That should be their tagline, at least when it comes to their customer
service.
I purchased two top of the line PC's in 1997 from Gateway, one for me and
one for my Son, they were our first PC's so you can imagine the volume of
calls I made to Gateway for help. They were EXCEPTIONAL ! Using my computer
became a large piece of entertainment in my life, and streamlined
communication like I had never experienced before. My experience with
Gateways customer service then was quite impressive, so when it came time
for me to buy a system for my new business I naturally leaned in the
direction of buying another Gateway in spite of the praises friends gave to
me concerning Dell,,,dude.
I decided to purchase my new business system in person at the Gateway Store
in Citrus Heights CA. I felt actually seeing what I was buying and working
face to face with the person selling the system to me would improve my
ability to understand & be understood concerning what I wanted for my
business.

My business is a small upstart we have only been in business a year so far.
Our Product is an extremely tasty Barbeque Sauce called OL' Hippie Gourmet
BBQ Sauce in three levels of heat, Sweet n Smokey, Hot Licks, and
Outrageous(a shameless plug here) we make it all alone 5 gallons at a time
and create our own labels. As business grew it became clear a Laser printer
was in my future, lower cost than the ink-jet for sure but the print quality
of a laser is what I wanted, being a pretty fair photographer, the idea of
creating greeting cards of the local area could be very profitable ( we live
in a tourist area on the coast).
So I specifically told the sales person what it was I wanted & how much I
was willing to spend naturally the total came in higher that what I told him
but I was asking for specific things. The ability of this system to produce
high quality labels for my product was of PARAMOUNT importance. I also was
adamant about a very robust security/anti-virus/anti-Spam system.

I immediately had problems with the way the printer worked, color was great
but it couldn't print in the right spot on the page. Using standard Avery
name badge labels I print a background picture and superimpose the label
text on top, the labels were printing to the upper right of each label,
nothing I tried or Gateway tried or HP tried improved this at all. The
decision to replace the printer came from HP. Gateway shipped a replacement
printer same model even exchange.
Parallel to this problem my system began giving me driver errors when
connected to the internet. ? mm I thought it should be easy to fix for their
techs as it is their system and I had done nothing with it yet.
This was after 6 weeks of frustration with Gateway and their numb-skull
tech help. I don't wish to itemize every call but I spent no less than 6
hours a day trying to correct this problem over the span of that 6 weeks.
Then the replacement printer printed exactly as the first one did, I was
****ED, I had lost a lot of production time to the lack of labels, and was
unable to peddle my sauce with labels that looked like a 3rd grader printed
them. Not to give up early Gateway convinced me to try a Konica-Minolta
laser printer, ok now its close to 12 weeks into this nightmare, and guess
what? It printed worse than the HP !!!!!!.

I tried Gateways online live support with a tech via chat sort of. I
utilized that same thing with HP and it worked well. This guy asked me to
let him take over control of my mouse and keyboard and he would change some
settings and fix the problem........MY FATAL decision was to let him.
unknown to me he closed down a firewall or somehow disabled Norton and BAM
that was the end.

I found a Trojan Horse and finally gave up and demanded a full refund I
received the return authorization and packed it all up and shipped it back.

It has been 16 weeks total loss of production, THANKS GATEWAY

I will never deal with Gateway again their customer service is so bad it
works in reverse. I did find a few Gateway employees that were very good and
one in particular I wish to commend for his OUTSTANDING Customer Service,
Matt McAlpin the manager of the Gateway store ion Citrus Heights CA. He made
it right and I expect to have my money back buy this Friday.

Bruce Grieve
olhippieATcharterDOTnet

Sorry to hear about your troubles! Hope you get it all worked out soon.

kili

Ol Hippie,

Sounds like you had a terrible experience with Gateway CS. I've been
there too, though not to the extent you have. Being a 'computer nut', I
have been asked about 'who should I buy a system from?' And maybe givin
a couple of choices. I may offer a recommendation, but I make sure to
tell them that in the tech support end of it, none are better than the
other. All are equally poor.

Part of the problem is simply that often times a tech support position
is an entry level job in the IT business. And like most entry level
jobs, it is a thankless one to the upper management, though they will
not admit it. They need them, but do not respect the them.

Sometimes poor customer service is because of incompetent people. Other
times, a competent person but not properly trained. And yet other
times, a competent, trained person, but is dealing with a problem that
does not occur often enough to make it seem to the customer that he/she
is competent and trained.

As you found out, sometimes you can get lucky. And that will happen
with any CS tech support. I have read where no one should be 'on the
phones' in a customer service role more than 4 hours per day. This is
because of the 'high stress' nature of customer service. I know of no
company in the IT tech support industry that offers a full-time job with
4 hours on the phones and 4 hours off the phones doing some other tasks
associated with the department.

If you were to ask me today who to buy a computer from, I would say
'Dude, get a Dell'. Expect poor tech support and you won't be disappointed.

Now, to move this on topic. Got any recommendations on cooking a frozen
Alaskan Salmon? I am supposed to get one from a brother who spent a
week there during the Easter holidays. I want to make Lox from it, but
will consider other recommendations from a more experienced cooker of
Salmon.

