Tech Purchases You Feel Guilty About?

[OutHouse]

Pretty much every single one. Every. Single. One.

im with this guy.

 

[JSt0rm]

I'm happy with all of them.

 

[jlee]

I can understand having a beef with AMD CPUs but GPUs too? Most of the AMD cards I see these days seem to beat their comparable priced Nvidia alternative in all but the $1000+ ultra high end.

While simultaneously heating your house! :awe:

 

[Geekbabe]

I have an iPad Air but would like an iPad Air 2. I wrestle with this because I have stage IV cancer & my heirs basically can't stand Apple products

 

[Muse]

USB flash drives. They're the equivalent of pens. I keep on losing them.

I haven't lost one, but I must have close to a dozen. The capacities have gone up and up so much, the old ones are of little use to me, but they are a potential means of getting someone some data (e.g. loaning it to my sister

I'm pretty happy with my tech purchases in general.

As am I. It's one of the really satisfying areas of my life. There are other things I have to attend to that deserve more of my attention, and I'm working on that, but it's nice to have an area where you feel good about.

 

[Muse]

Its a DS214 play - populated with two 3TB NAS drives in raid 1 - its never worked right and I absolutely HATE the interface. Whoever programmed their software needs to take a bunch of courses in usability.

I can't help but think that there is a huge market out there for idiot proof, stupid easy to manage media server devices. 10-15 years ago I could understand why things like that were difficult. There really is no excuse now.

FWIW - I have been running plex on my main PC for ages now with no issues, and I'm smarter than the average bear when it comes to this stuff. Not an IT expert, but certainly more knowledgeable than your average run of the mill person when it comes to computing and networking. So its frustrating when I can't get something to work properly when it should be stupid easy.

I have the exact same DS214play NAS, same 3TB drives (WD Red), also RAID1. What problems are you having?

I'm not deep into the Synology software, there's a ton of it, but so far I can't say I hate it. I have used the backup in the most simple way possible and it worked OK.

I do have widely varying delays in communicating from my machines, I don't know the issues. There are Synology Forums you can go to, post, learn. That's a huge resource you should avail yourself of:

http://forum.synology.com/

I did not buy mine to transcode. I was aware of the issues in transcoding with it, there was a ton of discussion about it online. I got the "play" version mostly because of the higher specs. My intention was to use it as a file server and redundant storage for my critical and other data, and an easy means of producing off site backup, and for that it has served decently. However, I'm thinking about either using its cloud capabilities (which I haven't investigated) or using batch files to keep local data in sync with the NAS and running my applications on local data for speed, then using batch files to update the NAS with "current" data, so my other machines are accessing just that. I think this will work, but it might be reinventing the wheel if the Synology cloud functionality is essentially the same thing. Still, rolling my own seems like an easy thing to do. Just run DOS commands to only copy changed data.

 

[KeithTalent]

Probably my 60GB Toshiba Gigabeat S which was a huge waste of over $500 (after shipping, etc.). Support was essentially non-existent from day one and while the device itself was nice enough, it broke down after not too long and Toshiba did not care in the slightest.

KT

 

[Muse]

Tech purchases will inevitably make you feel guilty.

-snip-
My first 1MB (not GB) of RAM for my 486SX was more than $100
-snip-

My first computer was bought used from an EE who built it. I was pretty green, but he was nice and talked to me for hours, then and later on the phone. I believe this was summer, 1993. The CPU was a i486DX-33, which I replaced with a Cyrix 486DX2-66 (pull and press). I still have that i486DX-33, I'm looking at it now, it hangs in a baggie stretched from a line over my bed. One day after replacing that CPU I was at a swap meet, and I believe I had that CPU with me, is my recollection. I checked out what I could get for it and was offered $100 but didn't sell it. Stupid me! I was very green and had no idea how fast the value of that CPU would fall.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Oh the Vmware ESX desktop I built with a 12 bay case, 32gb of ram, etc. Never used it just collecting dust.

And I thought I spent a bunch on tech that I don't use.

I don't really know about guilt, but I slightly regret buying a lot of blank optical media. I bought it like it was going out of style... well, it kind of is.

I still have shrink-wrapped packages of floppy disks too.

That, and my MeegoPad T02 Compute Sticks. They work (once you wipe the factory OS, and installed Windows), but they throttle down if you try to actually do anything with them that puts a continuous load on the CPU, like a 10 min. Skype call.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I can understand having a beef with AMD CPUs but GPUs too? Most of the AMD cards I see these days seem to beat their comparable priced Nvidia alternative in all but the $1000+ ultra high end.

