Test post, from phone after installing Wphone, the light weight mobile phone admin plug-in

seems to work

Well this is my first post for 2009.

Dispite having endless resaons top vent my anger, some personal, some public, some work related i have not blogged much for the past 6 months. In hind sight that may have been a good thing, as??I seem to be particularly grumpy these days.

A summary of 2008

The Bad

• Two deaths in the wife’s immediate family (one was only 19)
• One of my close friend’s father died
• An effective 10% pay cut after being forced into a job role change
• Corp Travel ban due to world financial situation prevent face to face meetings with my team and line manager
• Jake lost his 680 quid bus pass !
• HTC customer Service is a pile of crap
• I am now 41.
• I still have not got my hands on a decnet IIs7 web server
• I did not get offered a job at Microsoft
• I sold my MGF after 8 years
• I dropped my laptop

The Good

• Jakes started Secondary School
• I became a parent governor as Jake’s New School
• Facebook has enabled my to keep in touch with some old friend (including a few from junior school)
• I dont have a work Blackberry any more
• Sophie played mary in her school nativity play
• I got a new laptop..

I Am sure there there has to be more good points, but perhaps that is why??I have been such a grump bastard lately

On my recent trips through the lanes that surround the city of Gloucester, I have noticed a serious increase in Fly Tipping, I do not understand the mentallity of the retards who will drive into the country side, to dump their stuff when Gloucester has a proper and decent household recycling center

Then I discover that the city council has made it very difficult for anyone who does not want to make a mess with leaking bin bags etc, or wood chippings so use a small trailer or borrow their mates van instead

Any Van or trailer now requires 24 hours notice and an appointment

I wonder what retard thought tha was a good idea….

Changes for
van and trailer users

Changes to the Household Recycling Centres from October 2008

If you are a van, pick up or vehicle with trailer user, and wish to use this vehicle to visit any of Gloucestershire County Council Household Recycling Centres, you will need to make an appointment before your visit.
??
To make an appointment please phone:
0845 602 9344 (lines open 9am ??? 5pm Mon to Fri) giving 24 hours notice. Proof of residency will be required on your visit.

Following on from “The HTC repair centre is driving me nuts“, this issues it still not resolved

I sent them a postal order a week ago and, there fucking shitpile they call a web site still says i owe 94 quid …

So I phone them again, and get the click on the link in the proforma invoice speak again,
READ ME LIPS, “IT IS BROKEN, I HAVE SENT A POSTAL ORDER, AS PER THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THE PROFORMA INVOICE”

“Please tell me what is going on with my phone”

Allowing for xmas etc, another 5 business days and they would of had the phone for 30 days, at which point their T&Cs say they scrap the phone, i have been trying to get this sorted for over 3 weeks.

AAARRRGGGHHH !!!

Sent my son’s phone back for repair and very quickly got a repair price, but that is where the slick system fell done.

It would appear that booking in a phone via http://service.europe.htc.com/ does not book it into the service center, instead a HTC employee then books the phone in for repair and gets all the emails.

If I now go to http://service.europe.htc.com/Tracking.aspx and put my details it says “payment is now due” but when I click on the link is get and error “There was an error processing your transaction Field $amount (amount) should be an integer number”, but if I goto http://www.htc.com/uk/Repair_tracking.aspx, I have to use a different booking reference and some HTC employee’s email address and get told “IN-Repair” whenever I call the support guys, they refer it to the second URL, http://www.htc.com/uk/Repair_tracking.aspx and ask if I have received the quote, well no, it was sent to the HTC guy, frank_tan@htc.com who’s email address has been registered against MY phone.
They then promise to contact the repair center and call me back, and after TWO days I call them again.

This has been going on for THREE weeks, all I want is my fucking phone.

In the mean time I have been on ebay to see if I can get one for less than the repair costs, and report the old one as stolen, to stop anyone selling it on. No luck so far.

[UPDATE]

Finally got someone to step away from the script
And resend me the invoice , with the payment link

Except the payment link was the same one I already had, and did not work
So after a major rant I have to send a cheque, or postal order,
If cheque, than it has to clear.. before they start so it would be mid jan before??I get the phone back

So just been to post office and arranged special delivery a postal order

***SIGH***

Just installed wordpress 2.7

Thought I had stuffed it the admin page took AGES to load, the first time

Will take a while to get used to the new layout

But I like it so far

went smooth, i think

A while ago i wrote this “four easy steps to permenant residance in the dog box” which goes a bit like this

1. Spend two lots of THREE weeks out of the country on business (Redmond)
2. Miss Mothers Day because you are out of the country on business??
3. Spend another FIVE Days out of the country on business (Barcelona, Tech-ed IT Forum)
4. Miss the wifes birthday, because your are out of the country on business

Now I have fifth one

5. Accept a Facebook friend invite from an EX-Girlfriend

In fact given the effect , it should be number ONE on the list !!!!!!!!!!!!!

At a School event recently I was shown a a very powerfull video which puts the challenges that schools and society face today into perspective and is a real eye opener.

One thing in particulare stood out to me
“We are currenlty preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist… in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet”
Think about it. The WEB did not exists when many of todays WEB designer left school …………….

The Video is here http://is.gd/t1T

I went to a school meeting last night where where there was a presentation on “Virtual Learning Environment” Collaboration to you and I

The teacher doing the talk was saying how kids use IT, is very different to adults

20% of his Year9 class has had a online chat with someone in a different countrty this week
20% had posted to youtube this year
80 % had watched a youtube this week
Then he said, i want make a comparision
Everyone to stand up, (Parents and governors, 50 ish total )
He then Said

Sit down if you Don’t use email? No one sat down !
Sit down if you are not carrying a mobile phone, Three sat down
Sit down if you Don’t use MSN? A few more sit down.
Sit down if you Don’t use facebook/myspace? A few more sit down.
Sit down if you Don’t have a blog

Hmmmm, only TWO left standing, Me and a Teacher…..