Need Geek Squad advice

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Bill Glasheen
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Need Geek Squad advice

Post by Bill Glasheen »

I have an account on Fandango where I buy tickets and - on occasion - review movies. Lately the movie review part doesn't work for me. I can get the screen and fill everything out, but nothing happens after I hit the "Submit Review" button. Frustrating... I'm looking at movies I saw in the past and trying to find if my reviews are still there. They aren't.

I am extraordinarily civil in my reviews, so that can't be the problem. The only thing I've done negative is hit the "not helpful" button on some reviews that seem lame. That never seems to work. Go figure...

Any thoughts? I have a relatively new Dell E series laptop running Windows 7, and am using Internet Explorer. Within my browser I enabled popups for that site (http://www.fandango.com).

- Bill
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Glenn
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Re: Need Geek Squad advice

Post by Glenn »

Hey Bill, I might be able to help with this one. I have been running into a lot of issues with login sites where the changes they are making to enable the sites to be more friendly for smart phones and tablets is making them less friendly for Internet Explorer.

Case in point that is similar to yours: I can no longer order inter-library loan books on the university's library site if I am using IE on any device (and IE is the default on the library's computers by the way). I can enter all the info into the form but when I click submit it kicks me back to the login screen. When I asked the library folks about it they said it was a known issue caused by upgrades to make the overall library site smart phone friendly. The recommended solution was to try Firefox or Chrome, so now for any inter-library loan request I have to switch to Firefox.

I have run into this issue with other sites as well, and my community college site that is used for online courses has gone so far as to post on the front page that Firefox is the recommend browser for taking online courses. Anymore it is getting harder to keep track of which browser to use with which site! And it is getting annoying because I would rather work with only one browser and I prefer IE.

So to give a suggestion, try a different browser and see if that works. It will either provide a work-around or rule that out as the cause.
Glenn
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Bill Glasheen
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Re: Need Geek Squad advice

Post by Bill Glasheen »

Glenn:

Thanks for the comment. This indeed sounds like the culprit.

I had switched to Firefox for myriad reasons, and then ran into an issue where it wouldn't work right with Citrix - my window into my company servers. The IT department said they would only support IE, so... I started switching everything to IE. And now this.

I have noted in the last month that the "usual" reviewers have disappeared, and there are mostly extremely short and vacuous reviews on the site. This explains it. The world is being reduced to everything you can put in a tweet from a smartphone. Meanwhile... I need real computational power. Laptop? Absolutely. Eight-processor chip with a terabyte of flash RAM. Bullet proof Windows 7 rather than the OMG-messed-up Windows 8. But tablets? Just one more piece of junk for me to carry around the country. No thanks. A laptop and my smartphone are all I want.

- Bill
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Glenn
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Re: Need Geek Squad advice

Post by Glenn »

I am with you Bill. To run GIS and statistical software I have to have computing power so a laptop is essential. I am constantly in a car driving between home and four campuses so a smart phone is essential, otherwise I would miss a lot of time-sensitive e-mail. But as for tablets, some in the family got them for Christmas but I do not have an interest in them.

I also agree about Win 8. The wife had to get a new laptop a couple months ago and it came with Win 8, and we are not fans. Microsoft has reached the point where they need to offer one version of Windows for the entertainment/casual-home users and one version for the computing/business/research users. They have gone too far toward giving Windows an ooh wow factor for the former group and too far away from giving a useful, reliable platform for the later group, even without taking into account the bugs in Win 8. I plan to stick with Win 7 as long as I can.
Glenn
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Jason Rees
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Re: Need Geek Squad advice

Post by Jason Rees »

JOOC, did changing your browser work, Bill?
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Bill Glasheen
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Re: Need Geek Squad advice

Post by Bill Glasheen »

Jason Rees wrote:JOOC, did changing your browser work, Bill?
I haven't done the deed yet, Jason. But now that you asked...

On my old laptop I had Firefox in addition to IE. A previous employer recommended it so that my Citrix would work. Now my current employer wants MS IE and will not support *any* other browser when things don't work. So..

I obviously am in the market (again) to have a second browser. I was wondering if folks had suggestions. Between Skype and/or Firefox, I was having problems with updates deciding that I wanted software add-ons. I can't remember which it was, but one of those loaded some noxious software in an update. There's that screen in the update sequence where you have to un-check a box, or their software versions of their favorites completely overtake your computer. De-installing can be a nightmare.

