I’ve been a gadget nerd for close to forever now. Most of the time, I’m carrying an iPod Touch in one pocket, a BlackBerry in another and my laptop in my bag. I actually own three laptops, an iPad and a desktop. I’ve got a DS, a Wii and an Xbox 360 (with Kinect, thank you).

My newest and most favorite gadget is the Kindle Fire. It has joined the elite group of gadgets I carry with me at all times, and I use it more than any other gadget in my collection.

If you’re wondering whether you should get one, the answer is yes.

Here’s what I love about it:

1. No Apple. My biggest frustration with the iPad and iPod Touch is Apple, and my inability to do what I want with my devices. I can’t understand Apple’s app approval process, either. While we’re told it is to ensure we get the best apps, the App Store is chock full of garbage. The Kindle has a different master — Amazon — but I’ve been in Apple land so long that it just feels good to get out.

2. Android. The Kindle Fire runs a heavily modified version of Google’s Android operating system. It’s easy to use, responsive, and generally makes lots of sense. The Kindle doesn’t seem to get bogged down and clunky the way early-gen Android phones did. After a few days of interacting with the Fire, iOS started to look its age — old and outdated, by tech standards.

3. Form. The Kindle Fire is the perfect size. I’ve spent quite a lot of time going from iPad to iPod, frustrated that one is too big and the other is too small. The iPad is just too heavy and bulky and slippery to be used comfortably as a reader. And playing games that require two hands in nearly impossible. The iPod Touch is nice for playing some games, but too small to be a reader. I use my devices often for Netflix and YouTube. While Netflix looks great on the iPad, you need to prop the iPad up or suffer carpal tunnel syndrome. The iPod Touch is so small that you’ll need to hold it fairly close in order to enjoy what you’re watching. The Kindle fire, however, can be comfortably held in one hand at a distance that isn’t awkward. In addition, the non-slip back on the Kindle Fire makes it easier and more comfortable to hold.

4. Amazon. If Apple’s iTunes and App Store have any competition, it’s Amazon. The Amazon Marketplace includes apps, music, movies, books — in short, all the media you care to consume is right there for the taking. And there’s plenty of free content as well, especially if you’re an Amazon Prime member. The Kindle makes it easy to shop Amazon for non-digital items, too.

5. Price. Without a doubt, the Kindle is the best value on the market. Yes, it’s less powerful than the iPad. It’s smaller, it doesn’t have the fancy screen resolution, and it isn’t made by Apple. But at $200, you can get two Kindle Fires for the price of one low-end iPad, and still have $100 left over. Better yet, consider the annual updates Apple makes to the iPad. If you were to buy a new iPad each year for five years, you’d shell out $2,500. Five Kindle Fires? $1,000. Considering that this is the first edition of the Kindle Fire, I have to assume there are many improvements to come. Frankly, I don’t mind dropping a couple hundred dollars each year to get a new Fire. An iPad? It just isn’t worth the money.

It isn’t all roses, however. Here are a few things I dislike about the Fire:

1. Amazon. I really dislike being locked into any single ecosystem, which is why I’m one of the few dinosaurs who still carries a BlackBerry. I enjoy tinkering and playing with free apps found out in the wild. I’m smart enough to mess with my devices without messing them up. I don’t want to have to jailbreak a device in order to get it to do what I want. Amazon’s decision to lock the Kindle into its own ecosystem, for me, causes problems like….

2. Access. There’s no Facebook app for the Kindle Fire, but the Fire comes loaded with a nifty Facebook icon right on the home screen — cleverly added to your favorites — that links you to Facebook’s mobile site. There is, however, a Facebook app for Android. Unfortunately, you can’t get it, because it isn’t in the Amazon Marketplace. But there’s a Twitter app, which works quite well. The problem here is that Amazon obviously picked a favorite by including Facebook in the favorites, even though there’s no dedicated app available. And Facebook, thinking you’re running a regular Android device, prompts you regularly to download its Android app — which doesn’t exist on the Marketplace, and therefore can’t be installed. Amazon needs to fix such things. To me, this is clearly the biggest frustration.

3. Options. There really needs to be a 3G option here. I generally use my Kindle at home, but I’d love for it to be more portable. Unfortunately, when I’m on the go, I find myself forced to reach for my BlackBerry for Internet access, when I’d really like to grab the Fire. That being said, I could easily get around the problem with a mobile hotspot — which is likely what I’ll do.

4. Carousel. I don’t even know what it’s supposed to do. I thought at first that it was for negotiating through open programs. It seems, however, to be a running history of what you’ve recently had open. That’s okay, but I’d like the ability to change its function, so it doesn’t keep everything. If there’s already a dedicated link (like the web) or there’s already a favorite, why clutter up the carousel with those things? It looks neat, but functions…meh.

Anyone who is in the market for a tablet needs to understand an important point: Tablets are for consuming, not creating. A tablet is a great device to use if you’re watching video, surfing the net, reading a book, playing games. But it is a miserable device to use for actually working on. Typing on the iPad or Kindle is awful. Both have unfortunate autocorrect issues. Both are uncomfortable and inefficient. Both are terrible for editing text. But neither is truly meant for that. They’re meant to be used for consuming information, for flipping through photos, for reading. Apple markets the iPad otherwise, but I can’t imagine editing a book or writing anything longer than a short email on an iPad. Drawing? Maybe. Creating music? Perhaps. But most humans don’t work in creative fields; standard office work with a tablet is not a good time.

