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Federated Identity’s Last Hurrah

We had our ship party today for shipping AD FS 2.0 and WIF and it was a blast. But as I quote someone else, this felt like Federated Identity’s last hurrah. It was good times tonight alright, got to see a lot of people who I haven’t had a chance to talk with in awhile. With the last re-org, everyone’s seems to have either gone to a different team or left for a different project. I was happy to see everyone again, but sad to see everyone parting ways after this party.

I finally got to meet Vani’s husband Satish (I hope I’m spelling his name correctly) for the first time and apparently he’s heard of me. I’m always curious what they’ve heard when people tell me they’ve heard of me and Vani claims it was all good things. Not quite sure I trust her completely. ;p Anyway, we started talking about our colored energies since we recently participated in the Insights training session. Funny thing is that Derek and Ryan came up in the conversation (came out of how Satish heard about me) and how both Ryan and Derek had so much to teach us and I agree. We started talking about what colors Derek and Ryan had and how they work so well together. We agreed that Derek was probably primary red followed by yellow. However for Ryan although we agreed on the 2 colors: red and blue, I thought Ryan was more blue, and she thought Ryan was more red. Vani made an interesting statement that it’s hard to be red around me, and I began to wonder. Is it possible I’m so green, that I sort of mellow out people so they’re not as red?

I then provided a little insight that I had been thinking about. My impression is that Asian cultures tend have people who are more green, while western culture tend to have people who are more red. I’m not saying there aren’t many green people in western cultures or there aren’t many red people in Asian cultures. One big aspect of Asian cultures is the concept of harmony (ε’Œ) and peace/harmony was something we valued highly when growing up in my family. However, I’ve always felt that western cultures tend to value competitive people in a dog eat dog world. Even when people work in teams, it’s trying to win over some other team/company. Of course modern day Asia, many of these harmonious concepts have been lost as we become more and more capitalistic. One can argue that in order to really have a harmonious culture/environment, we’d have to become a socialist society. Just thought this was an interesting thought.

Ever since leaving CardSpace, I’ve felt I’ve grown further and further away from a group that was so tight-knit, I’d like to call family. I miss our gatherings, our lunch/dinners together, our camping trips, etc. Since joining AD FS 2.0 halfway through it’s development cycle (compared to joining CardSpace at its beggining), I’ve felt a lot harder to connect with people. It could also be that I really interfaced with like 2 or 3 people on a daily basis. As you know, connecting with people is very important to people with a dominant green energy. I always felt like I was missing something. Now that I’m on a brand new team, I’m hoping to be able to find my niche once again. πŸ™‚

I’ve also received quite a few compliments/remarks on my new look this evening. Some people haven’t seen me since I got short hair. I forget who was the last to tell me, but the # of people who prefer me with long hair has gone up to 5. Now that I think about it, I haven’t been over to Ryan’s since I gotten short hair. And I haven’t seen Derek and Shanna in ages. It’s always nice when people notice I’ve been working out and have gotten skinnier. Definitely provides motivation to continue. Oh yeah! I finally got to try out my new dress shoes for the 1st time! They were very shiny and slippery.

As the night came to an end, a couple of us stuck around till the very last minute, having very candid conversations, some of us more drunk than others. It’s hard to believe everyone’s moving on. Here’s to Federated Identity!

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Outlook 2010 and IMAP

Office 2010 Logo

I recently upgraded to Office 2010. Apparently they’ve dropped the Ultimate edition and now the best one out there is the Professional Plus edition. Also unlike its predecessor, any better edition is now a superset of the lower edition. For more information, you should check out the comparison chart on Wikipedia.

I’ve been using Outlook 2010 at work and I love the new UI. It does take a bit to figure out where stuff are. Who knew that all the important settings stuff was stuck inside the orange “File” button. Took me forever to find how to change my settings. But once you have a sense of where things are and your settings are what you want them to be, it’s rather neat!

Anyway, as I mentioned I upgraded to Office 2010 a few days ago on my home PC. At home, I have 5 IMAP accounts. I previously only had 2, but then I added 3 GMail accounts (1 personal, 2 for HDTN). And one thing I always hated about IMAP is deleting emails. IMAP has a weird protocol that marks emails for deletion and requires you to purge them. How Outlook deals with that is by striking a line through that email. And to manually purge your emails, there is no simple shortcut key. You had to navigate through the file menu. It basically resulted to alt+e+g+a (taught to me by Derek).