The Linux drivers are terrible.

I liked my 7970 and my 7850 is so so. But my GTX 970 with its backplate is so pretty.

 

[thejunglegod]

Try Simpsons, Tapped Out on it. Best tablet game, ever.

Will do.

 

[lxskllr]

Thought of something else. The bluetooth keyboard I got for my phone. It hasn't been nearly as useful as I had hoped, but that's more due to the atrocious phone programs, than the concept of an addon keyboard. I'd love to have a full working terminal, with the full range of gnu tools on my phone. I'd happily exchange all the pretty graphics to get that. Even something as simple as a phone text editor isn't as good as a basic program like nano, never mind vim or emacs.

 

[Muse]

Thought of something else. The bluetooth keyboard I got for my phone. It hasn't been nearly as useful as I had hoped, but that's more due to the atrocious phone programs, than the concept of an addon keyboard. I'd love to have a full working terminal, with the full range of gnu tools on my phone. I'd happily exchange all the pretty graphics to get that. Even something as simple as a phone text editor isn't as good as a basic program like nano, never mind vim or emacs.

I have yet to use Bluetooth. Of course, I have a ton of stuff that supports it. I'm thinking (intending? ) of buying a Bluetooth mouse for my new tablet/laptop. I have a USB mouse for it (mistake), should have gotten Bluetooth to save the trouble of using a USB port, plugging in/out the little USB receiver.

Your "atrocious" phone programs are probably a lot better than _similar_ programs on my Nokia 520 Windows 8.1 phone. I have, jeez, must be over 100 programs installed (I was looking at the list a couple days ago). Most of those programs I've never even looked at. Very few are the ones I use regularly and know with some thoroughness. Only a handful are the ones I use pretty much daily - Amazing Weather HD, Battery, Xbox Music (for want of a better program, which I've searched for many times, but haven't found! How many times have I cursed that program? It's my MP3 player.). I should hang out at the Windows Phone forums and get some ideas of what apps are very much worth using.

 

[ControlD]

I got into reading books electronically a long time ago. I started reading most of my new books on a Palm Pilot III but I started to want something with a bigger screen. This was obviously in times before tablets were around. So, I bought a Rocket eBook and it worked pretty great. I think I paid about $300 for it. Right about five weeks later the company went tits up and the device was completely unsupported at that point. I felt pretty guilty about that purchase for sure.

 

[ultimatebob]

The worst tech purchase I ever made was a Toshiba Pocket PC e740. Great hardware (it was the first PDA with built-in Wi-fi, back in 2002 before this was a common feature), but the software was rubbish. The Microsoft Pocket PC OS on it had a bad habit of crashing and needing a hard reset to recover, which wouldn't be so bad if the damn thing didn't erase all of the data and settings when I had to do that.

Imagine having a PC that you had to reformat every week, and you'll know what it was like to use that POS.

 

[natto fire]

Very few things I don't regret buying one time or another during the last few years. HTPC build with extenders is about the only thing I don't regret and that's only because I wanted to tell TWC to shove their boxes up their ass (now if I could only get something else to tell TWC to shove everything up their ass).

When I moved in with my girlfriend, one of the first things I did was buy a modem so she could stop paying the exorbitant rental fees to TWC. I got the Motorola SB6580 with Wi-Fi built in. When TWC activated it, they disabled the wi-fi, even though I was assured that would not happen by the CSR on the phone. Called in about being lied to, and was told my equipment might be defective.

Luckily, WOW was available in our area. They gave me a much better price, and when they loaded their firmware on it, the modem miraculously had Wi-Fi again.

When we went to the ostentatious TWC customer service place to give them back their shitty modem, there were at least a dozen people ahead of us, all dropping off equipment. Neither my girlfriend or I have had cable TV for a long time, so I can't compare that. I do know, and recommend to anyone that has an alternative to Time Warner, to take it as fast as possible.

Never had to deal with Comcast, but it sounds like TWC is trying hard to be as shitty as they are rumored to be.

I have had nothing but good experiences with Wide Open West (WOW) through interacting with their customer service at my mom's house. She had cable TV, and I needed to add a second cable box. US based, and although it took a bit of time, I was able to understand the CSR and even shoot the shit while they activated the cable box. Nice guy from Kentucky.

 

[pete6032]

Kind of regret building htpcs. Had multiple builds but never really used them. A streaming capable Blu Ray player is all I really need, yet I sunk tons of time and money into htpcs.

