Dell Customer Support Gets My Top Ratings

I have two Dell laptops one of which just had some issues this last week. My son and I started on troubleshooting it last weekend. We finally figured out when it would not reboot that maybe it was more than a bad hard disk. My husband thought it was the motherboard.

When I finally got enough information from the Dell forum, I started the repair process with Dell just to find out that the 2 year warranty had expired on June 7th and I was phoning Dell the morning of the 8th. With a gentle push, Dell agreed to sell me the extended warranty and cover all the problems on this just one day over two year old computer which originally cost about $1,700.

Since then I have received a new motherboard, hard disk, heat sink, and keyboard. Not only was the support desk helpful and incredibly knowledgeable, but courteous. Yes, it was an awful problem to have and I did have to pay $279 for the extended warranty and get a bit pushy to get it initially, but my problem has been handled quite well.

The support personnel from India were very knowledgeable and when I had them spell their names so I could pronounce them properly, they really warmed up to me. I need a new laptop as one is so old that for me I would think of no other place to start shopping but Dell. However I may actually buy the extended warranty for it up front. I have found that the difference between the paid extended warranty help and the free support is worth the extra fee.

I am not being paid by Dell for this post, just wanted to share my real world experience and let you know that yes, there are good people out there helping make things right for customers.

Thanks EmNiel, Bhupesh, Mohammed, and all the rest from Dell Support!

Make Sure You Have a WordPress Backup Application

This last week a client that I help on occasion who has one of the highest traffic blogs that I have seen lost his MySQL database that runs his WordPress blog. The crash was devastating to his blog and to his business. What is even worse is that he did not have a recent backup of his blog post; lost were 6 months of blog posts and comments.

To prevent this from happening to you, I recommend that every WordPress owner install a WordPress plug-in called WP-DB-Backup. This simple to use and configure blog post database backup allows you to email yourself a backup of your blog posts in MySQL format on a schedule you select.

I routinely backup my blog posts weekly and recommend that all clients and WordPress users do the same. Although you can tell the application to store your backup on your web server, I like the additional security of saving the backup to my own hard disk.

Just make sure that once you install the plug-in that you review it to make sure that your folder is writable. You will access the plug-in control panel from your WordPress “Tools” navigation link. If the directory location is not writable, you will need to correct that to use the plug-in.

Although you may never have a situation when you will need your backup, what if you even do. Will you be wishing you had a backup plan in place like the client I mentioned in the first paragraph or will you be able to get back up and running quickly only losing a day or two of blog posts?

HootSuite My Preferred Twitter Client

I have tried all kinds of applications for Twitter but I have ended up really using two HootSuite and SocialOomph. For most Twitter work and my own Twitter use I prefer HootSuite. There are a few reasons.

1. HootSuite is easy to use. You can have a master user and add writer access or other team member access.

2. HootSuite allows you to post to multiple Twitter accounts as well as to Ping.fm and Facebook with one click.

3. HootSuite has an integrated link shrinker right in the posting control panel. It uses the Owl.ly URL shortener.

4. HootSuite has a built in statistics portal showing the important click and reader activity for your account.

5. HootSuite now allows you to save posts as drafts and reuse them – this was one of the features I really liked with SocialOomph and now HootSuite has it.

6. HootSuite allows you to schedule your tweets for any day or time in the future. Love that feature!

7. HootSuite shows you the full thread of a conversation when someone responds to one of your Tweets. Now you know what they are responding to when you get a DM or @reply.

Now just to clarify, no one is paying me for this review, I have been using HootSuite for a while and just really like the application. I used to use TweetDeck, but now with needing to manage so many Twitter accounts HootSuite is the perfect user and client-friendly online application for me.

Please note as of 1-16-11, as of today if you click my HootSuite links, they will pay me a small commission if you upgrade to a Pro account, but that is not my reason for liking their product.

We Be Gaming Now!

Well my husband and I finally broke down and bought our kids a Playstation 3. We don’t have it yet, it is due in this week as the entire state of Maryland was sold out and we had to order it on Amazon. In the meantime we are dropping a ton of cash on buying games getting ready. In the future this should be a whole new topic – game reviews for parents, but in the meantime we are all looking forward to plugging in and powering up.

We decided to buy a Playstation 3 over the XBox 360 mainly due to the free online game access and the integrated Blue-Ray disk player that the Playstation has. My older son who is 20 is an accomplished gamer on all the systems, Wii, XBox, and Playstation and he said that the free online access was for him also the big reason he likes the Playstation as well and recommended it to us.

My husband and I originally started out to buy a Wii, but when we saw the graphics of the Wii compared to the Playstation and XBox there was simply no comparison. The Wii uses about 460 dpi and the Playstation and XBox about 1260. That’s a big difference in visual graphics!

The clincher for us was when we saw the Gods of War demo and the graphics were so life like it knocked our socks off. So stay tuned in the weeks and months to come as I play these new games and then pass on my candid, unvarnished, unpaid, for parent reviews.

*~Fiesta Online~*

Welcome to The player’s view of Fiesta Online!

Fiesta Online? What is that?

    This is what you might be wondering; and I am going to tell you. It is a game that once you start playing for a while, it becomes addictive and soon, every spare time you have, it’s spent playing on this game. The graphics are very good, with the characters being very detailed. Oh, By the way, the characters are manga, and so they don’t look like real people, but cartoon-ish instead.

