I've just spent a total of about 6 hours trying to sort out a friends AOL broadband access. It's been working fine for the last two years, but a couple of weeks back the USB modem broke and needed replacing. As USB modems are pretty useless anyway, and prone to all kinds of problems, I decided to replac it with a Belkin wireless modem/router, firstly because I have one and it's been faultless for the last three years, and also because my sister had one which she used, trouble free, to connect to AOL.
I installed and configured the new modem and everything's worked fine for the last three weeks until last week. The modem could no longer connect to AOL. A (lengthy) phone call to the AOL support people, in India!, resulted in them basically saying that "this happens sometimes" with Belkin modems and we really should be talking to them, and by the way, Belkin modems are not supported by AOL. What the heck is that supposed to mean. When we called Belkin they quite reasonably said they're sorry about the problem, which they'd heard about before, but the problem is definitely with AOL. I must agree with them as this modem works just fine with my ISP (BT), and why shouldn't it work with AOL? - surely they should provide a service that works to an industry standard. They don't tell you that it's a non-standard service when you sign the contract.
A trawl through the web gave me a lot of hits with many other frustrated people having had very similar problems - everything working one minute and not the next. Thankfully I got lots of clues as to what I could try in order to resolve the problem and one of them did (amazingly) work, although for the life of me I can't understand why it did. Even more annoying was that none of this information was available on the AOL website.
Next week my friends will be terminating their AOL contract and moving to BT, and will even save a couple of pounds each month on their subscription. AOL seem to be an example of a company that's very happy to take your money but offer little in return. They seem to have no interest in making life easy for their customers, and I hope they go bust as soon as possible.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
JC and the PM
So Jeremy Clarkson's in trouble for calling the PM a 'one eyed Scottish idiot'. I'd say that's about right really - Gordon Brown does only have one eye, he is Scottish, and he is plainly an idiot. And yet there seems to once again be a band of people appearing from nowhere accusing JC of all kinds of terrible things for basically speaking the truth. Maybe I have to concede that calling him a complete idiot is based partly on an opinion and he may in fact do some things well, whatever they may be, but there does also seem to be rather a lot of evidence to back-up the PMs idiot-like behaviour.
Despite all this, some nutcases are saying that Clarkson is linking blind people to idiocy and that, of course, is a bad thing. Well yes it would be if he was saying blind people are idiots, but he's not saying that at all. These people are accusing him of saying something that he hasn't and are being give airtime on TV to try and re-enforce this lie and gross exaggeration.
Why do we pander to all these complete lunatics who are all so quick to jump onto bandwagons berating anyone who says something that is just a bit too honest for them to take. They are the ones that the rest of us should be worried about - not controversial TV presenters with strong opinions.
Despite all this, some nutcases are saying that Clarkson is linking blind people to idiocy and that, of course, is a bad thing. Well yes it would be if he was saying blind people are idiots, but he's not saying that at all. These people are accusing him of saying something that he hasn't and are being give airtime on TV to try and re-enforce this lie and gross exaggeration.
Why do we pander to all these complete lunatics who are all so quick to jump onto bandwagons berating anyone who says something that is just a bit too honest for them to take. They are the ones that the rest of us should be worried about - not controversial TV presenters with strong opinions.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
B Service
I had to take the SLK in for a service today and was more than a bit worried that it might need a lot of things done to it to keep it in perfect shape. In fact on the way to the dealers Sheila asked me what I though today might cost me and I said I wouldn't be too surprised if it was somewhere around £1000, after all it was a B service and the car's now covered over 60,000 miles.
So, for most of the day I sat by the phone anticipating a call telling me that my pride and joy was about to suck large sums of money off my credit card. By 3pm having heard nothing, and growing a bit suspicious, I called them myself. It turned out they had found a few things wrong and the bill would be about £720 although they would give me a 20% discount off all the parts. I was over the moon, and when I arrived at the dealers was more than happy to hand over £606 and was even further delighted by being told that my SLK was a very nice example and it was clear I really looked after it. I guess flattery always takes the sting out of a large bill!
It was a nice surprise, for a change, to really notice the difference from all the work they'd done. The boot shut nicely without trying to chop off my head when I bent over to put my bag in, the heater was pumping out lots of hot air, and the lights were working like a pair of lasers, and hey - the big bonus - I'd saved £400!
The car got a B service and I think I got A service - all in all, probably worth a complementary letter to the dealers.
So, for most of the day I sat by the phone anticipating a call telling me that my pride and joy was about to suck large sums of money off my credit card. By 3pm having heard nothing, and growing a bit suspicious, I called them myself. It turned out they had found a few things wrong and the bill would be about £720 although they would give me a 20% discount off all the parts. I was over the moon, and when I arrived at the dealers was more than happy to hand over £606 and was even further delighted by being told that my SLK was a very nice example and it was clear I really looked after it. I guess flattery always takes the sting out of a large bill!
It was a nice surprise, for a change, to really notice the difference from all the work they'd done. The boot shut nicely without trying to chop off my head when I bent over to put my bag in, the heater was pumping out lots of hot air, and the lights were working like a pair of lasers, and hey - the big bonus - I'd saved £400!
The car got a B service and I think I got A service - all in all, probably worth a complementary letter to the dealers.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Stuck at home
We've just had the biggest dump of snow for the last 18 years, and as a result we've been stuck indoors for the last two days as it seemed safer than attempting to get out of the drive. That meant I had to work from home which I'm really not a fan of. Still, all things considered, it went pretty well and did go to prove that as far as IBM is concerned we can all function perfectly well when we're not all in the same building.
But it is pretty pathetic that such a small amount of snow can cause so much hassle when other countries can get five times as much with a lot less impact. The excuse is always that we're not used to it, but I prefer to think that it's actually down to organization, or lack of it. There was little sign of any coordinated effort to solve the problem, but just a lot of people complaining that 'someone else' hadn't done anything to actually solve the problem.
But it is pretty pathetic that such a small amount of snow can cause so much hassle when other countries can get five times as much with a lot less impact. The excuse is always that we're not used to it, but I prefer to think that it's actually down to organization, or lack of it. There was little sign of any coordinated effort to solve the problem, but just a lot of people complaining that 'someone else' hadn't done anything to actually solve the problem.
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