I don't want Bing, I don't want ASK, and I don't want all these other software goodies that try to creep into your OS. I like my Google, am transitioning from AOL to GMAIL, and have an Android phone. So I was thinking maybe Chrome might be a better second browser choice than Firefox. Thoughts?

- Bill
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Jason Rees
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Re: Need Geek Squad advice

Post by Jason Rees »

I keep Chrome and IE loaded. If I have a problem with one, the other works.

I also, BTW, found during my deployment (I just returned home last month) that Google+ Hangouts worked far better than Skype to talk to my family. Better sound, better picture, better experience all around. Just putting that out there.
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Bill Glasheen
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Re: Need Geek Squad advice

Post by Bill Glasheen »

Jason Rees wrote:I also, BTW, found during my deployment (I just returned home last month) that Google+ Hangouts worked far better than Skype to talk to my family. Better sound, better picture, better experience all around. Just putting that out there.
I had an employer interview me with ooVoo, and I've since kept the software. Same experience. Not many users on it, but excellent quality and sound. The base is free, and you can pay for multiple interface conferencing.

Competition is good. But sometimes *free* isn't. Usually there's something else they want to upsell you on, or some inferior product they try to bundle in. That's where I'm very careful with some of these software programs.

There's something to be said for an Apple approach for the kids. Everything integrates well, things don't break much, and the viruses are scarce. Unfortunately choice isn't so good, and you pay a premium for the MacBooks and iPhones.

- Bill
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Jason Rees
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Re: Need Geek Squad advice

Post by Jason Rees »

The base is free, and you can pay for multiple interface conferencing.
I was able to talk to all of my family members on Google+ Hangouts simultaneously, with them each using a different device, seeing all video feeds at once, for not-a-dime.
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Bill Glasheen
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Re: Need Geek Squad advice

Post by Bill Glasheen »

Jason Rees wrote: JOOC, did changing your browser work, Bill?
I just installed Google Chrome, went on Fandango, and made a few "test" reviews of movies. Tried the same with IE. It is as Glenn suggested. Internet Explorer no longer works with the movie review application (you can type a review, but it won't take it), but Google Chrome works just fine.

No place to complain on Fandango. It is what it is.

Bill

P.S. Posted via Google Chrome. 8)
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Glenn
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Re: Need Geek Squad advice

Post by Glenn »

There are probably some settings that could be changed in IE to correct this, but the time it would take to troubleshoot is likely not worth it, particularly since Chrome works. A couple of weeks ago I suddenly was not able to log into my online banking using IE. After waiting a day and it still did not work I called the bank, initially thinking the issue was on their end, but in troubleshooting with one of their tech people discovered that a Windows update had changed one setting in my laptop's IE Internet Options and that caused the problem. As soon as I changed the setting back to its pre-update status, the problem was gone. Still waiting to find out what problems were caused by changing the setting back, I am sure there is something, there always is!
Glenn
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Bill Glasheen
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Re: Need Geek Squad advice

Post by Bill Glasheen »

Ahh yes... those annoying updates. They're allegedly there to improve things. Sometimes not so much. My IE problem started with an update that automatically rebooted my machine.

My relative new Motorola Maxx phone had an update recently which seems to have put demons in my phone. Smilies no longer work in the text messages, the phone will sometimes refuse to re-orient the screen when I put it landscape side up, and sometimes the screen saver app will give me all of 2 seconds to act before the screen goes dark. I'll be heading to my Verizon store to see what can be done about it. A perfectly wonderful phone got mucked up by the Android operating system "improvements."

In this case, Google is the culprit. They now own both Motorola and the OS.

Interesting article in the WSJ today. I didn't know this, but... Apparently Google has been a *BIG* contributor to both Obama and the Democratic party, and their CEO was campaigning for Obama. And now that it looks like there may be "regime change" both in 2014 and 2016, Google has suddenly adopted a very public "big tent" campaign. They're now seeking to make nice with Republicans. All this in light of actions by Apple, Microsoft, Internet providers, web neutrality changes, etc. Talk about crony capitalism... Pretty disgusting.

I was going to be putting all my chips in the Google arena. Now that I'm aware of this, I think I'm going to stay as a mixed household. The boys will keep their MacBooks and iPhones. I will continue to run my Dell on Windows.

Ain't competition great? ;-)

- Bill
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