Monthly Archives: August 2010

Phillips Comes Through

Filed under Rants

image It’s been almost two months since we got hit by lightning that took out almost all the electronics in the house. A very looonnnngggg two months. Far more time that I would ever want to spend hassling with insurance adjusters, repairmen, UPS vendors, etc.

Still, it could have been worse.

Fortunately, a little good news came in the mail today.

I’d built a very custom computer to power a gaming rig I’m building. It was connected to a Philips Surge suppressor with a “master” outlet, basically, a surge suppressor power strip with one plug that is the “master” plug. When whatever is plugged into that plug is turned on, all the other plugs come on. When turned off, all the other plugs completely power down. They’re a great way to cut down on vampire devices that suck energy even when “off”.

Well, the computer was fried by the lightning. As was the Altec Lansing speaker/subwoofer system connected to it.

I’d called Philips to try and file a claim against their “25,000$ connected equipment guarantee”. Obviously, my losses weren’t that much but every little bit would help.

They sent out a UPS mailing label to return the surge suppressor (it still worked but they wanted engineering to investigate it).

So I boxed it up and shipped it, along with the rundown the the fried equipment.

It took about 2 weeks, but today I get a package in the mail. They sent me a new surge suppressor (not sure how much the old one helped, as it was fried and my PC was fried, but that’s another story) and a check to cover the damages.

I’d had my doubts whether anything would come of that guarantee, but they did indeed come through, so hats off to Philips!

HP G85 and JetDirect for the Win!

Filed under Hardware, Rants





But that printer and the Jet Direct box survived unscathed.

So what?



Guess what I found?


That JetDirect box has a webserver built into this WHOLE TIME!

Not just that, but check that scan button…

Click it, and it leads you to this page…



