Newegg comes to Canada! Or did they?

A little while ago, Newegg announced that they were going to have a Canadian web site. Computer nerds like myself all signed up for notification of when this would happen.

On Wednesday I received an email from Newegg.ca announcing that their Canadian web site went live.

I took a quick peek at some of their grand opening specials and they weren't too bad. I also monitored a thread on a forum that I regularly read. Most of the comments about it weren't too positive. It seems that many of Newegg.ca's prices weren't as good as other online retailers, like Ncix.com, where I usually order my hard-to-find parts.

Then someone noticed that Newegg.ca uses UPS for shipping. In fact, UPS is the only shipping option for Canadian customers. As a Canadian, if you've ever ordered anything from the U.S. and had it shipped UPS, you know why that's a bad thing. Aside from customs/duty fees, you generally get it up the bunghole by the brokerage fee that UPS charges.

Seeing as how Newegg doesn't appear to have any kind of Canadian-based store or warehouse, I decided to send them an email asking where they ship their Canadian orders from.

Here is their reply:

========== Original Message ==========

From: Newegg Customer Service <>
Subject: RE: Newegg.ca - >(Mail #021020081912488)* (LTK436050495X)
Reference number: LTK436050495X Please use this ticket number in any correspondence with Newegg.ca.
Subject: Newegg.ca - >(Mail #021020081912488)*

Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting Newegg.

Unfortunately the item will be shipping from warehouse in the U.S., at this time we don't have locations in Canada.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please visit our FAQs page. If you still need assistance, please feel free to email me directly and I will be happy to assist you.

Thank you,

Jacqueline Ruiz

========================================

Does anyone know how they'll be able to ship their products from the U.S. to their Canadian customers without the customers getting the 'ol brokerage screw?

It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Laptop battery woes on Vista

If you've got a laptop running Vista and it seems that your laptop battery never seems to hold a charge between the times that you use it, don't blame the battery -- blame Vista!

The default action for the SHUTDOWN menu option on Windows Vista is, believe it or not, SLEEP. Sleep makes the laptop boot up quicker when you turn it on, and that's what Microsoft says people want. The side effect is that Vista continues to draw a minimal amount of power from the battery while it is in Sleep mode. If you don't use your laptop very often, expect the battery to be dead or very low on power when you turn it on days later.

I first noticed this on our home laptop and have confirmed it in at least one of our test laptops at work.

Here's an explanation and here's a step-by-step guide to changing them, if you're not familiar with where they're located.

Countdown to Smart Car contest final

Someone from the Ottawa Sun called my home today. Fortunately, my wife was home and took the message rather than our crappy answering machine. They now have a date set for the "wrap-up event" for the contest that I qualified for back in June -- October 20th!

I was beginning to think that they'd never call. Apparently, they're also sending printed invitations very soon. He also told my wife that I need to bring a valid driver's licence.

Related articles by Zemanta

• I'm a qualifier!

The call

The dealership called this evening while I was making supper. Unfortunately, it was just their usual survey regarding the last visit -- in this case, the one where we took the truck to get its tires checked. It wasn't "Michael", so I don't know if this was the same call that we got yesterday.

I gave them a good review, although there really wasn't much for them to do other than to confirm that the OEM tires were crap.

I'll wait for Ford to mail us a survey and comment about the poor quality of the OEM tires since that's not the dealership's fault, it's Ford's.

Jim Keay breaks the silence

Someone named "Michael" from the Jim Keay Ford Lincoln dealership called yesterday and asked for me. But I wasn't home. They left a message with my mother inlaw saying that they would call back.

I assume that they'll try again today, after I get home from work. I'll be interesting to see what they have to say.

I did a search of "Jim Keay" and "FixAuto" on Google this afternoon and my complaint letter that I posted here shows up as the 3rd hit. If I just search for "Jim Keay", my more recent post about not hearing from them shows up 8th.