So that’s my take on it. If you want a tablet, go with the Kindle Fire. Simple as that.

A lot has been going around lately about employers asking job candidates for their Facebook passwords. Apparently they’d really like to be able to nose around a little, see what you’re into, who you’re friends with and such like that. I’ve never met anyone who has had this happen to them, but it doesn’t surprise me to hear that it is happening.

Employers have strange ideas about where their place is in relation to their employees. We’ve seen many cases where employers have attempted to gain access to employees’ LinkedIn profiles, their personal email accounts and more — all under the guise of protecting their business. And in nearly every case that’s been brought to court, judges have sided with employees.

See, there’s a fundamental expectation of privacy one has when using their own email, Twitter, Facebook…whatever. Yes, everything I do on any social network can be made private to the whole world. But that doesn’t mean it has to be. I choose who to share with, and when to share it.

To be honest, I have nothing on Facebook I’d be embarrassed of — and that isn’t the point. I don’t trust Facebook itself, and so I choose to refrain from sharing too much of a personal nature there. I don’t allow others to post on my wall, don’t overshare, and use it primarily for keeping track of old schoolmates. Even so, would I allow an employer to peek into it, even once?

Not a chance.

We don’t bring our personal mail in for our bosses’ perusal, do we? We don’t deliver our cellphone bills to them to look over who we’re calling. And we don’t give them audio recordings of our dinner tables at night. There’s a reason for that: It’s none of their business.

Sure, an employer may be worried about what types of things their employees post on Facebook, and if your job candidate is found to have blasted their ex-job repeatedly and publicly, it could give you pause. But courts have ruled several times that Facebook postings are protected under free-speech provisions — even if they are negative statements about the workplace.

The bottom line: If anyone asks for your password, the answer is no. Always.

Sorry, Twitter friends, but I need to network with more important people. It’s not that I don’t like you. Really. You’ve all been so fun and informative. Unfortunately, your Klout scores are dragging me down.

Apparently, the new algorithm changes on Klout take into account not only what I do in my social networks, but what you do as well. And, frankly, you guys just aren’t keeping up. So instead, I’ve decided to follow Justin Beiber and Oprah. The plan is to tweet smarmy things to them all day, until one of them finally retweets me.

Just kidding.

Over the past month, though, I’ve been monitoring my Klout score and how it relates to certain of my behaviors. My verdict? Klout continues to be mind-bogglingly bad. And if you’re still paying attention to your score, you need a life.

Twitter was ablaze yesterday with complaints about the new algorithm. Seems folks were unhappy that their scores dropped — in some cases significantly — after the change. Mine dropped 10 points. Why? Well, from what I can tell, several of my friends “lost influence.” In addition, several people are no longer included in my “immediate influence network.” Okay…

Let’s get to what’s messed up about this:

Among those no longer in my immediate influence network? My brother, a coworker who sits five steps away from me and a client. I dare say I have at least some influence with those folks. At the very least I can influence my coworker with a spitball to the head, or my brother by passing the rolls over dinner.

Among topics I’m influential about? Media, Quinoa, Bacon, Social Media, Puppies, Los Angeles Lakers. Admittedly, I talk often about media and social media. Quinoa makes the list because I once asked a Twitter acquaintance what it was. We had some back and forth. Then I received a few +Ks as a joke. The Lakers? They were a topic of discussion one night with a friend. Frankly, I don’t find myself “influential” in any of these topics. Or any topic. Then again, influence is not my goal on Twitter.

And that brings me to the point of all this:
If you use Twitter to exert or gain influence, please leave.

I can already hear the community managers and workplace social media experts now: “But Dan, that’s what we do for a living. How are we supposed to *insert random goal* for our brand lol?”

I understand where you’re coming from. You’re just wrong.

Using social media to gain influence (or, better yet, get a number that supposedly correlates to influence) is like boiling water in a toaster. Besides the fact that you’re using the wrong tool for the job, it’s dangerous.

Social media’s intent (outside of making money for the services themselves) is to attract folks who want to connect with other folks. And of course businesses want to be where the people are, so social media experts were invented to get money from businesses and teach them how to ruin social media services in order to influence customers. Or potential customers. Or something. Jury’s out on that still.

Those social media experts have to prove their expertise somehow. And proving that to businesspeople who are used to relying on numbers can be difficult. Used to be that you could brag about the number of Twitter followers you had. But as I showed in this post, those numbers are meaningless, even for Twitter rock stars like Chris Brogan. When Klout came along, it offered the promise of a grading system to prove, definitively, who is the biggest deebag on Twitter. I mean, who is the most powerful Twitterer of them all. (In case you were wondering, it’s Justin Bieber, who has a perfect score of 100).

The problem with Klout is that it isn’t really clear what it’s measuring or why it considers those metrics important. Worse than that, it’s wrong. I know nothing about quinoa, and yet I’m the second-most influential person in the Klout-o-sphere on the topic. I’m not even kidding.

Chris Brogan has a Klout score higher than that of either Pepsi or Microsoft. Does that make sense?

