I was fortunate enough to be given a samsung Galaxy S7 Edge by my company to test drive. My motorola was older and had old software that was not being updated, and the battery started to really go downhill. So I swapped my SIM card and started using the Samsung. What a wonderful phone! Bright beautiful screen as Samsung is known for the best displays. My battery life lasted a day and a half almost (a little less if I was really hitting the phone hard) and the phone never hesitated or got stuck. The phone worked as a phone should work and I finally thought I found THE perfect phone. All the apps ran great and did not eat up a bunch of memory, the camera took some of the best pictures just as nice as my Motorola Droid Turbo pictures used to come out. The phone came with a Commuter Otter case and was in perfect condition. That was 6 months ago, then one day something showed up on the display. An uninvited pink line showed up on the right side and ran down the entire length of the display. I was horrified, I did not drop the phone, it ran in a case all the time, how could this happen what did I do?
I locked my phone and placed it on my desk next to me where it sat unused for a few hours as I was at work and busy with help desk issues. Lunch time came around, I had to run some errands so i grabbed the phone and went to the car. I took the phone out and unlocked it ready to connect the AUX cable to steam some music while driving, wait a minute... where is that pink line? Its gone! What the heck??? I locked the phone a few times and unlocked it wondering what was going on. Then put it out of my mind and went about the rest of my day. The phone was used more the rest of the day and the pink line was gone. I started to chalk it up to maybe it needed a reboot and so I rebooted it that evening back at home. The next day I woke up and unplugged my phone from the charger. I had to check for some emails and so I unlocked the phone and HELLO!! "Hello my name is pinky mcliney and Ill be your riding shot gun on the right side of your phone..." So there it is again. I was mystified I figured I must have done something to cause this and I wasn't sure what, I became convinced that I just had to go through the company warranty and get the phone repaired or replaced and I had a feeling that I may have a denied claim if they said well you dropped it and caused that. I was not looking forward to switching back to my old phone as it now felt outdated and slow. And I was really looking forward to getting the Android 7.0 Nougat on this Samsung to see what it would do.
Fast forward a week goes by and Pinky (the pink line) shows up a few times on and off, I found if I touched the upper right part of the screen it sometimes went away and stayed away for a long time. I did not go to warranty yet, I decided to live with it and I would go to support if it got worse. But then I was looking up stories for my blog and came across a post that said the same issue with the pink line. It was a story about people having the pink lines,
http://wccftech.com/galaxy-s7-edge-display-pink-line/
I was elated sort of, I didn't cause this? Is it a manufacture defect? Apparently so. I read more and more looking at people's comments waiting to see a long list of people who sent the phone back and got a replacement with no hassle. I did not find that. Instead there were a couple like that, but then others who said they were charged for the repair or told a high cost to replace. Then there were more reports of the pink line, ON THE REPLACEMENT DEVICES PEOPLE RECEIVED! So this is a bigger issue than I first thought. Guess what, my phone is still with me. I'm waiting on doing anything about pinky. The rest of the phone works still just as good as it first did 6 months ago. Even the battery is still holding up. My co worker who heads our mobile administration asked me the other day about the phone and if I wanted to get a warranty claim going, I told him no, and told him the stories and the news I found through my research. He agreed that was the best course of action, keep a wait and see stance to find out if Samsung was going to officially acknowledge the defect. So far they have not said anything and there is still an issue and people are not getting answers when they speak to Samsung outside the normal canned tech support responses.
I am a fan of Samsung, I have some of their televisions, I have the washer and dryer (yes it was the washer that had the off balance defect) I have almost all Samsung monitors for all of my computers as well as some of my family's computers. I tell everyone the best screens for a computer are from Samsung. But the company is starting to become a worry to me and my ability to recommend them to everyone is becoming less and less. They did fix the washer quickly, I had a warranty visit from a tech and a new bigger S screw was installed to keep the unit from breaking apart. But that issue along with the pink line issue, along with the Note 7 Battery issue and even some reports about bad TV software glitches has made it harder to trust that Samsung is doing QA well enough and will be able to make great products again that don't have defects. I watched the Galaxy S8 unboxed event. I heard the vow made by the Samsung Executive to get better at this and learn from the Note 7. I watched the video about how they are testing batteries and saw the stress test they run. It makes me feel a little better about Samsung. But this issue with the pink line needs to be addressed. Tell your customers if you can fix it. Tell us you at least have an engineer looking at it. Work with customers on a case by case basis if needed and try to fix or replace the phone. If you cannot fix the issue then at least have some kind of upgrade for the customers. Even if not a full replace to a new device if the customers device is a little older, then just provide the customers with some kind of better discount on a new phone. The Note 7 was a safety issue, the washing machine was a safety issue. This does not appear to cause the phone to become unsafe to use but it is a huge defect and makes the using of the phone more cumbersome it aggravates the user when it should not have to.
