Tech FAILS. What was yours?

Forums › Off topic › Tech FAILS. What was yours?

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

728 posts

Ultimate Geek

#724292 28-Nov-2012 16:46

A friend of mine spent up large to amass a very large collection of laser discs when video was still popular... and then along came DVD and blueray...

Doing your best is much more important than being the best.

GoodSync

GoodSync. Easily back up and sync your files with GoodSync. Simple and secure file backup and synchronisation software will ensure that your files are never lost (affiliate link).

crackrdbycracku

1168 posts

Uber Geek

#724293 28-Nov-2012 16:49

sleepy: Buying a new desktop pc for work with XP on it then paying extra $75 for vista upgrade when released - never installed cant think why

Vista is the FAIL?

Didn't anybody tell you I was a hacker?

ubergeeknz

3344 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Vocus

#724297 28-Nov-2012 16:56

crackrdbycracku:
sleepy: Buying a new desktop pc for work with XP on it then paying extra $75 for vista upgrade when released - never installed cant think why

Vista IS FAIL.

I fixed that for you.

DarthKermit

5346 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#724300 28-Nov-2012 17:04

freitasm: But the Palm wasn't a fail. As a product it defined a entire new generation of products, made PDAs popular, introduced new ways of doing things. It was a success. Every PDA and Smartphone today has its roots in the PalmPilot.

I got my first PalmPilot 1000 in 1997 when first released. It was still US Robotics back then.

Did you know PayPal came out on a Palm first so you could transfer money to your friends, then put the PDA in its cradle, press the Hotsync button and have the money sent out?

For me personally, my Palm III was a fail. I found the particular design flaw that I mentioned above so annoying that I ceased using it any more. I found it to be next to unusable because it was so easy to lose all one's data (happened to me several times).

I realise that they went on to produce better versions of the product. The III is the only PDA I've ever owned.

Whatifthespacekeyhadneverbeeninvented?

Poll

340 posts

Ultimate Geek

#724302 28-Nov-2012 17:10

CYaBro:
Poll: Two of those early mp3 players, the usb flash drive sized ones with a tiny lcd and incomprehensible menu, 128 meg and 256 meg, terrible.

I got one of these for my wife a few years ago and we love it.
I use it all the time when mowing the lawns and she uses it when going for a walk or run.
It's a Samsung 1GB version so can fit quite a bit of music on it and the battery lasts for ages.

Those two lasted for a couple of months each before being unable to read in usb drives/boot up. They weren't branded or anything. I've since had an 8 gb Sony walkman which lasts forever on a charge and packs about 1000 songs, great wee thing.

billgates

4704 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#724304 28-Nov-2012 17:16

Personally bought Zune HD and HP Touchpad (NZ$135 firesale) knowing that these products would not live on. Sold my Zune HD when purchased my first Windows Phone device in 2010. Best PMP I ever owned. Touchpad is with mother now using it as a web browsing machine.

Sold an Toshiba HD-DVD player to a customer in 2007 when I was working at Dick Smith Electronics. He came in asking for my opinion on who is going to win the disc war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. I told him that the porn industry is backing HD-DVD. He spent $1500 on the Toshiba HD-DVD player.

Do whatever you want to do man.

heapsort

241 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#724313 28-Nov-2012 18:00

I once bought a Casio "pocket computer" for a three figure sum - pretty sure it was the FX-750P model.

It had a one-line display, qwerty keyboard, and a slot for memory cards. I think they were 2 or 4 kilobytes capacity.

I could write programs on it in BASIC!

Which I did. For a week or two. Then I used it for nothing that a regular cheap scientific calculator couldn't do faster anyway, and stuck to the Commodore 64 for programming.

Batman

Mad Scientist
29663 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#724315 28-Nov-2012 18:03

sony ericsson P800 for $1000 but i must say pretty bold attempt at a smartphone

scuwp

3868 posts

Uber Geek

#724318 28-Nov-2012 18:13

Trying to avoid the Apple hype...I brought a Toshiba "Gigabeat" mp3 player. Paid about $400 for it from memory. Should have just given in an 'Appled' up...ended up doing so about 2 weeks later after giving up trying to get anything on it using the propriety MS media player.

Also owned a 750P and had a crack at 'basic' programming for a while. That was cool!!!

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

Jaxson

7993 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#724340 28-Nov-2012 19:25

billgates:

Sold an Toshiba HD-DVD player to a customer in 2007 when I was working at Dick Smith Electronics. He came in asking for my opinion on who is going to win the disc war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. I told him that the porn industry is backing HD-DVD. He spent $1500 on the Toshiba HD-DVD player.

Reading that has cheered me up. Thanks!

geekiegeek

2513 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#724373 28-Nov-2012 20:43

An ASUS UMPC an early attempt at tablet computing, only to big\ heavy\ expensive and no battery life. Was a nice toy for the first few weeks though.

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3420&review=Asus+R2

gzt

16815 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#724385 28-Nov-2012 21:01

sleepy: Buying a new desktop pc for work with XP on it then paying extra $75 for vista upgrade when released - never installed cant think why

That's a win even if it cost you $75 to never install it.

Hobchild

623 posts

Ultimate Geek

#724436 28-Nov-2012 23:07

A Sony Ericsson LiveView. A smartphone watch accessory which might have been alright if it could have stayed connected for more than five minutes.

mattwnz

19994 posts

Uber Geek

#724442 28-Nov-2012 23:42

A home ventilation system about 12 years ago when they first came out. It didn't really do very much, if anything.

Also a casio big screen dot matrix graphing calculator about 20 years ago at school, which were really rare at the time. But wasn't allowed to use it in exams, so didn't use it much.

Ramjet007

319 posts

Ultimate Geek

#724455 29-Nov-2012 06:02

Going back a bit, but I went with Betamax as my choice for a video recorder when they 1st came out.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5