BurntPhotons

I got my Xbox 360 back from Microsoft last Thursday. I would have noted it sooner but I've just been busy with Christmas shopping and working. It feels like as I get older I get busier. Maybe it is just that I get slower.

Anyway, the system came back and it is working fine. A card for 1 month free of Xbox Live gold was included along with a survey. So far it seems to be working just fine. I've played Half Life 2 from The Orange Box and played some videos with it. All seems to be good.

I should probably be in bed sleeping because I've got a cold. It started hitting me a day or two ago and is in full on cold mode today/tonight, but before I go to bed I wanted to update some stuff.

It appears Microsoft is already sending me back my Xbox 360. I checked the status Sunday on my repair and saw the status included a UPS tracking number. I would have appreciated an email about the change, but oh well.

Saturday I freaked out a bit when I checked the status and saw that my account no longer showed any machine in for repair at all. I was imaging the headaches I was going to have to go through but hoped I had just caught them during an update cycle which appears to be what happened.

The Xbox really could have helped me out today. I would have loved to veg out and play a little with the way I feel. Tired, runny nose, sneezing, and tired.

Instead I have been catching up on a whole bunch of This Week in Tech podcasts and videos as I veg out today. Actually I have to mention the strange trip to using my RSS feed reader as my podcast downloader.

About a week ago, I started using Feeddemon as my podcast downloader. It has a program called Feed Station which downloads attachments in RSS newsfeeds.

A year or two ago when I started listening to podcasts I was using the Ipodder Lemon later known as Juice Receiver. After a few months, I found that every now and then Juice would just start downloading tons of old podcasts. It was often a headache, but after trying several pod catching programs it was the only program that seemed to do a good job overall.

A few months ago I started using the Democracy Player, which is now known as Miro, to download my video podcasts and kept Juice for just the audio podcasts. This created a convenient way to separate audio and video podcasts since I interact with the two differently.

Weeks before this I had started using FeedDemon to download a new video podcast called Mahalo Daily with Veronica Belmont because Miro wouldn't recognize the feed while FeedDemon would. I have to give props to the FeedDemon author Nick Bradbury for creating such a solid program which he has been updating a lot recently.

Anyway to make a long story shorter, after a few hiccups with FeedDemon everything seems to be running smoothly and I've dropped my memory usage a bit with FeedDemon only taking about 35 megs of memory. The only thing I miss is using Miro's interface which exposed me to new video podcasts, but then again I waist enough time watching and listening to the stuff I'm already downloading.

So I received the box to ship the Xbox 360 back to Microsoft on Thursday. I called about the Xbox last Wednesday so it took 8 days for a box to get to me which really isn't that bad considering that last Thursday was Thanksgiving.

I wasn't surprised by how long it took to get the packaging to me. Thanksgiving in the US usually means a four day weekend. I was more surprised by what was inside the box.

Besides the packaging and mailer was a long piece of three inch wide tape to reseal the box, a short questionnaire and instructions on how to prepare the box. The tape was unexpected. The instructions were expected but are printed on some really heavy paper and therefore was probably more expensive to print than the cheaper paper used for the questionnaire. And I wasn't expecting the instructions to be so detailed or in color.

The survey was a little unexpected espesically since it asked me to describe what the problem was with the Xbox 360 as well as fill in the serial number, both of which should have be known already since I made the call, but maybe it is a standard box for repairs and helps out in the process.

I went to the UPS store on Friday morning and waited in line behind an older woman who remarked how cheap it would be to send her package overnight via UPS instead of the post office. I don't know about you but I don't consider the 60 dollar quote cheap. She decided to just ship it by ground though because, "Good Heavens the gift inside doesn't even cost that much."

The funny thing was as soon as the UPS guy turned to help me out he remarked, "Returning an Xbox 360, huh?" I realized then that maybe Microsoft really does have a severe problem with the machine when the UPS guy recognizes the plain looking box. Maybe he saw the prepaid address, but I don't think so.