In a way it IS a safety issue...to the Safety of Samsung and their future sales and loyal customers. Samsung if you do not acknowledge this or look into it for your customers, they are going to turn away in droves. It will make your customers pause before they buy that beautiful new S8 and S8+ you came out with. Even corporate customers who love the Samsung devices, will edit their policies and tell their sales reps, "Show me all the Android devices but take Samsung out of the search" I think if this pink line is at least discussed by Samsung and acknowledged it will help. if you tell us it will take time to fix but you are looking at it, it will help us feel like you really care. Don't be a company that just bets on your name and won't take the time to listen to your customers. Help us get rid of the pink line AKA"Pinky Mcliney"
Showing posts with label support. Show all posts
Showing posts with label support. Show all posts
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Saturday, March 18, 2017
When buying networking equipment cheap is not always the way to go
There is an old saying "Cheap is not always good, and good is not always cheap" This holds very true when looking at networking products. A lot of these products send your data through your network and get it to the computers for the users to see and use. If you purchase a product that turns out to be poorly designed, you will find your self with a lot of angry calls at the help desk and wonder why. I have seen cases where the users do not consult their help desk and they go out and buy a piece of equipment and buy the cheapest one they can find. Then they hook it up and have problems with connectivity and call the help desk to find out why. Those routers that are 39.99, there is a reason they are that price. They are not good. They will not last, or they have limited features, or they break down every other day. I had a case where a company who I worked for did this very thing. We had provided them with a medium grade business router. It had a dual WAN connection so you could have 2 internet providers for redundancy and it had some decent features on it to manage the device even from a remote location. It was a major name brand and was about 4 years old. It had come time to replace the device but before we were able to it stopped working leaving the users unable to connect to the internet or their cloud to do work. So rather than call the help desk and let us work with them to try to resolve the issue they went to the store and bought a 39 dollar consumer grade router. I don't even remember what the name was, it was a brand I had never even heard of. So they brought it back to the office and plugged it in and put the old one off to the side. Now not only did they run it without changing any configuration leaving it vulnerable to be hacked into, they did not have any idea that we had special settings in the old device telling it how to send data to specific devices that needed to be configured in a special way. Now keep in mind, at this location we have a monitor tool connected remotely that pings their internet connection and reports if the ping stops working. So in the morning I was alerted the site went down and saw it drop out. I reached out to the office to inquire if they were having issues and offer support but the person had already left to go to the store to buy the device. It was a small office with 3 people and 2 of them were out that day. So about an hour goes by and I see the monitor tell me they are back online, so I figure ok they had an internet issue from their provider and the provider fixed it. Great! Nothing to worry about....
What followed was half a day troubleshooting and trying to get things working with that junk device the users purchased! I almost immediately found out that they had switched out the device and because the IP scheme was different, printers that went by IP address could not find the network. The old setup had 192.168.0.X and the new device had the way too popular 192.168.1.X So I had to go in and change that setting to fix that problem. Then I had to adjust the DHCP to go from 100 to 200 not 2 to 150.... Those were easy fixes and after changing the WiFi built in to match what they used to have with the same password (which was pretty secure with numbers and symbols) things were looking up. Then I came to the part to add in firewall rules to forward ports to their respective devices... If you never did this basically you tell the router, if you see traffic coming from a port named 1088 for example: send that data to this address, xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. That tells the router to take the traffic and send it to a specific device that needs data from the specific port address. This would have maybe worked if the developer working on the software for this router was not a complete bone head, who never worked with computers before... The interface to do this was mind boggling and even after I figured out what the hell they were trying to convey on the menus, the programming I put in to allow this did not work. So now the remote IP phones that were at worker's homes would not work. They had an IP based phone system and needed the workers to be able to work from home so we had implemented a PBX that would allow this. Sadly this would never work due to the poorly designed router, and we needed it sooner rather than later, as it was December in the North east and this area was prone to 20 inch snow storms... Now at this point, 3 hours into the call your ready to ask the user, why the **** did you go and buy this piece of **** without consulting me first???? But you cannot do that it is frowned upon and will cause tension on the other side of the phone call. Instead you must mute your phone take 3 deep breaths and then explain to them that they must hobble along today until you can overnight them the correct router they need to have their network run at optimal performance. You must also pray that there is a unit in stock in your storage and hope you can configure it and get it out the door to shipping by 3 pm... Luckily for this office, I did have a new unit in stock and was able to put all the settings in they needed, and was able to apply the latest firmware to give the device all the best security and feature patches the device manufacturer had. The only downside was the device was just a firewall/router without WiFi so they would have no WiFi as the WiFi units that tie together were not in stock and back ordered. The users were fine with this and said WiFi is not a huge deal and they could work without it for a few days. The silver lining on this was that when they got the new router that I sent over, we found a huge wiring issue that was causing network drops and the old router was not smart enough to tell them about it, but the new one did detect it in a rather off the wall way and thanks to its error logs I was able to find out this wire issue and have a tech go out and fix it. Now you might ask, "OK they spent 39.99 on the crap consumer grade router, how much did yours cost, 500 dollars? 750 dollars? 1000 dollars? Is it a large brand name that is huge and popular? "