Now that the ribbon has replaced the file menu, the new convoluted shortcut key is alt+o+r+g+a. At least it spells something that I can easily remember.

However later on, I found a new feature that Outlook 2010 has for deleting IMAP emails. You can now tell Outlook to move your email to a specified folder when you delete (i.e. Deleted Items folder). Another really neat thing about moving emails in Outlook 2010 in IMAP accounts is that it no longer just strikes a line through the old copy. After it’s done copying the email to the new location, it actually marks it for deletion and purges it, like what you would expect moving emails/files to do.

To access this setting:

  1. Click on the orange File button on the upper left-hand corner
  2. Open Account Settings
  3. Double click on the account you want to change
  4. Click on More Settings
  5. Select the Deleted Items tab
  6. Select the 1st option: Move deleted items to the following folder on the server: and select which folder to move it to. If you don’t have an existing folder you’d like to use, you can create a new one on the spot.
  7. Save all your settings
  8. Enjoy!
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Google Is Too All-Knowing

HD-Trailers.net Vancouver Ad

It’s rather scary to see how much Google knows about you. I’ve been planning to trip to Vancouver / Victoria Island / Whistler these past couple of days (brother is coming up to visit) and the funny thing is I’ve been using Bing for my web searches (for hotels and what to do). The only thing I used Google for was Google Maps to see how long it’ll take to drive from Vancouver to Whistler, where the ferry ports were located, and just a general sense of where stuff are. Don’t ask me why, but for some reasons I prefer Google Maps over Bing Maps.

Within hours of doing that search, I see the above ad on my website. And it just scares me about how much Google knows.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-13

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Insights

Insights Lego Blocks So work provided an Insights Discovery training session today. It required me to wake up around 8am, which was exceedingly difficult. However, the session was really interesting and rather revealing. They were scarily accurate on their analysis of me based on just 25 questions. I also finally found out where everyone was getting those 4 colored Lego blocks.

Before I continue, here’s some background on the 4 types of energies:

  • Cool Blue: Cautious, Precise, Deliberate, Questioning, Formal
  • Earth Green: Collaborative, Encouraging, Mentoring, Patient, Relaxed
  • Sunshine Yellow: Enthusiastic, Sociable, Dynamic, Demonstrative, Persuasive
  • Fiery Red: Purposeful, Determined, Strong-willed, Competitive, Demanding

The above is just a small set of adjectives that described that particular energy. Each energy actually covers a lot more. All energies have strengths and weakness. Like anything, too much of a particular trait makes it a weakness. The training session was not only to inform us of what type of energies we utilize/prefer, but how to effectively communicate with others depending on their energy. That’s why there’s those 4 colored Lego blocks on my desk now and now I know to look for the 4 colored Lego blocks on others’ desks.

We did an interesting exercise where we had an energy circle taped to our back and had our colleagues rate where they think we are in the circle. Interestingly, 6 out of 9 people rated me as in between Cool Blue and Earth Green.

According to my report, these are my energy split:

  • Cool Blue: 59%
  • Earth Green: 86%
  • Sunshine Yellow: 52%
  • Fiery Red: 11%

Earth Green is definitely my dominant/primary energy as peace/harmony is something I valued highly. I didn’t realize my cool blue and sunshine yellow energy were that close. And it’s laughable that I have any fiery red energy.

There was a 2.5 pages which provided an overview of what type of person I am and it was accurate to the point that it was scary. Here are some statements I thought I shared:

  • He is patient, flexible and usually easy to get along with, having little personal desire to dominate and control others.
  • He will make an effort to remember names and birthdays and make his office or home a pleasant place in which to work.
  • He tends to not show his private feelings, yet experiences a strong internal personal reaction to many situations and events.
  • His strong sense of personal values may make him reserved around strangers whose values he feels may conflict with his own.
  • He tends to take the things he does well for granted and usually underrates and understates himself.
  • He may have a tendency to repress anger.
  • Intent on keeping a low profile, he is quiet and reserved, especially around strangers.
  • Building harmony, understanding and common acceptance is a life-long assignment for him.
  • In conflict, he will listen to all sides before forming a conclusion and supporting a particular view.
  • He will be deeply committed whenever he chooses to undertake a role or task.

These were some that I didn’t realize, but thinking about past experiences, it makes sense:

  • His natural introversion does not prevent him from making critical and incisive comments with conviction and presence.
  • He seeks to unite all parties in a controversy and can readily see the validity of alternative points of view.
  • His quiet demeanor often allows him to get agreement to his alternative solutions.