After a month of paying attention, I’m ready to walk away from Klout, other than perhaps to throw down some +K for funsies every once in awhile. Because the experiment taught me something really important: I’m not on Twitter to be important and I’m not important because I’m on Twitter. I’m just there. And I don’t need a number to validate the importance of my friends, either. Despite what Klout says, their worth to me is beyond measure.

You know who Ken Evoy is, right? Of course you don’t. I didn’t either.

Basically, Ken is the online equivalent of one of those “make money from home” guys you see on TV — the infomercial guys with offers that sound too good to be true. He offers a service called Site Build It, which promises a simple solution to help folks with great ideas build and monetize websites in a snap. Sounds great, right?

Well, Ken’s been on a rampage for a couple years now, complaining about Google and the existence of “the Googlebomb” — a threat so heinous that it threatens us all. In a nutshell, a Googlebomb is the use of nefarious tactics to get a page ranked high in Google search results for a particular term. Ken claims he was a victim of a Googlebomb (in fact, he likely was). The short story is that a blogger named Lis Sowerbutts wrote a scathing review of SBI!, calling it a scam. Then a few folks helped jack her post up in Google rankings by using backlinks. To this day, Sowerbutts’ post ranks no. 1 in Google for “site build it scam.”

Evoy has made it a personal quest to eliminate Googlebombs. Or maybe just his. Or maybe just to get Google to admit they still exist. Frankly, I’m not sure. What I am sure about is that he is all over the Internet, posting long-winded comments on every blog without a word limit in the comments section.

I first heard of SBI! when a client of mine read about it and asked my opinion. Like any decent consultant, I cased the service for him. My impression? Meh. To Ken’s credit, the site doesn’t promise overnight success. In some respects, it follows the mantra I’ve repeated for years: Work hard. In order to make money on a website through SBI!, you still have to pay for hosting, still have to create content, still need to advertise. It’s not a magic bullet, by any means. My recommendation to my client was the service may be worth a try, but I didn’t see it offering anything more than he could get cheaper and better by using a WordPress install.

What troubled me, however, were Ken’s rants, which I started seeing all over the Internet. And the more I saw, the less I trusted him. The more I read, the less I believed he was doing right by his clients. In fact, Ken’s own success isn’t based on his own system — it’s based on selling his system. And sure, Ken has lots of testimonials from clients on his website and around the Internet, but many of those are affiliates — folks who make money selling his system to others.

Recently a friend of mine wrote his own blog post about the Googlebomb, citing Ken’s problems. Ken, of course, couldn’t resist commenting. Frankly, I couldn’t either. And I let my own opinion fly:

You know what would be awesome? If Mr. Evoy spent more time running his business and less time running around the web, commenting (at length) about this issue. Do Googlebombs exist? Sure. Fine. You’ve proved it. The best thing you can do now is to concentrate on getting positive reviews of your business online. Make your customers happy. If there are 100 positive reviews for every bad one, well, you’re doing just fine.

Interestingly, what Ken has managed to do is draw more and more attention to Ms. Sowerbutts’s post. The more attention he draws there, the more Google believes it’s a legit post.

To be honest, it sounds like Ken doesn’t like the content of the post, and doesn’t want people to read it. Whatever the case, he’s made himself look maniacal with the number and length of comments he’s made regarding the topic — not someone I’d want to give my money to.

Admittedly, my comment was not good-natured. What followed was a mind-boggling exchange with Mr. Evoy in which he attacked my work, ridiculed the Alexa ranking of sites I’ve built, and insinuated my clients would be better off with his service than mine.

Well, I’ve seen Ken’s top performers, and of this I’m sure: Ken’s clients don’t make near as much as mine do. And they do it without gaudy web traffic. And you know who gets richest off Ken’s service? Ken. That’s what he’s selling.

How do my clients perform so well? They aren’t Internet marketers. They’re brick-and-mortar businesses. They aren’t making money off AdWords. They’re making money selling real goods and real services to real humans — humans they’ve met. My clients include a national cable installer, one of the nation’s top gift-basket companies, a company that sells network security solutions, the nation’s premier rifle barrel manufacturer. I’m building sites for municipalities, nonprofit organizations and small, local community shops. And I’m worried about Alexa rankings? Why?

I’ll tell you why I’m not. I’m not because a small-town health club owner doesn’t need fake traffic from Russia. She needs REAL traffic from the town she’s in. And that’s what I provide. A cable installer wouldn’t benefit in the least from thousands of visits per day — he needs one visit from a $25 million client. And that visit comes from a phone call — not a Google search. When that client hits the site, he’d better be grabbed by what he sees. It must be visually appealing, easy to read, and not be obviously created to pander to search engines. It had better be written FOR that visitor.

Ken and his ilk are so tied up worried about pagerank that they’ve forgotten business fundamentals: Find your niche. Treat your customers right. Provide exemplary service. That’s what I do for my clients. I work tirelessly to give them great service, websites they can be proud to show off, advice that’s based on real-world experience. Because of that, my clients’ websites have been very successful.

I have no doubt, however, that Ken is more successful than I am. Not only does SBI! seem to be bringing in clients, but Ken has made a big show of informing me that he needn’t run his business anymore; he has a “senior management team” that does it for him.