No, the router we sent out is a Mid grade enterprise device and costs roughly 300 bucks with a 2 year warranty, that also includes a cloud log in to manage the device and there is no additional cost for that feature. So we didn't go top of the line for this new device but we did not go cheap either. Our idea has always been to get the users good hardware that will last, and suite the needs of the office without being too expensive and try to be future proof at the same time. The device we gave them fits that bill to a T and the company that makes it has been updating its firmware to add more features to give them more usability. These devices have been put into 95 percent of our locations we help manage and we don't have too many break down. We always try to make sure the locations know to contact us before they go and buy something so we can get them the right equipment. Spending money for a good product even if it is more money is always better in the long run when it comes to IT and hardware. You will improve the reliability of the network for users, and cut down on user frustration and wasted time calling the Help desk to fix an issue. So remember, Cheap is not always good and good is not always cheap.
What followed was half a day troubleshooting and trying to get things working with that junk device the users purchased! I almost immediately found out that they had switched out the device and because the IP scheme was different, printers that went by IP address could not find the network. The old setup had 192.168.0.X and the new device had the way too popular 192.168.1.X So I had to go in and change that setting to fix that problem. Then I had to adjust the DHCP to go from 100 to 200 not 2 to 150.... Those were easy fixes and after changing the WiFi built in to match what they used to have with the same password (which was pretty secure with numbers and symbols) things were looking up. Then I came to the part to add in firewall rules to forward ports to their respective devices... If you never did this basically you tell the router, if you see traffic coming from a port named 1088 for example: send that data to this address, xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. That tells the router to take the traffic and send it to a specific device that needs data from the specific port address. This would have maybe worked if the developer working on the software for this router was not a complete bone head, who never worked with computers before... The interface to do this was mind boggling and even after I figured out what the hell they were trying to convey on the menus, the programming I put in to allow this did not work. So now the remote IP phones that were at worker's homes would not work. They had an IP based phone system and needed the workers to be able to work from home so we had implemented a PBX that would allow this. Sadly this would never work due to the poorly designed router, and we needed it sooner rather than later, as it was December in the North east and this area was prone to 20 inch snow storms... Now at this point, 3 hours into the call your ready to ask the user, why the **** did you go and buy this piece of **** without consulting me first???? But you cannot do that it is frowned upon and will cause tension on the other side of the phone call. Instead you must mute your phone take 3 deep breaths and then explain to them that they must hobble along today until you can overnight them the correct router they need to have their network run at optimal performance. You must also pray that there is a unit in stock in your storage and hope you can configure it and get it out the door to shipping by 3 pm... Luckily for this office, I did have a new unit in stock and was able to put all the settings in they needed, and was able to apply the latest firmware to give the device all the best security and feature patches the device manufacturer had. The only downside was the device was just a firewall/router without WiFi so they would have no WiFi as the WiFi units that tie together were not in stock and back ordered. The users were fine with this and said WiFi is not a huge deal and they could work without it for a few days. The silver lining on this was that when they got the new router that I sent over, we found a huge wiring issue that was causing network drops and the old router was not smart enough to tell them about it, but the new one did detect it in a rather off the wall way and thanks to its error logs I was able to find out this wire issue and have a tech go out and fix it. Now you might ask, "OK they spent 39.99 on the crap consumer grade router, how much did yours cost, 500 dollars? 750 dollars? 1000 dollars? Is it a large brand name that is huge and popular? "
No, the router we sent out is a Mid grade enterprise device and costs roughly 300 bucks with a 2 year warranty, that also includes a cloud log in to manage the device and there is no additional cost for that feature. So we didn't go top of the line for this new device but we did not go cheap either. Our idea has always been to get the users good hardware that will last, and suite the needs of the office without being too expensive and try to be future proof at the same time. The device we gave them fits that bill to a T and the company that makes it has been updating its firmware to add more features to give them more usability. These devices have been put into 95 percent of our locations we help manage and we don't have too many break down. We always try to make sure the locations know to contact us before they go and buy something so we can get them the right equipment. Spending money for a good product even if it is more money is always better in the long run when it comes to IT and hardware. You will improve the reliability of the network for users, and cut down on user frustration and wasted time calling the Help desk to fix an issue. So remember, Cheap is not always good and good is not always cheap.