If you disagree with any of the statements I’ve selected, please do tell. I’d be really interested in finding out what others think of me that do not match my view of myself.

The report contains a bunch of other interesting data like my possible strengths and weaknesses, do’s and don’ts on effectively communicating with me, and lots of other interesting data. Not everything stated really applies to me, but I didn’t even expect this much out of just 25 questions. I wonder if companies actually use these profiles to hire or even fire people.

One thing on the report that scares me is that it says he has a strong sense of duty and faithfulness, but little desire to impress or influence others. The statement is pretty true, but one of the things that Microsoft values highly is impact and influence. My lead has also reiterated that several times. Haha…

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-06

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Excruciating Ankle Pain

So on Sunday morning, Chris and I were trying to decide what to do. Somehow we decided we would go check out the Getty Center (it’s been a really long time since I visited). We originally wanted to check out the Getty Villa, but there were no more tickets. The Getty Center didn’t require reservations, so we decided to check that out instead. However, before we even got to the parking lot, there were these long lines trying to enter it. We sat in line for about 10 mins, then decided to give up and try something else.

Cari had suggested a hiking trail to see the Hollywood sign before we decided to go to Solstice Canyon (more details about the rest of my vacation trip later). I’ve only seen the Hollywood sign while driving and thought it be nice if we can get a closer view of it. We called up Cari and got directions from her. We still ended up getting lost because both our memories were bad. Thankfully we had a GPS in our car and it got us to Griffith Park and we drove up to the Griffith Observatory. This place was also packed, but we found parking along the street.

We checked out the Griffith Observatory and found the trail Cari was talking about. The hike was fun. We also got to see the Hollywood sign. It was funny trying to see Chris find a cell signal at the top of the mountain (or is it still called a hill?).

View of Griffith Observatory and Los AngelesHollywood SignChris and Toland

More photos can be found in my Facebook album.

On our way down, we got lost several times, and somehow ended up at a different entrance, which was near the entrance of the park where we drove up. So we followed traffic back up and finally got back to our car. So why is this blog post titled ‘Excruciating Ankle Pain’ and so far I’ve only described about our hiking trip at Griffith Park. I think during the trip, I somehow sprained my ankle or strained muscles around there. I started feeling a small amount of pain near the end of the hike, but I was still able to walk and the pain wasn’t that bad. I blame my shoes. I shouldn’t have worn sneakers to hiking, but I didn’t really have tennis shoes back in LA.

Anyway, my mom noticed I was limping a bit and asked what was wrong. As with all Chinese people with muscle aches and pains, the solution is 鐡打, where you keep rubbing the herbal oil on the sore spot till you literally burst into tears. I mean the Chinese characters literally translate to iron hit. However, my condition didn’t get any better the following day, so another round of rubbing herbal oil. My condition actually got a lot worse afterwards, where I could barely walk. Standing and sitting was fine. However when I walk and by step #4, I was in excruciating pain. Stairs also didn’t help. If you saw me these past few days, you might’ve noticed I was limping, or maybe I was just really good at hiding it.

Anyway I was in so much pain, I started looking up treatments online and there was this PRICE or RICE thing (Protection, Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation). I found it odd that 2 of the steps in that list were to stop swelling, but my ankle did not swell at all. So I didn’t bother with ice nor elevation. I had taken some Tylenol, but it did not help relieve any pain at all. I then tried some ibuprofen, which was suggested not only as a pain reliever but also to help with the swelling. That is when I found out I might be allergic to ibuprofen. I’m not sure if it was because I took ibuprofen 10 minutes after Tylenol or because I had Thai food afterwards, but whatever the combination was, my lips began to swell and feel numb. I checked online and people claim there should be no side effects for taking Tylenol and ibuprofen together. Oh well. As my sister says, now I have something to list when doctors ask if I’m allergic to anything.

After work that day, I was in so much pain, I headed to Target to see if they carried ankle braces. The last time I fractured my ankle and after they took off the cast, they gave me this elastic band which wrapped around my foot and ankle, providing some support. Unfortunately I was unable to find the elastic band at home. Target fortunately did carry something similar and they called it the ankle stabilizer. I tried it on in the parking lot immediately after paying for it and the ankle brace did wonders. Immediately, walking was nowhere as painful.