I put a call in to SBI! and I found out some interesting information. According to the gentleman I talked to, the company has 40,000 clients. Some 20,000 of them, he told me, are affiliates. He also told me the software used to create websites has been updated four times in the last eight years (for the sake of comparison, WordPress has been updated that many times this year alone). The man I talked to, who identified himself as working in the sales department, wouldn’t tell me how many employees the company has. But let’s do some math.

If 40,000 people are using SBI! for at least $300 apiece, that’s $12 million. How much are those site owners making? The salesman wouldn’t say.

Here’s the bottom line: I don’t care about Ken Evoy or SBI! But there’s a bigger point: When you’re in business, run your business. If you want to be the public face of your business, as Ken is, act like someone people want to do business with. And you’d better damned well know what you’re talking about before you open your mouth. In Ken’s case, opening his mouth only showed his ignorance and the weakness of his own product.

I get a lot of spam. A lot. And sometimes, well…I can’t help but answer it. This one made me chuckle.

From: Douglas Wild
Subject: LOVELL:URGENT RESPONSE.

ATTN:LOVELL,

I am a Trustee and Executor of the estate of a deceased client(Dr P.LOVELL) in Budapest, Hungary. I have sat on a 5 year forgotten financial inheritance. In few weeks time, this fund will be transferred to the state as required by law since there’s no claim made.  We can both collaborate and share the proceeds 60/40. Your part would be to receive the funds as the beneficiary, since you have the same lastname as my late client, and I will prepare the required documents and have it released to you in just days. Please reply this mail stating full name, phone and fax number details if interested. So I can start the claims process as we build a mutual trust.

Many thanks in advance as I look forward to our partnership and trust.

Regards,

Douglas Wild

My response:

From: Daniel Lovell
To: Douglas Wild
Subject: RE: LOVELL:URGENT RESPONSE.

Doug,

I’m so glad you contacted me! I lost contact with my uncle, Dr. P., and looked for him tirelessly ever since he announced – somewhat unceremoniously at my parents’ 30-year wedding anniversary party, no less – that he was moving to Budapest. Lest you think I’m some lowly gold-digger, my intentions in finding Uncle Dr. P were purely innocent; he left a very expensive diamond brooch in his apartment when he left, and I desperately wanted to return it.

I’ve tried several times to bring the brooch to pawn shops, but despite being expensive, it is terribly ugly. It’s shaped like a prawn or a crawdaddy. You may actually have seen my appearance on “Antiques Roadshow,” where I was told the brooch was clearly priceless in terms of the size and number of diamonds, but also nearly worthless, because worth only counts if someone is willing to actually pay for it.

Now, of course, I am heartbroken to hear of my dear Uncle Dr. P’s passing. He was a great man. His discoveries in the field of anchovy packaging cannot be easily overlooked. With so many anchovy patents and licensing agreements under his belt, I’m certain he died atop an enormous mound of money!

Before I offer any other information about myself, may I ask whether the money smells of anchovies? I’m not partial to anchovies, nor the way they smell. Perhaps my 60 percent could be chosen from bills that smell less of anchovies than the rest? Of course, if you don’t like anchovies either, then we have found ourselves in a quandary.

Please let me know at your earliest convenience! Perhaps together we can solve “the curse of the crawdaddy brooch!” lol.

Let’s say you love your job. And let’s say you’ve got a whole bunch of Twitter followers, and you want to tell them about the new and exciting things happening at your job. It’s only natural to tweet whatever news you have to the public to spread the word.

Recently I’ve noticed a surprising number of folks on Twitter who not only tweet about their jobs, but tweet for their jobs using their personal accounts. There are two big reasons why this happens, and several reasons why it shouldn’t.

Business tweets come from your personal account because:

1. You are a well-meaning employee who really wants to help your company or organization, and you feel you can do that through your Twitter feed.
2. Your company expects you to use your Twitter feed and clout to further the company’s goals.

Here’s why you should strongly consider ending the practice:

1. In most cases, your Twitter account is your account. If it existed before your job did, the first risk you take is alienating your followers, who are there to follow you — not to get your work spam. You wouldn’t (usually) send emails or postcards about your company’s services to your friends and family. And most employees would take offense if they were instructed to do so.
2. You’re confusing people. There are cases in which the tweeter becomes the public face of the organization on Twitter. That’s a good thing. A very good thing. An organization should have a personality people identify with. Unfortunately, a good communications professional will continuously spread the positive news about the company — all the way up until they change jobs. When the new job starts and the subject matter changes, you’ve suddenly begun to tell folks about things they never signed up to hear about. Imagine @comcastcares suddenly tweeting support messages about Little Debbie snack cakes.
3. Your personal brand is tied too closely with the company brand. When you love your job, this is not a problem, as long as things go right. But if your company is in the midst of a PR nightmare, your personal reputation is immediately on the line. Today you could extol the virtues of your company’s philanthropic endeavors, only to find tomorrow’s headlines about your boss being charged with stealing from senior citizens. In the end, you appear either complicit or ignorant.
4. You’re being used. Nine times out of 10, you’re asked to use your personal account because nobody follows the company account. Odds are there’s a reason for that — maybe several. The truth is most people just aren’t interested in engaging with a brand. Rather than creating interesting content, companies like to take the easy way out by hijacking your account. If the company wants to build a Twitter following, your challenge is to help do that — not to loan them yours.
5. If you’re doing all the talking, why do I need to follow the company? Tell me you love your job. Tell me I should follow your company’s Twitter feed if I want updates. But if you’re already giving me all the updates I’d ever want, your company’s feed will suffer.

