Case-hardening is a method of giving surface strength to a specific material. Hardening can only take place under conditions where there is a carbon content in the steel. In the case of some wind turbines, the gear wheels are made of a special, low-carbon, chrome-nickel steel. After the teeth are machined, the gear wheels are packed into large boxes full of bone flour or some other form of high carbon-content powder. The boxes are placed in an oven and heated for about 24 hours to a red glowing temperature. During this baking process, some of the free carbon will be transferred from the surrounding carbon-rich powder in the boxes to the gear wheel teeth surfaces.
Wednesday night. No Dell box to send in my Alienware for hardware replacement. “John”, the technical support representative I spoke with last week about my Alienware M11x R2 hinge problem, said my box would arrive on Monday or Tuesday. I just got off the phone with Alienware technical support and they have no record of anything being dispatched in the system. Apparently, when you call in for technical support, they’re supposed to give you a dispatch number if they’re going to send you something. The representative telling me it’s going to arrive on Monday or Tuesday wasn’t enough. Who knew? How was I supposed to know to ask for a dispatch number if he gave me confirmation that it was going to happen? They have these calls recording, don’t they? They just hate me.
I put in the support request again. Now, it’s Wednesday and the box will arrive in “3 days”. I’ll get it on Monday. Walk to Purolator on Tuesday. Take “10 business days” to get back to Dell. Take “5 business days” to replace the LCD. Take an unknown amount of time to send it back to me. ”Award-winning” technical support, indeed. Bunny ears are cool.
Pro tip: Ask for a dispatch number when they say they’re going to send you something, otherwise they won’t give you one and you’ll have to call in again.
It’s only been 5 days since I called in to Alienware and posted my first article on this issue. Since then, the official article that I linked has changed. It no longer mentions that they will replace the hinges out of warranty, no longer gives the reference numbers to the support articles that you should reference when you call in, no longer says anything but “contact us”. Now, I feel as if every time they put me on hold, they’re conspiring and trying to get their story straight before they tell me something. My prediction is that they will replace the display, send it back, charge me and tell me that Dell was no longer offering the replacement for free because the article oh-so-conveniently was erased after I called in. I’ll tell you in 4+ weeks how it goes.
Mars Hill Church has a new website and I stumbled on their 404 page while surfing around. Best 404 page, ever. The lost can still be can be ministered to if they land on the wrong page. How fitting.