My mom asked that night if I wanted to rub more herbal oil on my ankle and I respectfully declined. I’m not saying 鐡打 doesn’t work. It has worked most of the time when I’ve had muscle pain. In fact when I had wrist pains from too much typing, 鐡打 fixed my wrist in 3 days when a wrist brace + wrist exercises for 3 weeks did not. However, I’m guessing whatever happened to my ankle can’t be fixed with 鐡打 this time around.

It’s been about 2 days since I got my ankle brace and I’m happy to say I’m recovering quickly. I can now walk without the brace with little to no pain. My ankle still feels a bit weak and running is still a no no. That means no elliptical for me, which leaves only weight training. I miss my TV. It’s so weird to watch TV without me running on the elliptical that I haven’t even watched the 24 finale yet. Hopefully I’ll be fully recovered by this weekend.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-05-30

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Ask Kyle

Janine and Jeremy enjoying cake I’ll be explaining in a bit while this blog post is titled “Ask Kyle”, but I’d like to take this moment to congratulate Jeremy and Janine! Thanks for inviting me to your wedding. πŸ™‚ It’s definitely going to be different with Jeremy married. Sad to lose a dinner buddy. But as Jeremy says, he’s found me a replacement (a Jeremyβ€²).

Most of my photos have been uploaded to Facebook: Jeremy and Janine’s Wedding

Note: I’ve tried to keep secrets/embarrassing stories to a minimum (unless it’s me or Chad and some of Jeremy’s), but if you feel I’ve disclosed something you’re not comfortable with, please let me know and I’ll remove it.

San Diego

Since their wedding was going to be held in San Diego, I thought this would be a great time to take some vacation and visit friends/family back in LA. I initially had planned to take the week before their wedding, but something came up and I decided to take the week afterwards. Turns out that worked out better as I didn’t realize Memorial Day was the following Monday so I got an additional day for my vacation.

When I tell my friends that I’m back for a friend’s wedding, there’s generally a series of questions that I get asked:

  • Oh! Who’s getting married? Do I know them? – Nope, it’s a friend from work
  • Oh! Is he originally from SD? – Nope, the bride wanted to have the wedding in SD
  • Oh! So the bride’s from SD? – Nope, they decided that SD would be a very nice place to hold the wedding
  • Oh! Cool!

So I flew into LA on Thursday to pick up my mom’s car and drove down to SD Friday morning. I met up with Jeremy and Chad and grabbed lunch at Tin Fish. For some reason, it was awfully chilly in SD and it was supposed to get cooler the following days. I had told Chad it was going to be shorts weather and it was anything but that. The sun was out, but the temperature was in the low 60s.

Tux Fitting

After lunch, we went to Men’s Warehouse to try on our tuxes. I was surprised when I saw Jeremy wearing a completely white tux, given that I had expected him to wear a traditional penguin suit. Jeremy has a conjecture as to why he’s wearing a completely white tux.

Another funny thing is almost everyone’s tux required alterations. My sleeves were too long. Chad’s vest had 2 male hooks instead of 1 male/1 female (funnier if you know Chad). Jeremy’s pants needed to be hemmed and he was given black shoes with his white tux, which we all agreed would look better with white shoes. Since Kyle was coming in late Saturday night, we had to pick up the tux for him and we were worried that he required some alterations too.

US Grant

We headed to the US Grant to check in. Chad had already checked in the night before. One thing that we noticed in the email confirmation I received from the US Grant is that valet parking (required if you want to park at the hotel) is $32/night.

Please note that the only parking option at this hotel is valet parking and the fee is $32 per night.

Wifi unfortunately wasn’t free and costs over $10/day. They did provide free wifi at the lobby which I ended up using instead to catch up on email and news. The lobby was rather comfortable and cozy. “Some” found a more convenient unsecured wifi hotspot across the street from their hotel rooms.

I guess these are all part of the 4-star hotel experience. ;p

Given that, the hotel room was really nice, the service was great, and it was fun living among the upper-echelon for a few days. The housecleaning folks would clean our room twice a day: once in the morning to make the bed, open the window blinds, and clean stuff up and once at night to remove the extra pillows from our bed, close our blinds, and give us chocolate.

One night, a high school prom was actually held there and we saw a bunch of high-schoolers all dressed up nice and pretty. Sure brings back memories and I can’t believe it’s been almost 10 years since I graduated from high school.

Rehearsal

We had the rehearsal on Saturday. We found out that Jeremy’s not allowed to know the schedule/times because he gets super stressed out if things don’t happen on time. It was funny that the instructions provided to us on how to get to the destination were incorrect, but people managed to all get to the correct location.

