It all started with a gift certificate from Circuit City that I got for my birthday back in December.
I don't tend to shop at CC much, most of the time if I want that sort of thing I go to Fry's because there's more selection, more other products, less intrusive (and somewhat less clueless) employees, and the occasional nonsensical art piece on the walls.
Finally made it in to CC. It looked as if the place was going out of business but it turned out they were only rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, that is, reorganizing the store. After a frustrating search, misdirected by about four of the red shirts, we eventually found a set of walkie talkies (for Burning Man, of course). They work fine (tho there were three different models on the shelf to choose from, Fry's has about 50). This left about $30 on the card. I wandered around the wasteland, er, store several times but couldn't come up with anything I wanted; either it was severely overpriced audio and video equipment, or…no, that was pretty much it. We gave up.
Last night I was back in the area (Michael's is next door) so I took up the challenge to spend the rest of it. I vaguely need an mp3 player for my art project, something that I don't mind if it gets destroyed and hopefully has a long battery life. It'd be a shame to destroy an iPod, and I haven't ever given any of the other players a chance. The iRiver T10 looked like it fit the bill – 45 hour battery life, audio recording (another part of my project). But no information on the box as to whether it will work with a Mac. It should – most mp3 players should just mount as a “key” drive, no software required. If I had had a web terminal, I could have looked it up; I looked what I could on my phone and it seemed there were issues but it should be doable.
One clueless employee interaction later (“thank you for turning an ordinary transaction into a bizzare ritual”), and I'm on my way home with the product. Before opening the box I looked it up at home, and indeed it looked a lot more difficult than it should be – required using Windows to run the firmware update – twice – updating the software to the European version so it would mount as a simple drive rather than requiring Windows PlaysForSure Media Mangler (or whatever junk crapware they chose to ruin it with). After reading CC's generous return policy, I decided to dive in and give it a shot.
But, not so fast. First I had to get the package open. The plastic security cry-o-wrap packaging defeated even my custom cryowrap packaging opener ($3.95 Fry's), I finally hacked at it with a sharp pocketknife, utterly ruining the container but fortunately and surprisingly not spilling any of my own precious bodily fluids.
Hooked it up with a standard USB cable, ran Parallels, got the “new hardware found” warning and – d'oh – it doesn't install in this version of Windows (2000). And it won't work trying to bypass that and run the software updater directly, since then it can't even find the device. Apparently it “needs” Windows XP “or better” (rolling on the floor laughing, because that should include Windows 2000, Linux, and MacOS, but it doesn't). So – last ditch effort – I took it to work to try it on the machine there.
Installed fine, found the device without needing driver install, tried to run the firmware update. And it won't work without a live internet connection over a nonstandard firewall port.
My only remaining futile hope is that when I return it (I'd like to throw it through their window, but CC doesn't have any windows) some of this idiocy will be revenged and CC or iRiver or someone will learn a tiny little lesson about product compatibility. Sure, wish me luck with that.
- If you can't run a better store than this, just give up. Let the big box stores and the internet win.
- Hire employees who can find products that you stock in your store, even in the aisle they happen to be standing in.
- Put internet terminals somewhere prominent in the store so I can look up this crap before wasting my money and both of our time.
- Hire employees who can operate a cash register without having to ask a manager for assistance.
- Devise some way of allowing me to open the package without destroying it, the product, or my fingers.
- Design products to use standard drivers so all you do is plug them in (to any least-common-denominator system) and they run.
- There are these things called Firewalls. If your product doesn't need to connect to the internet, don't. Otherwise, use standard open ports.
- Point me to the suggestion box.