I asked for a receipt as the packaging instructions say, but was told that even though Microsoft puts that on their instructions UPS doesn't give out receipts. He asked if I had written down the tracking number which I had.

Before my red ring of death experience I wondered if all the press I've heard about the Xbox 360 having problems was being blown out of proportion as I've heard many people who haven't had problems and others who had. Having a machine die within the first year and having numerous problems with games just stopping in the middle of play because it can't read the disk.

Hey Microsoft, a game should die gracefully if that is the problem. You shouldn't lose all of of you game time up to that point. In addition, when I pull out the disc there isn't a scratch or smudge on them when I see this problem. I wonder if the machine was just getting too hot and the disc warping too much at high spin speeds to be readable. But I'm rambling now.

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States. It is a time to reflect on the things we should appreciate more; a time to be thankful for our friends, family and health; and a time to realize where we could be and what we could not have. It is a time to appreciate the food we have and the benefits we have as Americans.

I'm of course thankful for the friends and family I have, and my job is pretty good too. I appreciate the freedom we have in this country and the chance to do pretty much whatever we want to do when we want to do it. I'm thankful for all those things that pretty much everyone is thankful for, but this year I am thankful for something which may seem a bit weird.

You see, I bought a small luxury item last December - an Xbox 360. It is a great media and gaming device and allows me to watch all sorts of videos on my television as well as playing some really wicked games. (I highly recommend Gears of War and The Orange Box.)

Matter of fact I sat down to play Half Life 2 (from The Orange Box) this past Tuesday night and the Xbox 360 decided to die.

The Red Ring of Death, as it is known, is when three of four lights around the power button turn red when trying to turn on the Xbox 360. It is a sign of a colossal catastrophe, a diabolic dilemma and a nagging nuisance from which the machine shall never return (without sending it for repair).

I'm okay with it though. Is it a pain, but my warranty expires next month, so I appreciate it dying now. If the Xbox 360 is going to fail I would rather it fail before the warranty expired. (Although, I have to admit that Microsoft does cover the Red Ring of Death for 3 years from the date of purchase, so I would have appreciated it dying a couple years from now instead of now. I'm just saying.)

Anyway, I called Xbox support and after two rings of the phone and three computer assisted questions later I was speaking to a real live person within four minutes of dialing the phone. A slurred talking technical facilitator with a dreary voice like he had just rolled out of bed ready to facilitate the repair process answered the phone.

After being asked to turn the machine on twice and a check to see what color the light was on the power supply, he had me all juiced up to receive a shipping box from Microsoft so I can send off the machine to its overlords for correction. I was thankful for his added threatening note that if I tampered with the machine, they would know and would just return the dead machine. "Do you understand and agree to this," he asked.

I replied, "Yes!" while feeling like I should add "oh most high repair facilitator guy."

The slurred talking technical facilitator was very helpful almost to the point of being painful. He double checked my address, triple checked my problem, and quadruple checked that I wrote down my reference number making sure to tell me I needed to write it down in three part harmony with color 8 by 10 photographs and descriptions on each side.

The process was relatively painless, but I found it comical and yet helpful that during the call he kept repeating back the steps we had taken to that point. His last check was something like, "So just to make sure we are clear. You called about a problem with your xbox 360. We went through the steps of checking on the health of the xbox 360. We then checked the power supply to make sure it was working correctly. We went over your current address, telephone number and email address. We discussed the repair process where a postal box will be shipped to you, and you will then have 30 days to ship the machine in the box back to us. I've given you your reference number to be saved and written down and referenced with the postal box. We have discussed that if you messed with the box in any way that your warranty would be null and void. We have check your address again and discussed the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Is this process correct? Do you have any questions?"

Helpful to a point of almost being hurtful, but I'm thankful for the process being painless and not having to wait on hold. I'm thankful for warranties on products and thankful for those corporations who understand their users don't want to be on the phone for an hour trying to get an item repaired under warranty (or out of warranty for that matter either). I'm thankful for repair technicians who are overly helpful and a bit comical too.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.