Happy Q'en,
BBQ

"Ol' Hippie" wrote in message
...

snip sob story

Bruce Grieve
olhippieATcharterDOTnet


Hippie Dude - you need to redirect your rant at the real culprit here -
Microshaft. Printing problems, driver issues, trojan horses - they are all
mostly caused by flaws in MS' operating system. Your gateway is built out
of the same parts and pieces as Dell, Compaq, heck - most of them. And Tech
support does not exist anymore, they've all shipped it to the lowest
overseas bidder.

Some things to think about:
1. ALWAYS make sure every last MS patch is applied from winblows update
2. Get a firewall ( hardware, not software crap ).
3. Take your printing elsewhere - you'll never save money doing it
yourself, and the quality is sub-par unless you spring mucho dinero for a
nice color lazer.

Thanks for the reply I have a quote in hand from Dell as we type.
I just never buy a car planning on becoming a mechanic! Oh Well......
Now bout that Salmon, can't help you with the Lox but know for sure there
are some real pro's around here. I think Nathan Lau had some info about Lox
not sure, but check the FAQ too.
My wife & I like Salmon simple she likes a glaze on it I like it with dill,
garlic an EVOO. Med hot grill and skin on.
Use Alder if you can get it, we slow smoked a 5 lb fillet last fall at about
250 till the meat flaked but was still very moist, the alder was a nice
touch.
Springers are beginning to show up here on the Rogue ought to go get us a
couple, Springers are the best!
Bruce-n-Gold Beach

bbq wrote:

Now, to move this on topic. Got any recommendations on cooking a frozen
Alaskan Salmon? I am supposed to get one from a brother who spent a
week there during the Easter holidays. I want to make Lox from it, but
will consider other recommendations from a more experienced cooker of
Salmon.

If you like lox, here's an excellent recipe. I like it best when it's
been cold smoked, but it's still good even without it. Let us know
how it comes out.

http://www.sausagemania.com/loxmania.html

--
Reg email: RegForte (at) (that free MS email service) (dot) com

"Ol' Hippie" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the reply I have a quote in hand from Dell as we type.


Do you honestly think Dell is the solution?

You will still be talking to someone many miles away. Why not try Dennis?
Well, you may not live close to my computer guy, Dennis, but there is
probably one in the neighborhood you live in.

The right guy will build your system, test it, adjust to fit your particular
needs, then set it up at your business. He will be very price competitive
with Dell, Gateway, etc. He will personally take care of your problems.

Casein point: My monitor just went blank on Friday. An hour later, I had a
new one on my desk, the two year old one is going back under warranty. Will
Dell do that? A few years ago one of the hard drive crashed. Dennis came
out exchanged the drives and saved the data. Will Dell do that? Both my
work and home computers have come from the small shop after hanging on the
phone once too long with the big mail order houses. .
Ed

http://pages.cthome.net/edhome

I think you hit the nail on the head. As soon as the sun comes up this
morning I will be on the phone calling the local computer geeks and see what
I find out.
Bruce-n-Gold Beach

"Ol' Hippie" wrote in message
...
I think you hit the nail on the head. As soon as the sun comes up this
morning I will be on the phone calling the local computer geeks and see
what
I find out.
Bruce-n-Gold Beach

Dear Bruce,
You can get custom labels made for about five to ten cents apiece.
you will need to buy at least 250.
Call your local print shop or look up one of the dozen or so
online printers. Do a google search for "printed labels online".
You can buy thousands of labels for what a new PC costs.
HTH
Mr. Wizard

"Ol' Hippie" wrote in message
...
I think you hit the nail on the head. As soon as the sun comes up this
morning I will be on the phone calling the local computer geeks and see
what
I find out.
Bruce-n-Gold Beach



Yep, give it a shot. Many of us small timers have parts on hand or can get
them at decent prices fairly quickly. We can get software catered to your
needs and build you a specific system. Try it. You may like it.

kilikini

You know, I have been in this group for awhile now, trolls notwithstanding
this is one fun group and believe I have made some friends. We haven't
talked much but I have enjoyed your input any time it's PUT.
I think because I live in such a remote place, it only makes since to hook
up with a local company, or techie to do exactly that,,,,build it like I
need it to be, and help me when I need it. I am no idiot when it comes to
computers but I don't hold a candle to those that build their own.
I am through dealing with the big dogs they bark loud but let the fox in the
hen house anyway.
Bruce-n-Gold Beach

Ol' Hippie wrote in alt.food.barbecue

I am through dealing with the big dogs
they bark loud but let the fox in the hen house anyway.
Bruce-n-Gold Beach




Hey, this dog barks AND bites. Aint no foxes in
my hen house.

--
BigDog
To E-mail me, you know what to do.

On 20-Apr-2004, "Ol' Hippie" wrote:

I think you hit the nail on the head. As soon as the sun comes up this
morning I will be on the phone calling the local computer geeks and see
what
I find out.
Bruce-n-Gold Beach

I've built my own and helped others get started since 1980. For the last
couple of years, I quit doing all the running around and chose a local
shop that takes care of me. I bought four custom builts last year for
myself, kids and friends. I lost one hard drive a few months ago and
it was fixed the same day. they even gave me software to salvage
what I could from the old drive. (It wasn't all the way dead yet.) Personal
service is hard to beat.
--
M&M ("When You're Over The Hill You Pick Up Speed")