 

[Imp]

I got into reading books electronically a long time ago. I started reading most of my new books on a Palm Pilot III but I started to want something with a bigger screen. This was obviously in times before tablets were around. So, I bought a Rocket eBook and it worked pretty great. I think I paid about $300 for it. Right about five weeks later the company went tits up and the device was completely unsupported at that point. I felt pretty guilty about that purchase for sure.

Was watching Kate & Leopold a short while ago... Meg Ryan was looking for her Palm Pilot. They were contemporary at a point in time.

 

[highland145]

LG vx8300

At least it still works.

 

[DigDog]

LOL I still have one somewhere, IIRC I got one for under 2 bills new so I don't share your pain.
One of the rare 3rd party devices that works with iTunes (there's Moto ROKR, anything else?).

Other bad tech buys were a Sony ATA CD-R drive, I think it was 8x speed and I was an early adopter. Used it at most a few dozen times before the lens got dirty. 4 MB RAM (SIMMs) to run Win95 on a 386DX was also a poor buy. Win95 had no business on that class of machine.

thing is, i was going to use it integrating its functionality into a DJ mixing desk, coupled with two technics turntables.
problem: every time you play a song, every time a song ends, every time you use a select button, the thing makes a horribly loud BEEEEEEP! sound which YOU CANNOT DISABLE. and this sound goes out on the audio out.

completely useless as intended, and i bought it from a store which did not do returns.

 

[BUTCH1]

I know that as nerds we are all supposed to only purchase the best product possible in the category without caring about hype or marketing, but lets be honest we are people too.

Are there technology purchases/brands you feel guilty about buying? And if so why?

Like for me, I feel guilty every time I buy an Intel CPU or a Nvidia GPU. I know AMD is hurting. I know that if AMD goes away it will be bad for us. But I just can't find a way to work AMD CPUs or GPUs into my life, they always suck at something I care about.

Also I feel guilty about all my Polk speakers. I know there are better speakers, probably at the same price. I know some audiophile could take my speaker budget and get way more out of it, but then I would need their help making it all work together. Polk just makes it easy to work together if you only buy their stuff.

Oh and I am sucker for Antec stuff. I know other companies are better in most cases but I keep going back to the well, and will pay extra for their brand for some reason (even though I actually like Fractal more).

What about you? What have you bought that gives you nerd guilt? A pair of Beats headphones you love, or Bose speakers? Maybe that "new" Macbook that everyone knows is an overpriced netbook?

This is a safe place, share with us your guilt.

I bought an Antec "earthwatts" PS 4 years ago, rock-solid performer. Before, I would go on Newegg and look for the $20-25 cheap PS that had garnered a good rep., all of them failed within 2 years. The extra $15 or so I spent on the Antec was worth every penny.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

I have the exact same DS214play NAS, same 3TB drives (WD Red), also RAID1. What problems are you having?

I'm not deep into the Synology software, there's a ton of it, but so far I can't say I hate it. I have used the backup in the most simple way possible and it worked OK.

I do have widely varying delays in communicating from my machines, I don't know the issues. There are Synology Forums you can go to, post, learn. That's a huge resource you should avail yourself of:

http://forum.synology.com/

Sole purpose of the purchase in my case was for the device to act as a remote media server. Streaming video from my home office (where my main PC and the NAS is) to my TV in an adjacent room over an ethernet connection. Unless I stream at 480i (which looks like hell on my 65" 4k tv), the stream has to buffer every 3-4 seconds. Doesn't matter if I use plex or the synology native software, or if I am streaming a video that requires transcoding or not. NOtably - I can stream the same media from my desktop PC to the TV using plex without issues.

I understand that there is a forum for synology products - and in the past I probably would have dove into it with a big smile on my face. But now I'm older, more crotchety, and infinitely starved for time. So I just want the thing to work with a minimum of effort.

 

[NutBucket]

Was watching Kate & Leopold a short while ago... Meg Ryan was looking for her Palm Pilot. They were contemporary at a point in time.

It was the shit around y2k. I remember buying a Palm IIIe when I started college. Heck, even my wife had a Palm V around the same era. I guess we were meant to be LOL.

 

[Lean L]

I just dropped ~$530 on upgrading my server. Kept the main components but bought 12TB of storage to expand it.

I also opted to upgrade the memory while I was at it to support more virtual machines.

I ended up ordering so many extra parts to make it work. (Most were forseen but not all)

It's really cool since I can now clean up my virtual machines and have redundancies but it really did dent the wallet even after hunting for deals.

 

[Linux23]

I really want to build at least an 8 or 10 bay NAS this year. The QNAP is great and is small and works well but I need something more robust.

Or should I just upgrade my old Sandy Bridge and get something more modern?

First world problems I guess.