Kenmore/Sears: The Con

You are all used to stores like Sears trying to upsell you extended warranties and such.  When I bought my Kenmore Elite in April of last year, I decided to just stick with the manufacturer warranty; because I figured that if it broke down that quick, I probably didn't want to continue using that brand/model.

Less than 18 months later, the dishwasher quit working.  No matter what we did, it said that the door was open.  Take out all dishes, take out the racks, close and... no, still thinks it is open.  I look online and see that this appears to be a common problem.  Everyone said that the repair was hundreds of dollars.

I had a few days off, so I decided to call technical support.  Maybe there is something they can suggest I try.  That's when the run around began.  While trying to find a number to call them at, I notice that others are saying that all Sears would do is send a technician out, who then would tell them it would be $300-600 in repairs.  I call, wait on hold.  The message says that I can talk to someone immediately at http://www.searshomeservices.com/chat.  Well, hey, maybe they'd have an idea what to try.  I hang up and check out the site.  The chat page redirects and hmm -- no way to chat with them... 

I call back and wait on hold again.  They answer, take my information, and transfer me.  I wait on hold.  They answer, take my information, and tell me that they can't look up the machine because the warranty expired a couple months ago.  Evidently it was a 1-year manufacture warranty, and it worked for about 4 months more after that date. The technician tells me that the best he could do is send a technician out.  Sounds familiar, eh?  How much, I ask, will that cost?  He said that if I reject the repair estimate, then only $80.  I complain, and he sends me to the "Kenmore Technical Specialist" phone number.  That number answered by saying that it was only for Water Softeners and Water Purification products.  Hit 2 for technical support, and I am back on hold for the first Sears number.

So, let me get this straight.  When you sell a product, you try to upsell a warranty that extends beyond the manufacture (subsidiary of you) warranty.  When the warranty expires, the electronics and LCD report a failure in just a couple months.  When the customer tries to fix it, it's going to cost another $80 to get a $600 quote?

I claim scam.

I think instead of repairing this Kenmore dishwasher, it's time to replace it with a different non-Sears-owned brand.

CrossOver and inability to resize

At work I am running an Ubuntu laptop.  I'm required to run Microsoft Office (as opposed to say, LibreOffice) and Outlook.  While I could manage the Wine config myself, I have found CrossOver to do a pretty good job.

One of the things that always annoyed me was that many times, with Microsoft Office apps, I would no longer be able to adjust the size/position. I had fixed it in the past by going into regedit.  This solution seems much easier:

From here:

1. Open Crossover Manage Bottles.
2. Select your Office bottle from the list on the left.
3. Click the Control Panels tab. Open Wine Config.
4. Under the Graphics tab uncheck Control & Decorate checkboxes.

Numpad stopped working in Ubuntu

While the home machine is now running LMDE, I am still using Ubuntu at work. Recently, the numpad completely stopped working.  No numbers, no ctrl+ for zooming, etc.

I looked around and people were saying that I needed to disable MouseKeys, but apparently that tab no longer exists.

The way to fix it is [Shift][NumLock]

Google Body Browser?

So I noticed today that the Google Body Browser has moved to zygotebody.com. When I went to run it, however, it didn't work.  It reported that my system didn't support WebGL, which is odd because it used to.

Then I found this link:

The easiest way to enable webgl/ work aound In Ubuntu is as follows

1) If not already placed there by you: Place the chrome/chromium starter in the (upper) starter panel.
( Drag it there from the applications > internet  dropdown menu, or 
- from the dropdown menu rightclick "add starter to panel¨ or exact english wording may very- i am using the dutch version)

2) right click it > properties > commandline 

3) Copy '--ignore-gpu-blacklist' (without the quotation marks)

4) Paste/insert it in the commandline just before the '%U'

5) close

6) start Chrome/Chromium bij clicking the starter Icon

That worked for me - so if you are having issues, give it a shot.