Thursday, October 8, 2015

Online shopping at Lazada

I bought an item at Lazada recently which was my first there as there was a pretty good discount for an item I was looking for. The purchase process was a breeze and I received all the necessary notification right after the purchase was completed.

It was only after I browse around the site that I realised I could actually get the item for less if I applied a different discount code. So I emailed the customer support and I received a call from them the next day, which was a Sunday. The CSO offered to cancel the order (as the item was not shipped out yet) so that I can make a new order with the preferred discount code and I gladly accepted.

I received the item within a week and this was an overseas item. I am not sure if different vendors make any difference or not but so far, I am very pleased.

I have always shopped at eBay and it looks like I may just switch to Lazada should the same item I am looking for is available there. Just as eBay, there are various payment mode available and there's buyer's protection as well.

Below are the plus points

1. Items are all in local currency and generally cheaper with discount applied, especially now when USD exchange rate is higher.

2. Lazada's 100% Buyer Protection and Satisfaction Guaranteed policy covers the return shipment cost.

3. All items are trackable through Lazada or through the couriers. Shipping fees range $0.50 to $10 which is way lower than many shipping options in eBay.

4. COD is available as an option

Dell Inspiron 20 3043 BIOS update hangs

I was updating the system to A11 BIOS with the usual steps which is to simply run the downloaded exe file and wait for the process to complete with a couple of reboots when the process hangs at 65%.

As usual the warnings are clearly stated there to not power off the system while it is updating but it was simply too long a wait.

I rebooted the system nevertheless and lucky for me the system reboots back up with the old BIOS still intact although that came with an initial scare where the screen was blank right after the Dell logo and the spinning dots and I had to reboot again.

I tried updating the system for another 2 times but it all ends the same.

Reading online resources did not help much. There is also nothing much to tinker with the BIOS setup either. It seems like I am destined to be stuck with the old firmware or I could call Dell support for help and prepare to vomit blood.

It was just a hunch but I decided to run the exe file with an account that has administrative rights and right when it is rebooting, I removed all the connected peripherals like printers and keyboard/mouse and behold the update completes with no issues.