The external harddrive

Because the ORPs main machine is showing signs of needing a backup real fast (hard drive write errors cropping up in the event viewer), and the ORPs laptop is stacked to the max with data that needs to live somewhere else, the ORP ordered an OK350AU2F-S hard drive enclosure and 320GB Seagate drive. The drive and the enclosure are deliberately low-end (not the nice new fancy eSata enclosure plus huge big fat SATA drive) to avoid overspending on something that won't be needed anyway.

The enclosure is made fully out of aluminum, looks slick and comes with a hard-to-disconnect power connector. The only thing the ORP wishes he'd paid more attention to is his laptops puny firewire connector, which is incompatible with the cable shipped with the drive. Adding a Firewire 6pin to 4pin adapter would have cost an extra $4, now it's a matter of exposing oneself to the terrible temptations of the local Fry's. Update - I ended up shelling out an extraordinate $15 for the Firewire cable, just because I wanted one in a hurry. The moral of the story clearly is to make sure to order anything needed upfront.

Formatting the drive requires looking it up in the disk manager and bringing the drive online first. It's absolutely quiet and not even warm to the touch.

The partitioning scheme will be 2GB whatever (probably fat16 with a bootable linux install), 150GB NTFS and 150GB ext3 or reiserfs.

The only little nag with the drive is that the status LED doesn't work (not a detriment as far as I am concerned) and, of course, that the folks at OKGEAR didn't have the foresight to assume that their customers would forget ordering a firewire 4-to-6 pin adapter and include it in the box. What where they thinking? ;)

UPS sucks

Today, I am in a more rabid mood than on most days. I was expecting a package with a replacement drive to be delivered yesterday. I made the mistake of saving a dollar by selecting UPS as my shipping agent.

The first problem occured when the driver did not find my address. Instead of giving me a call, he just concluded the address doesn't exist and went on his merry way. I found out about this when I arrived back home from an important meeting I had to attend and checked the UPS tracking website.

I immediately called UPS and was told by a friendly phone operator that they had now confirmed with me that I was actually living at my address and would reattempt delivery the next day. Ok, not good, but not too bad.

The next morning I notice that the tracking website (a) doesn't show my package as out for delivery but also (b) has a comment about them sending me a postcard to verify my address that was added after I confirmed my address and rescheduled delivery the previous day.

I call UPS (9am) and get a friendly operative who checks my package, explains about the postcard. I tell him about the phone conversation of the previous day and how I had the delivery rescheduled for today. He checks again and claims that my package will be delivered on the present day between 9 and 5.

At noon, no updates are visible on the tracking website. I call UPS again. I get a friendly operator who confirms that as far as she can tell, the package is on its way to me, and I should just call back later if it doesn't arrive.

At 4.30, I am getting anxious. I call UPS, and a friendly operator tells me that the package has in fact not been out for delivery all day but is sitting at the local UPS facility for me to retrieve - they need to verify my address.

I am now no longer surprised that UPS can ship a dollar cheaper than other companies, their telephone operator workforce is by my statistical sampling 3/4 incompetent. I don't blame the UPS driver who didn't find/didn't look very hard for my place on the day before - even though DHL and FEDEX drivers have never had trouble delivering, it's not blindingly obvious where I live.

So I make my way through real bad rushhour traffic to the UPS location in downtown Seattle. They are hard to find, several backalleys without any signs pointing the right direction. On my way, I drive by DHLs offices right next to 99 and wish I had chosen them as my courier.

One last comparison: when I returned a defective power supply via DHL recently, the courier was at my door 3 minutes after I had scheduled pickup with the phone operator. You've got to admire an organization that can execute like that.

Summary - I will not ever consider shipping anything vial UPS again. If I can, DHL and FEDEX will get all the business I can throw their way.