    The game also has a store that (using real money) you can buy spark cash, the game’s form of money; that can be used to buy cool items that your character can equip. Example:  A premium Beauty Shop Coupon. This can be used to change your character’s appearance. It can change gender, hair color, style, and the structure of their face. All for 3600,i think. That is a little over $5.00, which in spark cash is 3500. Although, most of the items only last for a week or a month. Then they disappear. Although, the new appearance of your character does not change after you have used the coupon. The creators of Fiesta are coming out with permanent items that cost about a lot more, but you can keep them forever. Great, huh?

    In Fiesta, you can gain titles, like the one I have on the game, which is ‘Announcer’. That title I got through talking on a certain chat for a while. There are other cool titles like ‘Talk Show Host’, ‘Enhancement God’ and ‘Warrior’.  Right now, my characters are a level 44 Wizmage named Teeta, in guild Cupcake_Cult, and my level 37 Highcleric named Royia, the ex-master of Eternal_Flower, and now a proud admin of Swift_Legion. I have other characters on my server, which is Epith, but those are the ones that I play on the most. The other servers are: Bijou, Apoline, and Teva.

    You can also go up levels by killing monsters, like for level 1’s, it can be slimes and mushrooms. Another way to go up levels is to do quests. Or you can have a high level help you with them, and go up levels faster. That is called ‘p-leveling’. That is where you are power leveled by a higher level where that person helps you with quests or takes you to a higher place where you get more experience. You need a certain amount of experience to go up a level.  Once you go up a level, you are faced with new quests, new titles, and new armor which you can buy with copper. 100 copper equals 1 silver and 100 silver equals 1 gold. And so on.

    There are also guilds. In one, you can be a member, a guard, an admin, a council, or even the master; if you created or were given that guild. It costs a lot though to make a guild. 300 silver. Tip: you can not buy gem, gold, silver, or copper like you can with spark cash. You have to make it yourselves. You can do that by selling the items that monsters drop when you defeat them.

    Right now, the highest level possible is 89; soon to be 105, i think. Oh! Once you become level 20, you have to take a challenge to receive a title. If you do not defeat this quest, which is where you must defeat a copy of yourself that has about 8000 health while you have only about 1000. Once you defeat him/her, you go up a rank. You go from a level 20 (cleric, fighter, mage, or archer. One of your choice.) to a level 20 (Highcleric, Cleverfighter, Hawkarcher, or Wizmage). Notice: once you start as a certain character, you can not change it’s class.

    There is a big map of Isya, which is the land where your character this game is placed in. There are 4 towns. Roumen: a beginner’s town. Mostly for levels under 20. Small and simple. Elderine: a level 20-60 town. It is luxuriously big and has a lot of people. Sand Hill: holds the same items and stores as Eldy, just has different monsters and look to it. Uruga: The high level town, only accessed by scrolls or traveling through level 60 places. I would show you a map of Isya, but currently I cannot find any. Everyone all over the world can play Fiesta Online.

Go to this website if you want to download it or if maybe your child does! 🙂 

http://www.fiestaonline.net/ 

If you are in the  US, Canada, or Mexico; scroll down to the right side of the screen and click on the link labeled: For US, Canada, or Mexico users.

Or, If you want to see my page and ask me about it, go to this website.

http://www.outspark.com/profile/?sparkid=seriena

P.S. ~ I hope this doesn’t sound like advertising! *laughs* 🙂

  <–People from Fiesta Online

This post was written by my 12 year old daughter who has spent the day with me on Visit Your Parents At Work Day today.

Take Your Kids to Work Day

Today two of my three children will be blogging. I’m just letting you know ahead of time. :0)

Today is “take your kids to work day” here in Maryland. One of my 12 year old triplets is going with my husband to the Naval Research Laboratory and the other two triplets are staying here in my office today. They think that they will have it easy. They expect to watch me for about five minutes and then go off and play their video games. They have no idea what I have in store for them.

Actually I have an incredibly busy day ahead. I am working on two design projects and have several regular webmaster updates to do as well as a phone conference planned and several other projects. I plan on keeping them very busy. In fact as a project they will each be doing a blog post on Monday so get ready!

Kids need to know first hand what their parents do for work. It can give them a wonderful sense of reality to see that no Mom does not sit in front of the computer and do games nor does she talk endlessly on the phone with friends, she is actually working earning money for the family and that the work is hard and takes time to do.

These are some of the things that I am having my kids do today:

  1. Answer all the phones.
  2. Punch holes in papers for client time sheets.
  3. Do a blog post on my blog about their experience.
  4. Log how many phone calls I make and receive.
  5. List the time spent on web design, Internet marketing services, and client management.
  6. Review the blog posts from our 7 blog writers to see if they are done and on time.
  7. Write a report for school on what their Mom actually does.
  8. Make me lunch, get me drinks, and be my go-fer for the day.

Actually I think they will be surprised at the wide variety of things that I do and the number of calls and projects I accomplish in one day. Although I have a full day planned, I know that my schedule has simply been flown out the window, so if you get a McCord child on the phone today, don’t get your email responded to, you will know why, I am performing a very important task in regards to preparing future web designers and Internet marketing managers.