Don’t get me wrong. Even I’ve tweeted about work. When I’m excited about an event or a bit of media I’ve created I let people know. But my personal vs. business tweets are probably 500 to 1. I save business tweeting for the business Twitter account, where people expect to see it, and where it will be seen only by those who want it.

Bottom line: Be careful out there. It’s easy to get caught up in creating a role for yourself in your company’s social media campaign. But you and your followers must come first. Don’t turn your followers into unwitting customers. And don’t turn yourself into a shill.

There. I said it.

I follow way too many social media experts on Twitter. Too many folks who want to teach your company how to be successful in social media. They promise you heaps of good fortune with your Facebook page and they’re super excited to do your tweeting for you as well. There’s a whole industry now built around these folks, and regardless what they call themselves, they really have no idea what they’re doing. If they did, they wouldn’t be doing it.

Social media platforms weren’t really designed for business; they were designed so folks like you and me could connect with each other, share little things and basically keep in touch — in a superficial, but somehow meaningful, way. As these sites attract users, they also attract businesses — especially those who want the Internet equivalent of a storefront on Main Street.

Problem is, the goals of a business and the goals of an individual in social media are severely different. I choose to use Twitter to connect with folks, whether I know them in real life or not. Facebook is the place where I maintain a loose connection with old classmates. LinkedIn is for keeping in touch with colleagues. Businesses, on the other hand, use social media for two reasons. Those who do it closest to correct use social media to respond to customer complaints, join conversations about the brand, monitor chatter about themselves. But the majority are there to sell.

I can already hear you: “OMG, Dan. What’s wrong with that lol?”

The problem is companies and organizations overestimate their customers’ desire to engage with them. Sure, I love Pepsi and my BlackBerry. I follow both on Twitter. But I don’t engage with them. I don’t remember the last thing I read from either company. But that’s not the point…

Remember in high school how you and your friends found that perfect spot to hang out? No parents or cops or teachers…it was a place where you’d sit back, chat, maybe even sneak a couple of dad’s beers and share them in the summertime. That’s how most social media sites start. They’re little clubs where the cool kids hang out.

Imagine you’re at your little hangout and suddenly a McDonald’s opens 20 feet away. And then the AT&T store opens next to it. And an auto dealership. And 30 social media experts open storefronts, all surrounding you. Suddenly you can’t even talk to your friends without wading through all these businesses, and they all keep trying to get your attention. And of course your parents and teachers show up, because they’ve all heard your hangout is cool. After awhile, you and your friends just decide to find another place.

That’s what social media experts are bringing to social media.

Myspace was cool at first. Everyone connected with each other. You kept in touch. You shared pictures and songs and everybody was happy. Bands all wanted Myspace profiles, because it made getting a web presence easy. Then businesses all wanted to be on Myspace, because that’s where the kids were.

Where’s Myspace today? Overrun by businesses, musicians and celebrities. My own band still has a page there, and our only friend requests come from TV shows, movies and businesses. It’s over, people. Businesses are just standing around in Myspace land, begging each other to buy.

The same is happening on Twitter and Facebook, where social media experts, in order to keep themselves in jobs, continue to push the importance of a business being involved in social media. Unfortunately, that one little fact shows just how little they understand about social media, and their own role in destroying it, one site at a time.

The sad part is that I agree that companies need to have Twitter and Facebook accounts. I think we’ve come to a point where you’re silly if you don’t. But never once have I seen anyone point out just how bad businesses are for social media. Our social media experts never say “Listen, we should be on Twitter, but we have to realize our mere existence on Twitter will surely hasten Twitter’s demise.”

That, folks, would be an honest, and knowledgeable, expert. Anyone out there ever heard that? I bet not.

HP has finally gotten on my last nerve. I’m absolutely fed up. And, frankly, I’m surprised I’m not hearing more of an uproar from the Internets.

I’ve had quite a few HP products over the years — mostly printers and desktop machines. A year ago I decided on an HP laptop. Though I really like the machine, I was immediately assaulted with a bunch of crap I didn’t need — various HP-branded software that “helped” me do things on my brand-new Windows 7 machine. On top of that, I got the obligatory crapware, games and trial antivirus software. I deleted and uninstalled all of it, and have been pleasantly surprised by the machine. I liked it so much that when it came time to buy a new desktop machine, I bought a big HP, with lots of bells and whistles.

Again, I was forced to remove a bunch of crapware when I got Karen (I named her Karen). But I guess the sad commentary is that I’m used to that ritual. Karen ran beautifully for several months. A couple of months ago, however, I got the dreaded blue screen. The first of many.

At first it was no big deal. Karen would start up again and continue along where we left off. But then things started going crazy. So I called HP tech support. The computer was under warranty, I was told, so no worries. It would be fixed. But there were worries.

Immediately, tech support blamed the software I was running. Nevermind that I’d been running it for months, or that I’d spent a considerable time online hunting down the specific BSOD error and knew the cause. His solution was to uninstall the software I was using first and see if the problem persisted.

