How I Ordered 11 HP TouchPads and Received ZERO…

Well, this is annoying. Last Friday, HP not only announced that they were killing off the TouchPad, but they also announced that they would be selling these things for only $99 a pop. People were going crazy trying to grab these, and I was part of the craze. I was able to place an order at MicroCenter, and I decided to order two 32GB models for $149.99 (plus tax, shipping, etc).

The site was slow, but I eventually got my order placed. That was on Friday. Then right before I went to bed on Sunday night, I got an e-mail from a friend that Barnes & Noble had put TouchPads on their site to order. Despite having already ordered a couple with Micro Center, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try with B&N. I successfully placed an order for two TouchPads! I decided to try and order five more, these just for eBay, with another e-mail account address. Order successfully placed! Now I was up to NINE TouchPads on the way!

Barnes & Noble HP TouchPad Order Confirmation

I figured that I probably wouldn’t get all of the TouchPads. I was pretty certain B&N wouldn’t ship me five TouchPads, but I placed the order, and it went through, so I figured I’d wait and see. The next morning when I woke up, I saw that someone posted that CDW had just dropped the price as well! This site was the most broken i had encountered yet. I would get ASP DB errors all the time, and the error messages were pretty much constant. Huge pain in the neck. FINALLY, I was able to place an order. Once again, I ordered two 16GB HP TouchPads.

CDW HP TouchPad Order Confirmation

I got through! That would put my total number of HP TouchPads ordered at ELEVEN!!!!!! Honestly, I figured that perhaps the sites took a few too many orders, but since I ordered a total of eleven, from different vendors, I figured I would get at least one!

And then the rejection letters started coming in… Barnes & Noble was first.

Barnes & Noble HP TouchPad Rejection

And then after B&N came CDW…

CDW HP TouchPad Rejection Letter

Micro Center was the first place I ordered a TouchPad from, and because I had not heard from them yet, I thought there was hope! I went online to check my order status. I couldn’t find an order status checker so I used their “live chat” feature. “Michelle” informed me that they canceled my order. That sucked.

Micro Center HP TouchPad Rejection Chat

I’m REALLY annoyed. I ordered freaking eleven of these things… from three different retailers, and I had a batting average of ZERO. Ugh. Maybe I should make a T-Shirt: “I ordered 11 HP TouchPads and all I got was this lousy blog post!”

Review: Henge Docks 15 Inch MacBook Pro Docking Station

I’m constantly figuring out how to best optimize my workspace. Most recently, I purchased a Heckler Design OneLessDesk. While I love the desk, it provided me with some challenges. the primary challenge was that I no longer had anywhere to put my MacBook. On the Heckler Design website, they show users putting their MacBooks on on the lower portion of the desk, but I really prefer having a dedicated keyboard and mouse/trackpad. I decided to buy a laptuk to put my 27″ Cinema Display on top. However, I didn’t like how the Laptuk raised my monitor up an extra few inches. It made the viewing angle uncomfortable. I continued my search for a good way to dock my MacBook Pro.
Then I stumbled on Henge Docks. Henge Docks is a company that makes a vertically oriented line of docking stations for Apple’s MacBook Pro line of computers. They looked classy on the website, and I decided to order one to see if it would be a good way to fit my laptop on my OneLessDesk. Read more