Re: [tlug] Sony: Proprietary Jailkeeper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Baby Steps for Command Line Backups

[essertier <essertier@example.com>]

Jim wrote:

> Sony makes good stuff, but are known for being amongst the more 
> proprietary manufacturers. 

I see.  
I have been told by a few people in Japan that they have bad service,
that when you call them to tell them that their product is not doing
what it's supposed to do, they aren't able to help you.  (I've never
bothered to call them, so I don't know).  And someone, maybe on TLUG,
said that their software is lousy, which I did find to be true, after I
heard that.  For example, their DVD movie-player software was hard for
me to understand; not intuitive at all.  It looks really cool, lots of
fancy graphics, but to just do something as simple as skip ahead took
time for me to figure out.  I wound up using some other DVD player
software that came with the computer, like Windows'; and when asked if I
wanted to download some of Vaio's free software, I declined. 

Also, there were lots of software glitches that we ran into on the first
day after taking it out of the box.  Things like "iTouch" (?) actually
telling us with warning signs every time the computer was on that
essentially, "This computer is not working right."  It was not
immediately clear what the problem was, and whether or not I, the user,
had done something wrong, or Sony's software was to blame, or I should
look up iTouch on the web and call them.  I mean, if you were a novice,
and you had just bought this thing, you'd assume that you had bought a
defective product.  You'd be pretty sure you hadn't done anything wrong
because you had only turned the thing on.

I was a little afraid of downloading Vaio's updates too, as I wasn't
sure if new glitches would be introduced.  For over a year we had to
click and close 2 warning windows about this "iTouch" problem every time
we turned it on, and sometimes when turning it off.  For some reason, I
don't get the warnings anymore.  Various warning signs appear, and then
mysteriously disappear.  

This was the first non-Mac computer that we had ever bought and with a
new computer I thought that all the basic functions should work during
the first year at least.  What an idiot, to expect that!

I don't know what else is on the market that is comparable, but I've
seen computers by other makers with similarly small sizes.  My wife
seems to have bought it just because it was the smallest and lightest
computer in the store and had a visually appealing physical design.
(She was wavering between an iBook and the Sony, and although I rooted
for the iBook, she went with the Sony.  I think that was because it was
definitely smaller and lighter; it was the only Windows machine that
competed with Mac in terms of being visually appealing for her.  She
also wanted Windows because that's what everyone else in her office had
and she knew she could get help from them with it.  Now I know, after
using the Vaio in a Japanese working environment, that she had a good
point in terms of individual user strategy, even though ethically and
from an open source perspective...).  

The size and weight did not impress me at first and, compared to a
PowerBook G4, it seemed slow and cumbersome, but gradually I realized
how, especially, its size and weight, and long battery life went a long
way towards making up for many of the software defects.  Too bad such a
proprietary company has such good engineers.  

Joe