“Well,” I said. “It’s video editing software. And I actually use the computer to edit video. If I uninstall it, I will not be editing video…and probably not using the computer.” I asked if he had specific procedures for the BSOD I was getting. He said he did not. In fact, he did not take note of what the error was. I asked to talk to someone who had used a computer before.

I was transferred to someone else. This time, I was told immediately to format my hard drive and reinstall the operating system. The gentleman offered to walk me through the steps to do so. “No,” I said. “This is not an OS problem. It is a hardware problem.”

He challenged me, and told me to run HP’s hardware diagnostics. He said he would call back in two hours so I could report the results. “This is not a hardware problem,” he said. “If it’s a hardware problem, the diagnostics will show us.”

Well, the diagnostics wouldn’t run. The machine bluescreened in the middle of the tests. And the guy from HP didn’t call me back in two hours. In fact, HP didn’t call back for four days. My computer was 30 miles away. They said they’d call me back later that night. They called six days later. Again, I wasn’t expecting the call. I was at the mall. They said they’d call the next day.

Miraculously, things started working again. I thought perhaps they were right. Maybe it was OS related. Maybe it was just a bum update from Microsoft that was fixed. And life went on. Until two weeks ago, when the blue screens came fast and furious. Poor Karen crashed within minutes of booting up. And things were looking grim.

I backed up all my files. I wiped the drive. I reinstalled the OS. The blue screens continued.

My call to HP went as I expected. I was told to reinstall the OS again. I was told I would have to spend $20 on rescue disks to restore the machine’s factory OS install. Again I was told to run the hardware diagnostics and to call back when they completed. When Karen bluescreened during the diagnostics I called. On the other end was Buck — the first American I talked to throughout the ordeal.

It didn’t take Buck long. He listened to my story. We ran the diagnostic test again. He asked me a couple of questions, took lots of notes, and set me up immediately to get Karen sent in for repair. Less than a week later, she’s back at my desk. And things are going well.

So…why am I complaining? Look: I had a pretty simple problem. The fact is, HP’s tech support staff did everything it could to keep from having to fix it. Team members blamed me, my software, Microsoft’s software…anything but the build itself. They failed to return phone calls when they were promised (in fact, at one point a caller claimed they’d called me every night; I just hadn’t answered the phone). They didn’t even listen to the symptoms or document them so that someone who actually knew something about computers could help.

At the end of my experience, I was left thinking HP’s method of dealing with customer problems such as mine is to stonewall, argue and put off any solution until the customer gives up. It’s unacceptable.

Let’s add to it my HP wireless printer. No, I can’t just install it like a normal printer. I actually have to use a setup CD, which is impossible on my netbook. So to print a simple document I’d typed, I had to download the software from HP and install. And I was horrified to find not only had it installed the printer, but also several other pieces of software — all accessible through four — FOUR — desktop icons. It’s a printer, folks. PLEASE let it BE a printer.

HP needs to learn to respect its customers. I should not have to spend time removing garbage I don’t want. I should not have to spend hours talking to tech support. Setting up a printer should not take 20 minutes. Show customers some respect and you’ll earn their loyalty. You’ve already lost mine.

UPDATE:
As you’ll read in the comments below, my poor Karen began bluescreening again, just days after she was returned to me.

In the days since, I’ve spent countless hours on the phone with HP tech support, the escalations department, and the executive customer relations department. I’m going to try to keep this update short, but I don’t know if that’s possible.

My first call to HP to report they hadn’t fixed the problem went poorly. As you can read below, I was told to test the hard drive for the umpteenth time. I politely declined, and asked if I could talked to someone else. I was told I could not, and that if I refused to run a hard drive diagnostic, the tech would not help. I was given a number to call, but that number went to dead air.

My next call didn’t go much better. I talked to two different people, and was finally told my case was being sent to the escalations department, where someone would decide how best to proceed. I asked to have that person call my cell phone any time the next day from 9 am to 11 pm.

At 2:30 am, my home phone rang. It was HP, offering to help fix the “problems you are having getting online.” Well…it was 2:30 am, and at no time did I ever say I was having a problem getting online. And I had just told them to stop calling my home phone.

The next day, Jon from escalations called. He called my home phone, again after I said not to. I returned the call, and somehow ended up with Kelsey, who said  she’d be happy to help resolve the issues I was having with the “computer booting up.” Again, not the problem I was having. After talking to her extensively, I was offered the opportunity to send Karen back to Texas for repair. And I guess I could have just agreed to that. But these are people who utterly failed to diagnose and correct the problem already. I told Kelsey I want someone to come to my house, or I would like to take the machine somewhere to have someone actually look at it — someone I can talk to. She told me although my warranty didn’t cover such things, she’d send an email to someone else and try to get a home visit approved. I thanked her, and asked her to call my cell phone when she had an answer. We confirmed the number.

The next day, she called me back. On my home phone. I received the message and called back, where a man named Michael happily told me a tech would come to my house. To replace my hard drive.

I’ll admit that at this point I flipped out, and I appreciate Michael’s patience. I told him the hard drive was fine. I explained the situation. He told me he builds his own computers, and agreed the BSOD error didn’t sound hard drive related to him either. His guess was motherboard and processor. I’ll point out that in my first call to HP tech support — on Dec. 31st — I told them there was a problem with the CPU.