Matt (the officiant of the wedding) apparently went to the wrong Museum of Art. He unfortunately went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which is closer to the airport and not anywhere near Balboa Park. He did managed to get to the right one with enough time remaining for the rehearsal.

We were told how to walk out and where to stand and so on. Matt would then give his speech. Apparently there was some miscommunication. Matt had prepared some statements for Jeremy to repeat after him, but Jeremy claimed to have replied to Matt’s email saying he only wanted to say the 2 words. Later we found out that email never left his outbox or something silly like that.

Due to the fact that the original maid of honor couldn’t make it to the wedding (her baby was due like that same week), there was 1 fewer bridesmaid than groomsman. Chad and I had to share.

Bachelor Party

Kyle was suppose to plan the bachelor party, but later entrusted that responsibility to Matt. Dave and Buster’s was the original plan (Jeremy had objected to having strippers). Macie on the other hand seem interested in joining us if there were indeed strippers. The bridesmaids had a very interesting story why there weren’t strippers at their bachelorette party.

We ended up at Dave and Buster’s (an arcade/parlor/bar). Dave and Buster’s was pretty fun, but their alcohol was really bad. Kyle finally made it and joined us.

Last Night As A Bachelor

After getting back to the hotel, Jeremy invited us back to his room where he gave us our groomsmen gifts. It was a very nice box with a glass placard inside. We hung around while his dad tried to get him drunk off Jim Beam. Funny and embarrassing stories started to come out. Unfortunately I don’t believe I have permission to reveal any of this and Jeremy was very stubborn about not letting his dad tell a particular story, which eventually got told. We didn’t think it was “that” embarrassing, but apparently Jeremy did. However I will tell you the following:

There were these paintings in our hotel rooms above our bed and most of the resemble faces. However, Jeremy noticed a bunch of condoms in his. After he pointed them out, there were one or 2 that did indeed resembled condoms, but we wouldn’t have ever noticed it unless he pointed them out.

Ask Kyle

Kyle with Parasol Kyle had flew in from Georgia and I informed him that the maid of honor wanted to talk to him in the morning. Since Jeremy was not allowed to know what’s going on, Kyle had to bear the burden of orchestrating the groomsman and the groom’s side of the wedding. A common theme that popped up early on was if you ask Jeremy anything in regards to the wedding, his response would be, “Ask Kyle.” We joked that that the 2 words he should say at the alter should be “Ask Kyle.”

Popular Breakfast Location

On the day of the wedding, we decided to check out this breakfast joint called Broken Yolk Cafe. We found this while flipping through one of the magazines/books in our rooms. I think the strawberry waffle really called out to us and apparently they have huevos!

When we go there, there was this giant line of people waiting. We looked both ways down the street and no other restaurant had line of people waiting to be seated. It was like all of San Diego who wanted breakfast was here at this joint.

We were originally told the wait time was going to be ~20 minutes. 20 minutes later, it was going to be another 10 according to the guy holding the clipboard. Jeremy didn’t really have the time, so we headed back and ate at Panera instead. There were some really tasty looking omelets too! Oh well.

Photographer

I was shocked to learnt how much it cost to hire the photographers. I was even more shocked at how much it would’ve cost extra to hire the videographers (is that what they’re called?). Anyway, we probably won’t be seeing any of the official wedding pictures until Jeremy and Janine gets back from their honeymoon.

The first time we met one of the photographers was in our hotel room. Apparently they wanted to take pictures of us changing into our tux which most of us found to be weird. So everyone was in a different state of undress when the photographer showed up. *snap* *snap* *snap*

Ceremony

The ceremony was really beautiful. All the bridesmaid carried a parasol, apparently another word for umbrella. Poor bridesmaids, they were freezing in their dresses. When we saw Janine, she was very beautiful in her white bridal dress. I learnt that giant piece of cloth that follows her dress is called the train. Choo! Choo!

They even hired violinists to play at their wedding. Initially I called them the string quartet, but apparently you only call a group of 4 musicians a quartet. I guess this was a duet. I wonder what you call them when there’s only 3, triplet?

Matt started talking and then there were “I dos”, an exchange of rings, nice passionate kisses mixed with cheers!

Looking back at the altar pictures, I realized how short I am. Haha. Everyone else was like 6′ or taller. Sigh…

After the reception, the bridal party had to accompany the bide and groom for more picture taking while the remainder of the guests got to enjoy snacks and drinks. When we finally got to the drinks table, we were told that our duties weren’t quite over yet and not to drink that much.

