[nvnusman]

I've been communicating with a gal over a dating site for several months now, mostly by Skype. In several months, her computer (about which I have no details) has gone down several times. Every time it breaks, so does my heart! She has no way to tell me what is happening. So I speculate that her desktop is older, slower, deteriorating. (And that she has been snagged my another man, someone not 12 time zones away! She always reassures me I am important to her and she is just as distressed by the lack of communication.)


Her private nerd is her son, who is on the road as a salesmen and often not home for a week at a time. When he gets home, he dutifully addresses whatever is the current malfunction and eventually communication resumes. He does not communicate directly with me and she is not much of an expert.


So I am assuming she is using an older machine approaching the end of its usefulness (Although it does handle voice Skype activities when working right.)


I'd like to give her a new computer. My heart would rest easier. The investiment of several hundred dollars would be a good investment, I figure. Even if nothing "works out," I'd still be a bit of an "angel!"


The problem is that she lives in Tobolsk, Siberia, Russia (Yes, I can all hear you sniggering now! Well, I know all the stories, understand the risk, but I wouldn't be destroyed if this investment turned out to be a total loss, so let's move on!)


Certainly several American retailers can accommodate such a purchase and the bureaucratic costs and hassles associated with it. But then she would receive a computer set up for English, with a warranty ineffective outside the USA, little native language support. Some (surprise as I intend!) gift!


So I contacted the HP offices in Moscow and obtained the names and web locations of the three HP retailers in Moscow. Certainly I expect that purchasing a machine there will not be as economical as here, but it would be warranteed and set up for Russian.


Turns out none of their Web stores handle English and, while I have tiny amount of Russian at my command, the live staffers just hang up when I ask for "p'Angleeski!"


I am not wedded to buying HP, but am to avoiding the local brews. I want a machine from a world-respected maker; really would like the option to "downgrade" to XP but that's not a deal killer. And payment method should not be an issue either. A retailer that could fulfill my rather simple requirements should have a payment system in place.


For all I know, I could be able to deal with a retailer right there in Tobolsk, which is not a tiny place compared to my town of 16,000.


Anyone out there have any experience or effective advice for me? (Other than,"Fforget it, pal! You're fooling yourself." My brother has a wife from Archangel and I have worked over the past 4 years with young folks from 30 countries.) My simple goal is to avoid these maddening interruptions of communications (Um, and to really impress her, of course); I'll deal with social and language hurdles myself. Her son will handle any software and installation issues, I'm sure, and will probably be pretty impressed as well!


Thanks for any help you may provide! -- Rex

[mphenterprises]

Hi NWNusman and welcome to the PCWorld Communities. :D






First, some housekeeping. I have changed your Discussion title to give a clearer indication of your question. For future reference, please be as descriptive as possible in both the heading of your Discussion as well as the post itself. Also, please note that the General Talk Community is not for technical questions. It is intended to be a place for PCWorld members to share and discuss off-topic items, and just generally have fun. For further guidelines, please refer to this Discussion thread. I have moved this Discussion into the Answer Line Community.

Now, you are looking at a very difficult uphill battle. I am not sure how much help any of us may be to you. You may have to contact each of the major manufacturers and find out what they can provide for you. Since you are already aware of the potential consequences of doing something like this, everything else is pretty much just research. In my opinion, the major manufacturers that can possibly pull off something like this are HP (already tried), Dell, Gateway, and maybe IBM (for a laptop).

Short of that, I am not really sure how much help we can be to you. We do have an international collection of members here so maybe someone may have an idea for you. Good Luck.

[nvnusman]

Thanks for relocating my question to Answerline. I'm sure this is where it belongs.

Not so much thanks for rewording its header to the opposite of what I seek.

Actually, what I am seeking is to find a RUSSIAN retailer who could function in English and sells "name-brand" equipment configured by the manufacturer or its designated distributor, warranteed to function in a Russian computing environment.

Then I would have the actual transaction occur in Moscow or possibly in Siberia, for a computer that would be shipped from a Russian warehouse to my friend, so as not to have to deal with customs, tariffs, unavailability of warrantee, the chance of having a misconfigured, essentially "grey market," computer arrive to a non-nerd women only to be disappointingly non-functional because it was not set up by someone familiar with Russian standards.

Do you know how many keyboard layouts there are for the cyrillic alphabet? Which one is used in what countries? Which country speaks Russian as one of two primary languages, but writes Russian with the Roman ("our") character set? How many people configuring computers professionally in the USA know the answers? And how would I know I had one a competant one? And who "beta-tested" the set-up? And who is my friend going to call if something is not configured properly? Will the documentation be in Russian?