He made a note for Kelsey to call the next day (yesterday). Again, she told me a tech was coming to replace a part that isn’t broken. I said no. I told her I wanted someone to come look at the machine, diagnose the problem, and fix what was broken. But the repair staff doesn’t troubleshoot, Kelsey told me — that’s what the folks on the phone do. And those folks on the phone just tell the repair staff what part to replace.

Long and short is that my computer still isn’t fixed. My warranty runs out in just days, and the HP staff doesn’t seem to want to put in the effort to make sure it works.

They’ve made a big deal of waiving a $50 fee for a home repair call. But the fact is they’ve cost me hours of time and weeks of productivity. How have they made it up to me? How have they tried to make it up to me at all? They haven’t. They seem to believe it’s enough to merely get me back to where I started, despite the fact that they’ve cost me time and money.

Thank goodness for my Acer netbook. It’s gotten me through this mess. And I can assure you, HP will never get my business again.

UPDATE 2:
So…I scheduled an appointment with HP to have a tech come to my house last week to fix Karen. Well…to replace the motherboard. I took the day off, as I was told the tech would arrive between noon and 4. At 9:30 my phone rang. The guy on the other end said he was calling to confirm my appointment. “Yes,” I said. “I’ve taken the day off from work, and will be waiting.”

“Well,” he said, “if we can’t make it today, will you be around tomorrow?”

What?

He explained they were trying to find a tech, and he’d call me in a couple of hours to let me know when they’d show up. He never called. Nobody did. I spent the whole day waiting. The next day I set up another appointment, for Saturday. But you know what? I was sick of it. Something needed to get done.

I called Kelsey the next day and told her to get creative, make me an offer and make me happy. She promised to get back to me the very next morning. She didn’t. I called and got Todd on the phone. Though she’d promised to call, Kelsey actually had the day off. And that was really all it took.

I’d decided the night before that it was time to take more drastic action. I told Todd I was through being nice. My next stop would be small claims court. His tone changed immediately. He actually listened to my story — even acted bewildered when I told him I’d diagnosed the problem even before making my first call to support. He offered to put in a request to send a new machine. In the meantime, he told me to allow the repairman to replace the motherboard — just in case.

Saturday came, and the motherboard was replaced. The repairman watched as Karen booted up and promptly bluescreened. He called HP.

I could hear his conversation, and he explained the BSOD error. “Why are you replacing the motherboard?” the guy on the other end said. “This is a problem with the CPU.”

Exactly.

It’s now Tuesday, and I just got off the phone with Todd. HP is sending me a new computer — one with better specs than Karen. I’m relieved to hear that, and I’m glad to know this fiasco is finally coming to a close. But my feelings haven’t changed. The next time I shop for a computer or printer, HP will not be on my list.

It should not take three months and the threat of legal action for any company to listen to its customers and response appropriately. Had I been listened to three months ago, Karen would have gone to the shop, the CPU would have been replaced, and I’d be singing HP’s praises here. Instead I’ve been frustrated, annoyed, and treated like a fool.

I’m not a fool.

UPDATE 3:

Well, the saga seems to have ended. I received my new computer on Friday. It wasn’t the one I was promised — that one, I’m told, was sold out — but an acceptable replacement. I used it over the weekend, and it seems to be working fine. I’m now about to send old Karen back to HP, where I hope she’s treated well.

I’ve certainly written more than enough on this subject, so I don’t want to belabor the point much longer. Yes, in the end, HP did the right thing. But that end took a LONG time to get to, not to mention several threats on my part and hours upon hours of aggravation.

Here’s my advice: Do not take no for an answer. Fight tooth and nail to get what’s coming to you. If HP refuses, don’t be afraid to take the company to small claims court. Remember that you’ve paid for the machine, and the law says you should expect it to work.

I’m writing this from my brand-new netbook, which shows you exactly how useful and user friendly I find the iPad, and how excited I am that a new iPad is just days away.

You may recall that I mocked the iPad a bit at its launch, pointing out nine things the iPad couldn’t do. But I bought one anyway, knowing the limitations, because it felt wrong to trash a device I never used. Perhaps, I reasoned, I was missing something about the overall experience. And I believe in giving devices the benefit of the doubt.

I’ve been living with the iPad now for about two months, and I can tell you that not only has life with the iPad confirmed everything I wrote at launch, but the device is actually less useful than I expected. In many ways, it’s just plain worse than I imagined.

First off, it just stinks to type on. The on-screen keyboard is a miserable experience for a touch typist. Yes, it gets better with practice. But I shouldn’t HAVE to practice typing. I know how to type already. That means e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, document creation and editing are all miserable. Any time I have to type on the iPad — even just typing URLs and search terms — I cringe. Apple has not improved on the keyboard. At all.

Secondly, you really have no idea how much Internet you’re missing without Flash until you try running a device without Flash. And there’s a lot of Internet out there that the iPad just can’t display. A lot of that content is Flash video; on the iPad, you get nothing but YouTube and whatever video you find in apps made specifically for iPad. The most annoying thing ever? The e-mail from a friend, linking you to a video…that you can’t watch.

