Toshiba laptop hinge lid cracks

Just before Christmas, late November time, I decided to buy a new Toshiba P100-429 laptop, and with a free Vista upgrade, why the hell not?

By late December I started noticing stress fractures in the metallic bronze case around the hinges. I complained to Toshiba and they admitted it was a manufacturing fault (afterall I'd only had it a month) and they agreed to repair it under warranty. The UK based service centre for the repairs is Testlink, and they sent a courier next day to collect. I was informed that the part was on order expected to come in within two weeks.

Well here I am nearly a month later, Testlink still have the laptop and blame Toshiba Germany for not supplying the new improved lid part. Testlink have now had the laptop in their possession longer than I have had it in mine.

What is worse is that I could have bought a laptop after the 30th of January WITH Vista included, which I had actually considered because I really wanted Vista.

Now I have a laptop that is not in my possession and in repair with no end in sight (oh yes, did I mention neither Testlink or Toshiba will give me an estimated time to fix)? Express Upgrade to Vista has been ordered separately at a small cost - £17 - (incidentally my friend has found that Modus Link the company dealing with Vista upgrade for Microsoft refuse to answer emails and their upgrade site consistently fails). Toshiba say they'll return me the laptop for a refund, but will they pay for my courier to the retailer (mail order), refund me for the Vista upgrade I no longer need, or pay for my wasted time and phonecalls/emails?

I still get a lot of hits on this page - if you want to find out what I did have a look at my next post :)

The Hoff

Well I tried to find some way I could relate this to software development or IT but failed miserably. So I'll just say I had the pleasure of seeing the Hoff in person in Manchester today. Hoff was a super hero/idol/star for many kids in the school playgrounds in the 80s due to his role in the TV show KnightRider, myself included.

David I know you're a fan of reading websites about you so if you're reading this just post a reply message below please!

As you could imagine he was very popular and I have a old sub megapixel Sagem camera phone with digital zoom, but I managed to get a few shots. Despite my poor camera work it's clear he still doesn't look any older than in the eighties and has proven himself with his fan base to be to pulp sci-fi adventure series what Sean Connery is to Bond.

Getting back into the swing

Well I've been spending a lot of time on a new project called openlubbs and not done much else. I'm now getting back into the dev swing and completing PenPal, which has had a complete redesign - screen shots soon.


On an unrelated note one thing that has irked me is the fact that Mc Donalds (whom I don't use anyway) charge £ 1.19 on a "pound saver menu" for a cheeseburger that in the USA costs $1 on their dollar menu. As I'm pandering to an international audience, £ 1.19 is approximately ~$2, for the Brits it means we should be paying ~£ 0.55. We pay more that 100% more for our cheeseburgers!!!
It's not just Mc Donalds either, it's happening on a huge number of products in the UK - why do people just accept this behaviour?
I emailed Mc Donalds in the UK (who incidentally won't allow you to email them if you're under 16 because of their email privacy policy.... they ask you to write instead) about this issue. I've received no reply, and I expect I never will.