Quality Uncontrolled

Well, now that the holidays have passed and our girls are settling into their new roles with some slightest bit of predictability, I've been left to gather my thoughts into some consistent themes. First, and foremost, we strive to live out our faith. But an ever increasing secondary theme is that technology is swirling up around us everywhere, while the quality of technology products continually spirals downward and out the drain.

I already wrote about the cantankerous nature of our Roomba robot vacuum, which has been on a roll now for two weeks, and today cleaned up our dining and living room. Other recent products that have demonstrated fleeting quality standards have been ATI's HDTV-Wonder recording software, Panasonic's TC-32LX700 HD television, and Magnavox's MWD7006 DVD player.

The faulty ATI product is effectively nothing more than VCR software. Any standard old-school VCR is capable of being programmed to record a channel at a given time for a given duration on a repeating schedule. Through trial and error, I discovered that the ATI software could not launch in order to record; the software had to already be running in order to record. Beyond that, I discovered that it could only record the requested channel if it was not already tuned to the requested channel. And after the recording, it remained on the channel it had just recorded but indicated that it was tuned to the channel it had come from before the recording. So, after one successful recording, another successful recording could only be made if the channel was changed (and not to the channel to be recorded) or if the software was restarted.

We discovered this while trying to record Teletubbies for Julia for our trip back when she was around fifteen months old. In two weeks of trying to record Teletubbies, I finally did not successfully record a single one. I did get a Caillou and a Curious George, which she watched over and over. Part of the problem in this case was that Channel 9 didn't have the right line-up on their online TV schedule (yet another technology quality issue).

The Panasonic and Magnavox products, both brand new, were both defective. One is a high-end cutting edge product, and the other is a low-end, waning technology product. The TV worked at first, and let me edit channels but within 48 hours it was locking up and then returning with a message stating "An error has occurred and recovered." Finally, it just conked out completely. Panasonic first tried to get me to go through a service center for repairs, but ultimately I was able to get it lined up to be returned and replaced. I had ordered it direct from Panasonic.

The Magnavox DVD player refuses to open its tray. We can manually open it, but when we put a DVD in it and close it, nothing happens. It's hard to imagine how something like this could be a problem at this stage. We will take it back to Wal-mart and exchange it when we get a chance.

As a software developer, I have a pretty good idea what it takes to ensure that a product is of the highest quality. Maybe this sums it up best:

• Fast
• Good
• Cheap

(Pick any two)

Actually, I think we may be only able to pick one these days...