Lenovo weekend tech support woes

I have been using the x220t for a few days now. Five finger gestures is a nice feature of this laptop. I discovered them by playing around with the touchscreen. Lenovo has no complete list of supported five finger gestures. I searched their website and the user guides.

Calling technical support to find this information was almost a waste of time. The first agent who I asked the question to responded by saying technical support is only for hardware repair. She told me to call sales, as they are aware of all the features of the laptop. My girlfriend was in the car with me, and was as disgusted as I was.

I called sales mentioning what tech support said, and luckily I got a sweet sales agent named Tammi. She clarified the situation, and assured me that tech support DOES support the system, including answering my questions.

Second time around, I got another tech support agent who opened up a new request. I asked him what five finger gestures were supported, and he found this website:

http://www.jessebandersen.com/2011/04/lenovo-thinkpad-x220-tablet-two-four.html

I am surprised that Lenovo has no information about these gestures on their website.

Lenovo releases driver updates for x220t

Suffering through a variety of quirks, bugs, and freezes, I checked back on Lenovo's site. Yesterday they issued a range of updated drivers for the x220t. Amongst the updates you will find a new BIOS, updated Power Management, updates for trackpoint, touchscreen and touchpad, and many other things.

x220t after a day or two

Here's my impressions after a couple days.

Solid build. Great keyboard. Still not completely used to the touchscreen with pen or finger... Less accurate than I'd like, but I suspect I have to get better at using it.

Forced power off two times so far. First time during shutdown the system wouldn't turn off, had to hold power button to force it off. Second time in Windows when the screen went blank. I did not switch it to an alternate screen, or do anything like that. It was the result of attempting to put the computer to sleep using the power button, and then pressing the other two screen buttons a few times.

The system has also powered up without the trackpoint or touchpad working, but this was prior to the full set of system updates and windows updates installed.

Power button is incapable of putting the system to sleep or doing anything other than forcing a power off. I hope this is a software bug. Of course I checked the power settings, and even tried to set the power button to hibernate which didn't work.

Camera seems to work and is as grainy as expected for below 1 megapixel resolution.

Fingerprint reader can recognize a fingerprint regardless of the direction of the swipe. Very nice.

The system is NOT silent. It is by no means noisy. Stand five feet away and I'm sure you couldn't possibly hear it, but sit right next to it, and it does make a low hum. I have the i7, so it is possible that an i5 or i3 might be quieter or even cause the fan to turn off occasionally.

Handwriting recognition still has a lot to be desired; I'm hoping to get better at writing in a way that makes it more seamless.

The tools that Lenovo provides for configuring the pen and tablet mode are very primitive looking. I am not sure why the developers couldn't make nice looking UIs as existed in the past. The pen tablet allows you to configure a pen that has 2 side buttons... whereas the pen that came with the system has only one side button.

The tablet is pretty light, but of course you can't comfortably hold it up with one hand and type / tap on it with the other. But it is definitely light.

The screen rotates only to the left. It allows all four orientations of the desktop on the screen. Allows you to hold the laptop in any mode in whichever direction you'd like.

More to come...

Got my Lenovo X220t - first impressions

I was surprised to see how light the laptop is. It has a clear screen, and a full size keyboard.

The touchscreen: works well so far. I have managed to write with the pen, although it is something you have to learn how to do. I will slowly build up proficiency at using the gestures and writing in a way that allows the software to more easily recognize the letters.

There are usability bugs.. The laptop screen has gotten stuck in tablet direction even though it was in laptop mode. What that means is that the screen was upside down. Putting it back into tablet mode (flipping the screen), and then turning it back to laptop mode didn't help. Finally after hitting the portrait button, and then hitting it again it switched back to laptop mode.

Next time I booted it up, I didn't have a trackpad or touchpad... I am assuming all of this will be fixed with the System Update run. I have chosen to install all driver updates.

I will blog more as time goes on.

Windows 7. Seriously?

I am a power user of Windows. I like to fly around windows explorer and applications, and I do not want to take time to find where I'm going. I want things to be where I want them to be, and I want to be able to access them quickly. Here's where Windows 7 was supposed to make life easier.

Taskbar icons that can be reordered! Woot! That is wonderful, right?

Wrong.

I must insult the team at Microsoft that architected / designed / implemented this. It's as if their brains were on hold while they did this.

I've opened IE and Chrome. How difficult or important is it for me that IE be before or after Chrome. In all honesty, I can see the icon and quickly access the one I want. Windows 7 allows you to reorder them. Very nice.

I've opened three Chrome applications. They all have the same icon. I must read the name of each one, or look at the thumbnail more clearly to see which instance I want. Wouldn't it be nice if I could reorder those? Yes, that would be wonderful. But alas, Microsoft has deemed the reordering of instances of an application impossible!

Is there anyone who designed this who understands what they are doing?

This situation is most frustrating when working on multiple projects. I have a folder called 'hdl' under multiple projects. I work on multiple projects at once. I keep the 'hdl' folder open on each project at the same time. With Windows XP, I could interleave my 'hdl' folders on the taskbar, with my 'gvim' instances. So I would have on the taskbar:
'hdl' 'gvim' 'hdl' 'gvim'
The first 'hdl' and 'gvim' belong to project A, and the second 'hdl' and 'gvim' belong to project B.
Of course in Windows XP I had to create this arrangement manually. That is why I was looking forward to Windows 7.

In Windows 7, I can't create this arrangement. I would've happily given up on this requirement if at least I could order the instances. But I can't. Even if you choose to 'not combine' taskbar instances, they are still forcibly grouped together without the ability to reorder the instances.

For the first time since Windows came out, I have been forced to use an after-market application to enable me to work efficiently. Since I would encourage Microsoft to fix this, for those who are interested, it is called "7 Taskbar Tweaker".