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Even if you love your career frustration can set in...
There comes a point in every career that you start to have bad days and start to think things, like why do I do this? What is my goal? Do I even want to do this anymore? Does what I do matter to anyone?
If you job is high stress this can come on quicker than in other fields. When it comes to the IT Field you can face high stress almost every day. I started feeling like this about a month ago. The calls would come into the help desk and while trying to deal with those I was doing other projects that required a lot of attention to detail that I could not provide because I was on the phone helping users and doing other things at the same time. I used to wake up and look forward to going to work and facing new challenges. Now I wake up and I have to talk myself into it. I knew there were a ton of projects that I needed to work on but I just did not have the drive. I felt like why bother, there will just be another one right after it and no one cares. Going back to a retail store to stock shelves all day seemed like a better alternative than this. Basically I forgot some of the most important things about myself.
I lost sight of why I got into this field. What I loved about it. What used to drive me to try to be better every day. I wasn't sure how to get it back. Even my co workers could see I was stressed out. I would normally just answer a question and talk a little about something related. Now they would get a one word answer and I was short and barked at them gruffly. I knew it wasn't right to do and they were all working as hard as me, but I felt like I was drowning.
But then one day something good happened. I had several calls in a row and everyone thanked me for my help and told me how wonderful I was to work with. How I always can get them out of a jam and that I was truly a valuable person to have at the desk. Then as I was going through helping people by email requests, they were each coming back saying the same thing. One person said, "I know you guys don't get the respect you deserve sometimes, but this office really appreciates all that your team does for us. That email got flagged and marked in a category called "keep going you're on the right path".... I then had a moment to myself, it was quiet on the desk and my projects were waiting on updates from others that would not come for at least a few hours, so I started cleaning out my desk drawers. They get to become a disaster If I don't try to keep up with them. As I was going through the one drawer a small card fell out, It was a thank you card I got one of the first years I started working there. The person had written up a small note thanking me for the amount of time I took to make sure her offices were up and running and how she was so thankful for the amount of time and effort I put into the task. She said I went above and beyond what was needed and she was thrilled. I had forgotten I had that card. So I put it on my desk near where all my papers sit that I have to work on every day so I could always see it.
I went home that night and made sure I replayed all the good comments and remarks I heard and read throughout the day in my head. I asked the important questions that needed to have answers to make it all clear, "Why do I do this work?" "What gave me my passion for this role so long ago?" I remembered how back when I first got into the computer field, I was not sure what I wanted to do, I didn't know where to start. There were a few people in my neighborhood I talked to all the time, I told them I was looking into getting into computer work. they all asked me for some small help on the computer. Basic stuff, how to get AOL to dial up right, (I know, no body remembers that stuff!) How to make Windows 98 run a little quicker. All small things I knew how to do. And each person was so happy I could help them in some small way. They all said I had great patience to work with them and I would go far in the field. I realized then that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be in a support role to help people with the computer. People need someone who can give them help stay focused and not get upset when its hard to explain to them how to do something. I remember how I would work hard on learning how to talk to people and explain technical things in a way they would understand. I felt better that night.
I woke up the next day and went back to work with a new recharged feeling. It was a hectic day, the desk was really busy. There were several issues going on that needed to be fixed with a few steps each time. I worked with every person until they were working and happy, I stayed calm, focused and did not feel stressed. I was enjoying the challenge. The day went by really quick. It was a great day. I made sure to remember how I felt that night and thought about more ways I could improve. I started reading about some new technology we were going to be using. I made sure to know how to work with it and thought about what issues I could face with this new stuff. I was back. It was great again.
