Chinese Crap

I had hoped to write something here last week but got stuck late at work every night. Just when we were ready to go live with a new release of some software hosted on our new hardware infrastructure, we lost one of our networking switches and had to delay. It is probably a good thing as waiting to replace our hardware gave us time to fix some configuration issues with our software. However it was really frustrating to have everything ready to go, only to have quality issues because one of our vendors decided to move all manufacturing to China. It seems like I am seeing an astronomical failure rate for products made in China.

Unfortunately it is impossible to buy anything these days that isn't made in China. If you want the best price for computers and electronics, you can bet that a lot of the components come from there. I have decided that I can no longer afford to blindly purchase goods. The first question I ask myself before purchasing a product is, "Where is it made?" If the answer is China, then I look around for the next 2 or 3 competing products. If they are also made in China, then I don't really have much of a choice. If they are made somewhere else, then there better be a significant price break or I will buy the competitor. In fact, I would much rather purchase a bicycle built in the USA than an automobile built in China. Trust me when I tell you that you will get more miles out of the bike than the car.