This being Chad’s first time drinking, I asked the bartender to make something sweet with vodka. He made us a vodka + cranberry + splash of orange juice drink which was really good. He didn’t know the name of the drink when we inquired, but later told us during dinner that it was called a madre. After searching online, it appears it goes by either madre or madras.

Reception

The reception was held inside the Musuem of Art and apparently they only do 1 wedding/month. As guests, we actually got to check out the museum. They had guards everywhere in case people started touching or breaking stuff I think. I mean people were expected to get drunk.

As the bridal party, we got a secret tour of the vault. Honestly, it was not that impressive. It was over before I even knew it began. The reason we got the secret tour was to get us the 2nd floor by going into the basement, so we can come down the stairs.

The food was very yummy. There was butternut-squash soup, Caesar salad, choice of beef steak/salmon filet, and of course cake. There were originally plans for 60 guests, but only about 30 were able to make it. So they reduced the catering, but didn’t resize the cake. So there was cake meant for 60 people, but only 30 people to consume it. Chad’s main reason for coming to this wedding was to eat cake and he was super happy about this news.

The cake was heavenly. They had 2 types of cake, some German chocolate one and some other strawberry one. Both were awesome and the frosting was not only edible but delicious and soft. I only made it through 2.5 slices though. Chad probably made it through more.

I wouldn’t say this is another reason Chad came, but Chad wanted to get drunk tonight. So we kept on ordering drinks. We had a whiskey sour, a rum and coke, and a long island ice tea. The rum and coke was really nasty. Chad didn’t really like any of them, so we went back to the madre.

Then there was dancing and jumping. It was really fun.

Somewhere along the line, we decided to become explorers and Chad and I wanted to see what was upstairs. Apparently there’s more galleries. What we didn’t know was that the upstairs were prohibited. We found that out when some guy comes running and tells us that we tripped the silent alarm. Haha. After we went back down, they put up little blockades preventing more people from making that mistake.

I also found out from Astrid (another bridesmaid) that the wedding planner decided to cut us off from alcohol. I’m not sure if this is related to the incident above or if we were just making a fool of ourselves. I asked Jeremy if I was banned from drinking and if he said yes, I’d stop drinking. Jeremy went and inquired with Janine (smart move and he’s only been married for less than a few hours) and they agreed that I should probably stop.

The night finally came to an end and we all headed back to the hotel.

Returning the Tuxes

Since I didn’t have to catch a flight, I became the designated person to return the tuxes. At the end of the day, I had been commissioned to return 6 tuxes (including mine). I did get to visit Jeremy at his “secret hideaway resort” to pick up his tux and wished them a safe and fun honeymoon.

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Being Gouged for Laptop Repair

Side note: I’m in the middle of typing up my “essay” for Jeremy and Janine’s wedding experience and that thing is huge. I should probably shorten it given I have like 10-15 headings already. But that essay will be posted eventually. I should probably upload the remainder of my photos too.

My aunt heard I was coming back to visit and asked my mom if I could take a look at her laptop to see what’s wrong. The computer repair shop quoted her $400+ for the parts/labor to fix her issue. My mom asked if I could help and I said I couldn’t make any promises (either time-wise or the ability to fix the issue).

She dropped by yesterday with the laptop. I tried to boot the computer, but the battery appeared completely drained. I plugged in the power adapter and it would appear to boot up, but nothing would show on the screen. I would hear the hard drive click several times and the computer would shut off.

I unscrewed the panels on the back where the hard drive and memory were located and noticed the memory were not seated correctly. I reinserted the RAM and booted up the machine and everything was working fine. It booted into Windows 7 with no problems. Apparently that was all the issue was.

Now I’m curious, did the repair shop purposely unseat the RAM? I asked what the issue was before they took the computer into the repair shop and she said the computer wouldn’t turn on. Upon further inquiry, she meant nothing showed up on the screen. I’m still not sure how RAM can be loosened like that unless done on purpose. Even if someone dropped the computer, I’m not sure RAM can be loosened and there were no signs that the laptop was ever dropped.

I’m still shocked at the computer repair shop for quoting a $400+ repair bill. Either they’re super incompetent, or they’re just ripping off unknowing customers (I’m guessing it’s more of the latter). If I knew which computer repair shop she took it to, I’d warn you guys, but unfortunately I don’t have that information.