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Bluetooth earphones [the [hopefully] final report]

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Nick Thompson

Bluetooth earphones [the [hopefully] final report]

Dear Colleagues,

Having received some very good advice from FRIAMMERS, I thought I would report back . You recall was the problem that I had gotten given these very fancy Sony Bluetooth earphones which did not work more than a few feet from the Computer. So, I called HP, which has a call center in Rio Rancho, of all places, which is usually very good, not only because they know a lot but also because they tell you when the DON’T know ( instead of saying three minutes into the conversation, “Well you could reformat your hard disk and reinstall windows,” like so many places do.) They said they didn’t know much about Bluetooth, but it would not surprise them if the range was well below specification. Called Sony, and they were ABSOLUTELY worthless. Impenetrable and unresponsive. Called Roger, and he said “Try a dongle; costs 5 bucks; might work.” So, I went to Amazon (because of their return policy) and ordered a 5 dollar dongle. It didn’t work and came with little documentation and no place to go for support. Sent it back [no questions asked] and ordered a 12 dollar dongle from KINIVO because I noticed in the Amazon comments that they responded to comments and gave a support site. The KINOVO dongle instructions were also inadequate, but their emails response was quick and to the point and their dongle is now shining its little blue light and transmitting to every corner of our small apartment.

I am VERY happy.

Thanks everybody,

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Owen Densmore

Re: Bluetooth earphones [the [hopefully] final report]

Administrator

Hey, cool. This info is really useful 'cause we *all* run into weird Digital Ecology problems/conflicts and its nice to see how it was resolved.

My most recent was wading through the newness of Android .. after switching from iOS/iPhone. The OnePlus One phone made it weirder by being "invite only" and heavy use of their Forum.

The entire trail included:

- creating an account,

- then getting an invite in one of many ways (I told a joke that won me one!),

- buying it (really easy, no options, really),

- buying a TMo SIM (a bit obscure but the stores and customer support can't do it, you get it via snail mail),

- activating it (really obscure, customer service can't help and don't know they can't help .. you use the phone+web),

- deactivating Vzn who kept insisting I owed them $.66 (they don't terminate the account 'till midnight, and Tmo sent me welcome SMSs),

- trying to use the forum to get simple questions answered and getting an error: I can't start a topic without "replying" to 5.

- WTF? I'm *at* the forum 'cause I *can't* answer questions,

- asking customer service if I am misunderstanding,

- No I'm not, its an anti-spam measure,

- but this *creates* spam .. lame resposes to get to 5!

- so I find a topic that someone created to resolve this -- just send 5 sill answers and you're go to post.

Whew.

So all Digital Ecology stories very, very welcome so we can avoid them ourselves! Stranger Than Fiction.

-- Owen

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 11:24 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear Colleagues,

Having received some very good advice from FRIAMMERS, I thought I would report back . You recall was the problem that I had gotten given these very fancy Sony Bluetooth earphones which did not work more than a few feet from the Computer. So, I called HP, which has a call center in Rio Rancho, of all places, which is usually very good, not only because they know a lot but also because they tell you when the DON’T know ( instead of saying three minutes into the conversation, “Well you could reformat your hard disk and reinstall windows,” like so many places do.) They said they didn’t know much about Bluetooth, but it would not surprise them if the range was well below specification. Called Sony, and they were ABSOLUTELY worthless. Impenetrable and unresponsive. Called Roger, and he said “Try a dongle; costs 5 bucks; might work.” So, I went to Amazon (because of their return policy) and ordered a 5 dollar dongle. It didn’t work and came with little documentation and no place to go for support. Sent it back [no questions asked] and ordered a 12 dollar dongle from KINIVO because I noticed in the Amazon comments that they responded to comments and gave a support site. The KINOVO dongle instructions were also inadequate, but their emails response was quick and to the point and their dongle is now shining its little blue light and transmitting to every corner of our small apartment.

I am VERY happy.

Thanks everybody,

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Gillian Densmore

Re: Bluetooth earphones [the [hopefully] final report]

Indeed that is good. One of my pet peeves with Tech is support- and why these dipsticks assume you'd be on Windows. I get why they do as people at one point went to windows for many reasons. Sufficed to say it gets to be a undue nuesance when as you say nick Dude On Call says: What version of windows are you using(for example).

It'd be better to start with the basics: Why do you call? Can you discribe in 140 letters or less your issue? Is your computer speaking Klingon?

I agree Amazon is great for returns, they've taken back umpteen things from me when they don't work- free no hastle full money back usually, a few times it was minus shipping (if any)

On Sat, Jan 24, 2015 at 10:24 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hey, cool. This info is really useful 'cause we *all* run into weird Digital Ecology problems/conflicts and its nice to see how it was resolved.

My most recent was wading through the newness of Android .. after switching from iOS/iPhone. The OnePlus One phone made it weirder by being "invite only" and heavy use of their Forum.

The entire trail included:
- creating an account,
- then getting an invite in one of many ways (I told a joke that won me one!),
- buying it (really easy, no options, really),
- buying a TMo SIM (a bit obscure but the stores and customer support can't do it, you get it via snail mail),
- activating it (really obscure, customer service can't help and don't know they can't help .. you use the phone+web),
- deactivating Vzn who kept insisting I owed them $.66 (they don't terminate the account 'till midnight, and Tmo sent me welcome SMSs),
- trying to use the forum to get simple questions answered and getting an error: I can't start a topic without "replying" to 5.
- WTF? I'm *at* the forum 'cause I *can't* answer questions,
- asking customer service if I am misunderstanding,
- No I'm not, its an anti-spam measure,
- but this *creates* spam .. lame resposes to get to 5!
- so I find a topic that someone created to resolve this -- just send 5 sill answers and you're go to post.

Whew.

So all Digital Ecology stories very, very welcome so we can avoid them ourselves! Stranger Than Fiction.

-- Owen

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 11:24 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
Dear Colleagues,

Having received some very good advice from FRIAMMERS, I thought I would report back . You recall was the problem that I had gotten given these very fancy Sony Bluetooth earphones which did not work more than a few feet from the Computer. So, I called HP, which has a call center in Rio Rancho, of all places, which is usually very good, not only because they know a lot but also because they tell you when the DON’T know ( instead of saying three minutes into the conversation, “Well you could reformat your hard disk and reinstall windows,” like so many places do.) They said they didn’t know much about Bluetooth, but it would not surprise them if the range was well below specification. Called Sony, and they were ABSOLUTELY worthless. Impenetrable and unresponsive. Called Roger, and he said “Try a dongle; costs 5 bucks; might work.” So, I went to Amazon (because of their return policy) and ordered a 5 dollar dongle. It didn’t work and came with little documentation and no place to go for support. Sent it back [no questions asked] and ordered a 12 dollar dongle from KINIVO because I noticed in the Amazon comments that they responded to comments and gave a support site. The KINOVO dongle instructions were also inadequate, but their emails response was quick and to the point and their dongle is now shining its little blue light and transmitting to every corner of our small apartment.

I am VERY happy.

Thanks everybody,

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com