I would much prefer to use Window's jump lists, and thumbnail previews, and all that jazz. But I can't because I can't reorder the thumbnails.

Allow thumbnails to be reordered!
Allow application instances to not be grouped together!
Perhaps even make it possible to detach an instance (like Chrome does with tabs).

mattress shopping - what's it really like?

While it's fresh in my mind, let me tell you the story of how I bought a mattress.

Went around to a couple shops and finally found a mattress that I wanted. This mattress was sold at Sleep Train, Mattress Discounters, and an online retailer called Slumberland (which I discovered later after searching). Sleep Train and Mattress Discounters both offer to beat any price by 5% and that includes internet pricing as long as they ship to California. The mattress I chose is the Stearns & Foster Eureka Springs Luxury Plush Queen size. This is what happened. I asked Chuck at Sleep Train how much the mattress costs. He immediately took 10% off the price of $1800 to bring it down to $1620. I then told him I was going to go to Sleep Train to see what they could offer. Chuck then took me into his confidence by honestly telling me that Mattress Discounters and Sleep Train are owned by the same person. Wow! He is so honest! Chuck then said that I should go to Sleep Train where they will match the price of $1620, take another 5% off, and give me a much better return policy and higher level service. I was amazed at how honest Chuck was, and I was sold right there. Chuck even said he would call Sleep Train so they could split the commission. Everything made so much sense, Chuck wasn't giving away his sale, he was just looking out for me, his customer. I immediately went to Sleep Train where I spoke with Bob (the manager) and I set up the purchase.

I was happy with the purchase, which at that point totaled, $1539 + tax = $1685. I also agreed to buy a water proof mattress pad costing $50. I also wanted the better frame, adding an additional $70. Total was $1539 + $120 + tax = $1816 I felt that Chuck from Mattress Discounters was very honest, and I got an excellent deal from Sleep Train b/c of him. Then I searched for better online pricing, and the lowest price I found was on Slumberland selling the mattress for $1300. I called Bob at Sleep Train and he immediately agreed to lower the price of the mattress to $1300 (but then explained that the box spring which was sold to me for $200 would now have to be raised to its regular price of $250 now that I was price matching just the mattress). That saved me about $60 bringing the total to $1485 + $120 + tax = $1757. Once again I was happy. They had matched the price and I was getting a good deal.

I went home, saw my flatmate, and then became depressed about the whole purchase. You see, my flatmate informed me that I should be aiming for a 40-50% markdown on the price. He described his shopping experience for a mattress, and it was amazing and depressing at the same time. Lucky that since Sleep Train offers a 100 day price guarantee, and a 100 day return policy, I knew I could go back and ask for more money off or ask for my deposit to be refunded.

Now I started to search a lot more for pricing. Here's the thing, the Eureka Springs mattress is sold under so many names. In order for retail stores to make sure you can't try out a mattress in their store, and then order it online, many mattress manufacturers sell the same mattress under a slew of names. For example, the Eureka Springs is the same as the Kimberly, Raven Hill, Hearthstone, Ferndale, Fiona, Kearsley, Monet Garden, Elgin Court, Rosalie, Montgomery Place, and Deacon Ridge. (I haven't confirmed each of these, but this is what http://lowestpricefurniture.com lists on their ad for the Raven Hill.) Once I realized this, I started searching even more. I finally found a great deal on http://www.gotomattress.com/ offering the Kimberly Luxury Plush Queen mattress for $1349 without tax! They also give a free gift and of course free shipping. I compared specs that I saw on Slumberland with those on GoToMattress, and they were identical! I was flabbergasted! And angry, hurt, upset, embarrassed, and all sorts of other feelings. After all, I was just sold this same mattress at an original markup of almost $300. And above that, I went to a different Sleep Train, showed them the advertisement, at which point they lowered the price by 5% to $1282, gave me the mattress pad like the advertisement gave, removed the tax, and saved me over $400 from my last price at Sleep Train. I also found that Mattress Discounters was willing to match Sleep Train's price, and instead of lowering it, they were willing to upgrade the frame. I went back to Sleep Train and they also agreed to give me the upgraded Queen Instamatic frame.

All in all, I saved around $475 from what I had originally felt was a good deal on a mattress. I finally feel like it's a decent price since Mattress Discounters was very hesitant about lowering the price another 5%, but preferred to throw in an upgraded frame instead.

This experience has taught me that mattresses are marked up by at least 90%, that mattress salesmen have no problem charging such inflated prices, and that they are smarter than me when it comes to making me feel like I've made a good purchase. Watch out, and be very wary of salesmen when buying a mattress. If you cannot get the specs for a mattress in order to compare, you shouldn't buy the mattress. Also remember to shop around. Each drop of 5% means you can go from store to store matching prices to finally get a decent price on a mattress. DO NOT TELL THEM exactly which store. I can tell you for sure that Mattress Discounters and Sleep Train will send each other emails to stop you from price matching between their stores. If they ever offer to split commissions, it is because you are paying a very high price on your mattress, and you should continue price matching with other locations.

Good luck mattress shopping.

AT&T's 3G coverage viewer - LIES!

So I get calls dropped about a block from my apartment, and I lose all 3G coverage in the same area. It's about a three block radius of my home. The AT&T map shows the strongest 3G data coverage for where i live, and the strongest Voice service too. It's very misleading, and AT&T should be required to report accurate coverage on their website. I've submitted many coverage dropouts in my area using AT&T's iPhone tool, and i even got a text message a couple months ago that they're putting a new tower in my area within 90 days. That hasn't happened yet, of that i'm sure since i still have no 3g, and calls are still dropped. So to my sense, they know there's a coverage loss here, and yet the maps don't reflect this.

Bad AT&T