So how do you get back to a place where you love what you do? I don't have all the answers but reminding your self of why you went into that field can help. Also get feed back from others. Find out what drives your peers in the field and why they started in the field as well. Ask co workers to evaluate you and tell you what they feel you need work on. When you have a bad day, before you leave, make sure to shake it off and leave it at work. Go home and doing something you love to do that has nothing to do with your work. Once you feel better try to think about the day and how things went. See if you can find ways to improve things. If you do that after working on a hobby or something you love to do, your mind set will be better and you can look back at the day with a fresh outlook and it may help you make the next day better. If you can do these things to help you feel better about your path again, you will start to have better days. It will bring you back to enjoying what you do again.
If you job is high stress this can come on quicker than in other fields. When it comes to the IT Field you can face high stress almost every day. I started feeling like this about a month ago. The calls would come into the help desk and while trying to deal with those I was doing other projects that required a lot of attention to detail that I could not provide because I was on the phone helping users and doing other things at the same time. I used to wake up and look forward to going to work and facing new challenges. Now I wake up and I have to talk myself into it. I knew there were a ton of projects that I needed to work on but I just did not have the drive. I felt like why bother, there will just be another one right after it and no one cares. Going back to a retail store to stock shelves all day seemed like a better alternative than this. Basically I forgot some of the most important things about myself.
I lost sight of why I got into this field. What I loved about it. What used to drive me to try to be better every day. I wasn't sure how to get it back. Even my co workers could see I was stressed out. I would normally just answer a question and talk a little about something related. Now they would get a one word answer and I was short and barked at them gruffly. I knew it wasn't right to do and they were all working as hard as me, but I felt like I was drowning.
But then one day something good happened. I had several calls in a row and everyone thanked me for my help and told me how wonderful I was to work with. How I always can get them out of a jam and that I was truly a valuable person to have at the desk. Then as I was going through helping people by email requests, they were each coming back saying the same thing. One person said, "I know you guys don't get the respect you deserve sometimes, but this office really appreciates all that your team does for us. That email got flagged and marked in a category called "keep going you're on the right path".... I then had a moment to myself, it was quiet on the desk and my projects were waiting on updates from others that would not come for at least a few hours, so I started cleaning out my desk drawers. They get to become a disaster If I don't try to keep up with them. As I was going through the one drawer a small card fell out, It was a thank you card I got one of the first years I started working there. The person had written up a small note thanking me for the amount of time I took to make sure her offices were up and running and how she was so thankful for the amount of time and effort I put into the task. She said I went above and beyond what was needed and she was thrilled. I had forgotten I had that card. So I put it on my desk near where all my papers sit that I have to work on every day so I could always see it.
I went home that night and made sure I replayed all the good comments and remarks I heard and read throughout the day in my head. I asked the important questions that needed to have answers to make it all clear, "Why do I do this work?" "What gave me my passion for this role so long ago?" I remembered how back when I first got into the computer field, I was not sure what I wanted to do, I didn't know where to start. There were a few people in my neighborhood I talked to all the time, I told them I was looking into getting into computer work. they all asked me for some small help on the computer. Basic stuff, how to get AOL to dial up right, (I know, no body remembers that stuff!) How to make Windows 98 run a little quicker. All small things I knew how to do. And each person was so happy I could help them in some small way. They all said I had great patience to work with them and I would go far in the field. I realized then that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be in a support role to help people with the computer. People need someone who can give them help stay focused and not get upset when its hard to explain to them how to do something. I remember how I would work hard on learning how to talk to people and explain technical things in a way they would understand. I felt better that night.
I woke up the next day and went back to work with a new recharged feeling. It was a hectic day, the desk was really busy. There were several issues going on that needed to be fixed with a few steps each time. I worked with every person until they were working and happy, I stayed calm, focused and did not feel stressed. I was enjoying the challenge. The day went by really quick. It was a great day. I made sure to remember how I felt that night and thought about more ways I could improve. I started reading about some new technology we were going to be using. I made sure to know how to work with it and thought about what issues I could face with this new stuff. I was back. It was great again.
So how do you get back to a place where you love what you do? I don't have all the answers but reminding your self of why you went into that field can help. Also get feed back from others. Find out what drives your peers in the field and why they started in the field as well. Ask co workers to evaluate you and tell you what they feel you need work on. When you have a bad day, before you leave, make sure to shake it off and leave it at work. Go home and doing something you love to do that has nothing to do with your work. Once you feel better try to think about the day and how things went. See if you can find ways to improve things. If you do that after working on a hobby or something you love to do, your mind set will be better and you can look back at the day with a fresh outlook and it may help you make the next day better. If you can do these things to help you feel better about your path again, you will start to have better days. It will bring you back to enjoying what you do again.
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