But at least you’ve got YouTube, right? At the iPad launch, Steve Jobs said YouTube “shines” on the iPad. Well…not quite. You actually don’t even get all of YouTube on the iPad; instead, you get only what’s available on the YouTube mobile site. That means unless a video uploader has specifically chosen to make their videos available for mobile devices, you won’t see it. Videos from Vevo don’t even show up in search results. And worse? No device I own has a tougher time playing YouTube videos. The constant halting and buffering is enough to make me curse Steve Jobs at the top of my lungs, out of pure frustration (I actually yell “JOOOBBBBSSS!!!). And I can’t even choose which resolution to watch those videos in.

The only thing I’ve found pleasurable on the iPad is gaming. And only casual games, at that. Angry Birds and Cut the Rope are fun, easy time wasters. I enjoy Doodle Fit, a couple of air hockey apps, checkers. But more intense gaming that requires using on-screen joystick controls is nearly impossible. Games like Super Fly, Mortal Kombat and Back Breaker are difficult to impossible. And the entire device is too heavy to hold comfortably.

Frankly, the iPad just doesn’t do anything it does better than any other device. The Nintendo DS is a better, more portable and cheaper gaming device. My netbook is better at surfing the net, composing and reading e-mail, watching video, and generally, well, everything. It’s just about the same size as an iPad when closed up, and it cost me half what the iPad set me back.

The new iPad addresses some of the shortcomings of the original. It includes cameras, a dual-core processor, HDMI out. But it doesn’t address the fundamental issues: The iPad is not useful enough to be a must-have device. In fact, I pick mine up rarely anymore. And that only to play a quick game or watch YouTube video.

Apple has shipped a lot of iPads, and they’ll ship a lot more in the coming year. A trip to any computer store will show you that the netbook market has eroded (I haven’t seen anything other than Acer Aspire One models in ages). My fear is that netbooks will soon go the way of the dodo, based purely on the “oh gosh” factor of the iPad. Thanks to its price and “magical”-ness (read: marketing), the iPad is one of those devices people desire. Unfortunately, it’s a disappointing little beast.

That’s not to say the iPad is all bad. I see plenty of ways businesses — especially sales professionals — could use it. But for me, still, it just isn’t right.

I’m a bit of a BlackBerry fanboy at this point. I can’t imagine life without my Torch.

These days, I find myself most frustrated by the jabs RIM takes for not being innovative enough, or when bloggers write that RIM is struggling for mindshare or fighting an uphill battle to remain relevant. It frustrates me most because these bloggers might be tech heads, but few of them are using BlackBerrys and even fewer know just how great the new Torch really is.

I’ll reiterate: I own a brand-new iPod Touch. I know what it does and how it works. I think it’s a great device. I’ve also played with several Android phones and flavors. I even successfully rooted and manually installed Froyo on a MyTouch 3G. I’m a gadget nerd. I’m tough on my technology and I tend not to overlook a device’s shortcomings.

These days, I’m excited about the new BlackBerry PlayBook, an iPad rival I’m hoping to get my hands on pretty soon.

First thing I want to get out of the way: the name.

Bloggers say the name is too cute for a BlackBerry device…because BlackBerrys are for business rather than play. Point taken. Except my BlackBerry is filled with games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Pac-Man and such. And I use it for YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and general web surfing. Plenty of playtime there. But even for the enterprise user, the name PlayBook works. It’s not random; playbooks are used by coaches and managers in sports. Unfortunately, the bloggers who take issue with the name are probably not sports fans. But the name PlayBook is pretty genius. It’s the device for the person who makes the decisions. It’s the place where the plans are kept. It’s the Bible of the sport. And, for crying out loud, have we forgotten what a terrible name iPad is?

On to the device itself:

First, RIM knows business better than anyone. And so the PlayBook will be enterprise ready, with full compatibility with BlackBerry Enterprise Server and corporate data access. All of that goes beyond what you’ll get with your iPad.

Web browsing? How about full Flash support and HTML 5? You’ll never get that on the iPad.

As for hardware, it’s got a dual-core processor and a GB of RAM. That’s more powerful than my netbook. So you’ll get real multitasking. You’ll get speed. You’ll get the experience you expect from a computer.

Multimedia: Apple loves to brag about the multimedia experience on the iPad and iPhone. Frankly, I find the interface clunky and cumbersome. Whatever RIM comes up with can’t be far off. And judging by demos and pics I’ve seen, along with using my Torch, I think users will be pleasantly surprised.

And that brings us to the most important part: Apps.

Obviously, Apple is way ahead in the app game. There are a half million apps available for the iPhone and iPad. And that’s impressive. But the good news is most of those apps — the vast majority — are utterly useless. BlackBerry App World is finally starting to grow, and I believe many iPad and iPhone developers will begin making apps for BlackBerry devices, which will level the playing field. The really good news is that the developers who’ll do that won’t be the one-off crap game developers, but the big-time developers who create truly rich apps. BlackBerry users will benefit from that. And, frankly, I’d always rather have access to 20,000 good apps than 500,000 terrible ones.

Oh…but let’s not forget: Tethering and bluetooth so you can connect to the 3G network without another data plan; video conferencing; dual HD cameras (iPad has none); HDMI output…

Bottom line: Don’t ignore the PlayBook. It may actually be the best tablet available. RIM is showing it’s not just keeping up in this space, but proving it’s still a real player. Stay tuned.