http://www.rubinary.com Our Small Place In The Virtual Universe Sat, 31 Jul 2010 01:22:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 http://www.rubinary.com/2008/12/20/the-hunt-for-the-watch/ http://www.rubinary.com/2008/12/20/the-hunt-for-the-watch/#comments Sun, 21 Dec 2008 03:09:22 +0000 Daniel http://www.rubinary.com/?p=692 This year it was decided that I was going to get a certain Casio watch for New Year as a present from Alena. Since she claims she doesn’t really understand much about watches the choice was left to me. After days and days of research and deliberations I set my mind on one particular model.

We soon discovered that the model is nowhere to be found online except for one store. Alena placed an order, but to our disappointment got an email within an hour saying that there was a mistake on the site and they didn’t not have the watch in stock. I should mention that the list price for this item is $400, but a lot of online places have it for $299, when they do have it in stock that is.

This same day I suddenly saw it appear on Amazon for sale from Amazon directly for $288. I placed an order, but the next day got an email from Amazon saying that they are unable to source the item and I could cancel an order or let them try until January 17th. Even weirder and still sad.

Yesterday I posted on a watch collector forum and found out that some members actually bought this model from JCPenney this very week. Online site had nothing, but they said local stores could have some in stock. Called two stores and they had nothing. Decided to visit the third and what do you know? The exact model that I wanted in stock! In addition to that it was 25% off and department manager helped us get a real 15% off coupon when I was trying to get them to take my online code that I found on Google.

In the end we’ve got a $400 watch for $255. Not bad at all. The only thing is that I have to wait until New Year to get them and Alena won’t even let me touch the box.

P.S. I’m not saying the name of the exact model because technically I’m not supposed to know yet. After New Year I’ll post more.

P.P.S. In the process I got extremely excited about a bunch of Casio models and two of them in particular — MT-G 1000 and yet unreleased MT-G 1500. Next year maybe? ]]> http://www.rubinary.com/2008/12/20/the-hunt-for-the-watch/feed/ 7 http://www.rubinary.com/2008/07/27/new-dell-for-parents/ http://www.rubinary.com/2008/07/27/new-dell-for-parents/#comments Sun, 27 Jul 2008 16:53:55 +0000 Daniel http://www.rubinary.com/?p=502 A week ago we were thinking of what to get my mom for her birthday and she said that a new computer would be a good idea. Indeed, their old Dell felt like an ancient animal at this point and was extremely sluggish. The total size of HD space on the poor thing was 27 GB!

We decided that we’re going to put in some money for the new machine and that my dad was going to give the rest. I went to Dell and put together a decently specced computer — Dual core CPU, 2 GB of RAM at 533 mHz, an OK video card, wireless mouse and keyboard that my mom wanted and so on. The total came out to $689.

Then however I started looking for coupons and found one that was giving $250 off a $999 buy. So I went back and used the most expensive components, starting from quad core CPU, 4 GB of RAM at 800 mHz and so on. I came up with a VERY nice machine at $1009. Apply the coupon and you end up with $759. $60 difference, huge difference in performance. Either way, they won’t have to upgrade for quite some time now.

• Intel Core2 processor Q9300 (2.50Ghz,1333FSB) w/Quad Core Technology and 6MB cache
• 4GB DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz
• ATI RADEON HD3650 256MB
• 320GB Serial ATA 2 Hard Drive (7200RPM)
• Dell 19-in-1 Media Card Reader
• 16X DVD+/-RW Drive
• Logitech MX 3200 Laser Cordless Keyboard and Mouse
• Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 Home Basic Edition

The sad part is that the damn thing came with Vista. What a mess. Why take something that was relatively nice and polished and add a shitload of unneeded crap and clutter?

We got the computer delivered yesterday. But getting it to us is a whole other story. You see, when I was placing an order Dell’s servers were acting up. It basically forced me to fill out the address for at least 7 times if not more. End result? I messed up with the number of the building, which I paid for dearly later on.

I realized there was an issue after a first delivery attempt. From that moment on it took me 10(!!!) calls to FedEx and 3 more days of waiting and calling to finally straighten it out. Dell customer support was even more horrible and just refused to do anything at all to help resolve the situation. That’s something considering that they put some kind of lock on the package and FedEx refused to change anything originally. Anyhow, that’s a very short story. Not ever will I use FedEx again, if I have a choice. But luckily all this is behind me now.]]> http://www.rubinary.com/2008/07/27/new-dell-for-parents/feed/ 3