If I manage tomake this social investment, I want it to work from the get-go. I sure can't hop in my car and go fix it! Her son is nough of an expert to fix some thngs, but the whole point is we lose communication until he returns from his road routes. That was eleven days the last time.

I am not in the position of having it sent to me to check it out, then send it along myself. I don't know the right questions and wouldn't recognize the correct anwers.

By the way, what voltage does the residential electrical system use in Siberia. How many prongs are on the plug and what are their shapes and locations? What kind of Internetproviders is this machine likely to depend on? Dial-up? Okay, what does a Siberian phone jack look like? "Cable?" Just what does that mean in Siberia? Does it require a "cable modem" and network card or is that particular kind of hookup so common it is "built in" like telephone modems used to be? Or is it DSL ... or a Russian-specific variant? I don't know; I have never been there. Do you? Who does here in the USA?

I remember my old Commodore Amiga color monitor had several input modes and jacks, including something called SCART that was used somewhere in Europe. Was that Russia? If so, is it still a standard? Probably not, but I don't know. Do any of you readers?

If someone actually knows of an American retailer that can actually assure the correct configuration that addresses these kinds of details, then I certainly would want to confer with that company's tech department, to be reassured before engaging in what is likely to a bureaucratic challenge of exporting a computer intended for domestic use to the former USSR. Just what software would have to be excised to not violate export restrictions? And just how would that affect the functionality of the machine and other software that might be installed on it by the end user? (I always wondered just which end is being used!) I don't know? Do any of you? I hope there are some answers; that's why such forums exist, right?

Or an editor could assign a tech reporter to the concept and six or eight months from now then article would Appear: "How to give a computer to a Skype Pal on another Continent and be assured it will work. Pick a dozen national retailers and two Vista, one XP and one Apple standard configuration.Have the manufacturers configure to the "local" environments of 36 different countries, including at least 18 different languages.Then send them off to vaolunteer testers in those 36 countries. None could beIT pos. They sould have already been functional on a similar machine, for family, householder and small business use, but not gurus themselves.

What would the results be after six months? If my American retailer can't give me that answer before I spend my money, I'm not spending.

Cetainly all of the specs can be researched, given hours of time and enough knowlege to know all the right question. Of course, one missed question or obsolete answer could shoot down the whole concept. I don't know. Do any of you? If not, will your employer invest enough of his money into your research efforts ... and the efforts of the beta testers ... and the development of a knowlege base and trained support team to not go belly-up with tech support expenses?

Probably not, because that American computer distributer already knows that several such effective and time-tested support structions alread exist, in Russia, for example.

I enjoy supporting Domestic computer retailers. TigerDirect has been very good to me. The Best Buy brick and mortar 133 miles away is great!

I checked with TigerDirect.com and was assured they certainly would send an HP desktop or laptop to Siberia and conform to the import challenges, passing along the costs, of course. But they disclaim any assurance that the thing will actually work and will not assist in correcting anything if it does not.

So, again, do any of you readers know of a Russian retailer who handles HP, Dell, Gateway, Sony, Lenovo or Toshiba computers that would deal with me in English and send off a functional Russia-configure computer to my friend?

Shto? Tuy zniyo? Ya nye zniyo!

[mphenterprises]

nvnusman said:

Not so much thanks for rewording its header to the opposite of what I seek. Actually, what I am seeking is to find a RUSSIAN retailer who could function in English and sells "name-brand" equipment configured by the manufacturer or its designated distributor, warranteed to function in a Russian computing environment.

>





Well, this kind of goes to my initial paragraph. We can only interpret what you want from the information you provide, or lack thereof. Your initial Discussion heading was something similar to "A gift computer.....to Siberia." That really does not help anyone decipher your situation. Only you know exactly what you want when you are writing your Discussion. So, the clearer you make both the Discussion Title and the information in the Discussion, the better we can all help you.

Now, I really have absolutely no idea where to even begin with this situation. As mentioned previously, you may have no choice but to contact all the major players in the computer manufacturing business and find out which one of them can handle what you need. Short of that, there would have to be a PCWorld member from Russia to give you a better idea of what is or is not available in that region.

[mcbarker]

You could start at the website below. If they can't help you, maybe they can recommend someone who can.
www.merlion.ru/eng/about/structure/