on my laptop.  So far everything is looking very good, haven’t found a hiccup yet.  Well except for a bluetooth issue I had but I’ll get into that more later.  I’ve also found a reason to actually “love” my Stamps.com account.