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Friday, February 12, 2010

nothings ever easy

Good morning. Nothings ever easy.
It's been another rather slow week in the Salon, although today and tomorrow look better. With some extra time on my hands, I decided to work on installing our new security system. I took our the old monitor and supports, Spackled the holes in the wall, and mounted the support for the new flat panel monitor. Then I got one of the cameras out and positioned it temporarily on top of the break room wall. Got out the new DVR and plugged everything together. Put batteries in the remote, turned on the monitor, turned on the DVR and everything starts up and I get a beautiful picture of the Salon work area. It's looking good. So I decide I have time to program the DVR and try to access the menu but nothing happened. Actually, I couldn't get it to do anything. Couldn't switch cameras, couldn't go full screen, couldn't set recording, nothing. I figured I must have set it up wrong, so I go back in the manual and repeat all the proper steps. Still nothing. I noticed I don't even have a light showing I have power. Now I'm thinking I better call tech support. And of course I better have enough time to wait on hold an hour and then deal with someone with a foreign accent I can hardly understand. So I call, get a voice menu, press 1 for tech support, get put on hold. About 5 seconds later some one answers! A real person! Speaking perfect English! I explain the situation. He responds he 's pretty sure what the problem is. Apparently some of the units got shipped out without the ribbon cable connected. So all I needed to do was take 8 screws out of the case to remove the top, and connect the ribbon cable to the front panel and everything should work fine. So sure enough, I remove the top as directed, and there it is....

The ribbon cable from the motherboard just laying in the case next to the front panel.

So I attach it to it's proper place, put it back together again, and of course, everything works fine now. I had no power to the front panel with out the ribbon cable. And of course, the company was aware of the issue, but would they recall the units from the stores? No, let's save money by waiting for customers to call, and then walk them through the simple fix. Now every stylist in my Salon said they wouldn't have taken it apart. They would have shipped it back. So I'm not sure the companies decision was the right one. But I now have it working, and can't wait to get the rest of the cameras up. Here's a pic from the camera in full screen mode.
And today, after work, I get to go back to the Alzheimer facility to see if Wanda will let me do her hair this week. I keep hoping the family will give up, but they're pretty insistent. They now have her getting her shower on Fridays, so I won't have to try and wash her hair. Hopefully that helps. We'll see. Have a great weekend!

2 comments:

  1. I would have been furious. Given enough time I would also have contacted the store or corporate for the seller maybe once aware they'd ship them back to the manufacturer.

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  2. You're such a techno stud.

    ReplyDelete