Hello, Roy.  Back on 9/2, we were talking about - -

 RJT> That's not bad,  particularly if you don't have to play the rebate
 RJT> game!  That 160G unit I mentioned above involved two of them,  both
 RJT> mail-in...

 RJT> Since I only did that once (back at the end of winter) involving a cd
 RJT> burner and some discs,  and since I'm still waiting on the rebate for
 RJT> the smaller of the two,  I think I'd hesitate before doing that again,
 RJT> particularly for more money than before.

Too bad you got burned on your first try.  The rebate game has a lot of
ways for things to go wrong.

One thing, you have to follow exactly all the terms of the rebate
submission.  They have gnomes who carefully review the submittals, just
looking for any excuse to disallow them.  That's part of the game.

Did you save a copy of the paperwork you sent in?  There is usually on
there, in print very small and very hard to read, an URL or other way to
contact and find out the status of the rebate submittal processing.
What I usually do is to tape the rebate form, UPC, and receipt to a
sheet of paper, and copy the whole thing as one just before I put it in
the envelope for mailing.

BIR, your store was OfficeMax, and your CD/RW drive was a Cendyne.
AFAIK, Officemax is pretty good about their end of the rebates, but I
just did a bit of net research, and some of their vendors have been less
reliable.  I saw Cendyne and I/O Magic specifically mentioned.

OfficeMax encourages customers who have had trouble with rebates on
items purchased there to contact them, and have recently opened an email
address just for this purpose  - -

email:   omxrebates{at}officemax.com
Rebate Hotline (216) 471-6202
OfficeMax Customer Service (216) 471-6900

If you've saved a copy of the paperwork and didn't make a major blunder,
you probably have a good chance of getting it fixed.  If not,  maybe if
you carry on enough - - they'll give in just to get you to be quiet.

Good luck - - -  JimH.











 JH> In addition to the already-mentioned 7200 vs 5400 rpm possible heat
 JH> problem - Mfgrs have generally no gone to only a 1-year warranty,
 JH> whereas about this time last year, the std was 3-years.

 RJT> I've seen that mentioned before.  I guess running it 24/7 should cook
 RJT> it pretty good,  though I have had the bad luck of having stuff fail on
 RJT> me right after the warranty ran out.  That was the only monitor I ever
 RJT> bought brand new,  too.
 RJT>  Some kind of power supply failure that was actually smoking traces on
 RJT> the board.  And of course the place I bought it is gone,  too.  Of the
 RJT> rest of what I have here,  hard drives and MBs (in one or two cases)
 RJT> and things like modems get bought new,  sometimes.  I have accumulated
 RJT> a few used HDs too,  and they seem to be holding up equally well.

 RJT> About the only failure I had in here lately was during the Florida
 RJT> trip,  when I got back the one SCSI drive I had in the system here was
 RJT> toast.  We'd closed up the room and it does just get too hot in here.
 RJT> Next time I'll be sure to have fans blowing on stuff,  at least...

 JH> Newest EIDE drives generally have 8MB cache on them vs, 2MB about
 JH> this time last year.

 RJT> I did notice that in some of the ads.  I wonder if the controller
 RJT> hardware on them is smart enough to do stuff in a sequence that makes
 RJT> sense given the mechanical constraints?  Seeking in order,  etc...

 JH> Newest drives probably support UDMA/EIDE 133, vs 100 maybe a year
 JH> ago.

 RJT> I don't know how much of an issue that's going to be with me
 RJT> considering most of the hardware I'm using here.

 JH> Very newest mainboards now support something even faster - Serial
 JH> ATA (SATA), and drives which support that cost a bit more.  BIR I
 JH> saw a 120GB SATA drive in yesterday's paper for $120 AR.

 RJT> I think this is probably the first I've heard of this one.  Why is it
 RJT> supposed to be better?

 JH> ... Jim, why does everything these days have to be so danged
 JH> complicated?-Bubba

 RJT> Anyway!

 RJT> I think they're all just trying to keep us confused...   :-)

 RJT> ---

... Jim, some of these here 'Bargains' you find are too good to be true-Bubba
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