Converted! Google Chrome!!

For the past 15 years or so of using the internet, I've spent most of those times using IE as my browser. In the first year, I believe, I used Netscape Navigator, but since it took forever to open the browser back then, I switched over to IE. There were many browsers that were developed for Windows for the past couple of years, of which, Firefox was one of the most popular ones. I've tried it a couple of times on other people's computers, but I never liked it. So I went on continuing to use IE.

But lately, it's been crashing all the time!!

But ever since IE 8.0 came out with all those stupid tabs, I've been frustrated with it. Not that I have anything against tabs, I like it very much, but when you open too many of it, IE crashes. And when IE crashes because of that, you can't right click, you can't open another window and you can't do nothing until you restart your computer. Now that was what pissed me off the most.

In addition to that, it also took forever to open the stupid browser, and sometimes, it also takes forever to open new tabs.

Consider how much time I spend with my computer and on the internet, the wait time really adds up. And it's plain annoying to be waiting and waiting just for your email to load up, when all you want to do is just to check your new mail and go on to other stuff.

So after 14 years of loyalty to IE, I'm finally seriously pissed off enough to download another browser to replace it - Google Chrome.

I've first heard about it a year ago. One of my co-workers where waiting for it to come out, and were saying how good it's going to be. Back then, I did consider checking it out, but didn't really bother because I was still tolerating IE. And eventually, I forgot about the whole thing about this new browser. Then when I finally downloaded it yesterday, within 2-3 hours of using it, I've decided IE is going to be locked up in the back room for forever now.

I loved the Google Chrome!!

The Chrome is a browser that is very different from others, no matter the layout or the speed. It took half a second to load, whereas IE took at least 30, and 90% of the things are in a convenient location of the browser. I've even begin to use the Bookmarks Bar when I've never used it in IE, because it was annoying and taking up space. I also love the auto-spell check that they have. It's similar to MS Words where they will underline a miss-spelled word in red, and you can right click to see other spelling options. Very convenient. I also like the download bar in the bottom, as it doesn't pop-up to annoy you, and it blended in very well with everything else, unlike other downloaders that are right IN YOUR FACE. The fact that it automatically synchronizes with your old default browser for passwords and bookmarks at initial installation also provided a very smooth transition for the users.

Now as much as I liked the browser, there are somethings they can improve upon.

Changing search engine is a bit of a hassle. I didn't really like the fact that I have to type the search engine address in and wait for Chrome to recognize it as where I want to do my searching. And sometimes, it doesn't recognize the search engine, and it gets annoying.

For some reasons, when you press Ctrl+F3 to find words within the page, the browser does not search for anything within a textbox. For example, I use Blogger for my blogs, and when I want to change something in the templates with html, I like to be able to find things with Ctrl+F3 without having to scroll through a whole bunch of codes. But since the codes are in a textbox, Chrome wouldn't search within it. And that is very inconvenient.

Another thing that was inconvenient about Chrome are the short keys. The browser has many short keys that are similar to normal short keys, such as Ctrl+B and Ctrl+S. When writing anything, I like to save a lot, and I do that when writing a blog on Blogger too. When using IE, I was able to use Ctrl+S to save my draft in blogger, but with Chrome the same short keys are used to save the webpage. Now, I'm not sure about others, but I definitely save my blog drafts many more times than I do a webpage. And it's pretty much the same thing with Ctrl+B where I should be able to make something bold, but instead it gets ride of my bookmark bar. In fact, it seems like none of the Blogger short keys works at all with Chrome, and that's just plain annoying.

But all in all, I really like this new browser.

So I'm hoping there will be improvement to the above said things, and am definitely ditching IE for this fast and light browser for quite a bit of time to come. And yes, Google Chrome had me converted.

Frustrated! eBay Tech Support!!

I'm not sure about you, but I've generally disliked tech support and customer support and whatever they call it nowadays. Everytime I call or write an email asking about something, they have to treat you like an idiot. For example, I would call customer support for my Internet Service Provider about my internet not working or something, and they would be asking you stupid questions like "Did you turn on your computer?", "Did you turn on your modem?" I mean, seriously, do I sound like an idiot? So nowadays, when I call tech support, before they even open their mouth to ask me retarded questions, I would begin by telling them "Everything is plugged in and turned on. I've also tried resetting the machines at least twice..." and all other stuff that I've actually done. Usually, that works pretty well, both by phone and by email.

But obviously NOT with eBay Canada tech support!!

About 2 weeks ago, my email provider decided to change some stuff causing me to have to change my email and everything. It was somewhat of a drag, but none the less, it was not much of a problem for most sites I have used. However, with all the security and blah blah blah's, eBay would send both your old and new email addresses an email. For the old address, it would say that you have requested to change your email and stuff. And for the new address, it would have a confirmation link/number so you could go on their site to confirm with it and with your credit card number.

Well, nothing's wrong with that except that I didn't get my confirmation email!!

So I wrote eBay tech support saying that I didn't get it, and would like to know if there's another way to do this. Well, that's when hell began. I received the first email back with a long list of instructions telling me how it might be in my spam/junk mail, and how I should go about looking for it. Ok, first sign of treating me like a retard...

But you know, there are people out there who doesn't know about these things, so I patiently replied to say that I couldn't find it in my junk/spam mailbox, and I'm pretty sure that I did not type in the email address incorrectly. About 2 days later, I got a reply, and this time, guess what they said.

They told me that if the confirmation link in the email doesn't work, how I could go to this page on eBay to use my confirmation number in the email!!

God... I specifically said that I did NOT receive the email, and that's what they wrote me. So, still in a relatively nice tone, I wrote them back saying that I haven't received the email, so there is no confirmation number I can find to do whatever they advised me to do.

Email #3 from them has ANOTHER copied and paste instructions on how I may find the email in the spam/junk mailbox!!

Great! We were running around in circles aren't we. So, being pissy little me, I wrote them an email back stating and listing the things I've told them before: I did not receive an email, it's not in the junk/spam mailbox. And I've even made my email in bold and red with bigger fonts than usual, just in case they were blind.

Email #4 said that they were sorry that I'm frustrated and suggested that I use the freakin' confirmation number that I didn't receive on this stupid fuckin' page on their website to confirm the email change.

Seriously, WTF? Do they even read my email at all? Do they do ANYTHING other than copy and pasting instructions and treating people as if they are morons? Gee, I really don't understand what eBay's paying them for.

*sigh* I'm begining to wonder if the tech support people for eBay Canada are actually robots... Stupid robots that runs on Windows 3.2 or something.