Repair and Replace
Posted: Wed 27 June, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Geeky 1 Comment »Last weekend turned out to be a bit more expensive than expected.
During that time, we managed to (finally) sort out the room that is going to be the office for a while. (’til all else is done, then we get to upgrade/fit-out the garage into an office and workroom, which’ll probably end up being around this time next year) Walls painted, gloss paintwork done (and then walked in by the fucking cat) and floor tiles cleaned. Bookshelves, desk, and computer all installed.
And it was while we were putting the computer stuff back in that I discovered the expense bits. The wireless network card’s aerial was a) bent, and b) snapped off when I touched it. Oh bugger. And the receiver dongle for the cordless mouse was bent 90°, and (on testing) utterly buggered.
The wireless card wasn’t too bad to replace – £25, and job done. Installed fine, and not even the need to hunt down whatever the hell the password is for the wireless network. Disturbingly simple.
As for the mouse, I’ve replaced it with another cordless one, but this time not a rechargeable one. Supposedly two AA batteries will keep it going for six months, although I’ll believe that when I see it. I ended up ordering it on Monday from Amazon on express delivery (Yeah, I know, ‘sucker’) and it arrived yesterday. So could be worse.
In the meantime, well, a combination of using the laptop for most things, and a sad (and very geeky) level of knowledge when it comes to keyboard shortcuts in Windows made everything usable. Although when I say ‘usable’ I mean “I can do it on occasion, but if I had to do this all the time, I’d soon be swearing like a sailor”.
DVLA
Posted: Mon 25 June, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Organised Leave a comment »One of the most annoying things we’ve been having to deal with since moving in to the new house is the residual paperwork and guff that was the responsibility of the previous owners.
As it turns out, the man of the house died back in September last year, which is what prompted the sale. His widow went off to live with relatives, and the place was empty. Now fair enough, I understand it must’ve been nightmarish, but at the same time, there’s a lot of stuff that’s been done (or, more accurately, not done) that is continuing to provide hassles for us.
For instance, the family sold the old boy’s car. Fair enough. Except they didn’t file the relevant paper work with the DVLA, so we’re now getting shitty red letters from bailiff companies and the like about parking fines that’ve been done by the car’s new owner. Of course, because the family didn’t file the paperwork, he’s still listed as the registered owner, and at the address that is now ours.
Currently, those parking tickets are running at about £600, and I’m wondering when more will come through the door. We’ve been able to get hold of the family via the estate agents, luckily, and have been forwarding on the demands once I’ve spoken to the companies involved. And I’ve also told the DVLA that the family sold the car, and it’s now nothing to do with us – so hopefully they’re going to amend the record for the car as soon as poss.
We’ll just have to see how it all goes.
In some ways, though, it’s probably a good thing that the family also haven’t yet set up good old mail redirection, or we wouldn’t have had any idea that this cock-up was going on. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose.
Address Migration
Posted: Thu 21 June, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Geeky, Getting Organised, Technology, Thoughts 1 Comment »One of the things that always infuriates me when I get a new phone is the sheer hassle that’s always present when it comes to moving the address book (and/or contacts) from one to the other. For some reason it’s just never as simple as it could/should be.
Of course, there’s the ‘classic’ option, of saving all the contacts onto the SIM card instead of on the phone. But if you actually use the contacts and address book, then you need them to be on the phone – the SIM just holds ‘name &number’ data. So if you have a contact called (for example) Tom, and he has a home phone, work phone, mobile, and email, that’s four records on the SIM. On the phone, it’s one record – which is, of course, how it should be.
But I’m yet to find a phone that has a simple “Send all the contacts from this phone to another one” – whether that’s by Messaging, Bluetooth, IR, or anything else. Even (or, perhaps, particularly) Windows Mobile can’t manage this task – it can send your contacts one at a time, so why can’t it do all of them in one big bundle of data?
In fairness to Windows Mobile®, it does synchronise with MS Office on a PC. Fortunately, so does my new phone. So I could connect the XDA to the PC, synch all the contacts off the phone into MS Outlook , disconnect the XDA, connect the K800i (which, of course, also has a completely different cable) and synch the contacts out of Outlook onto the K800i. But all the same, what a faff.
Is it really that difficult to handle phone contact transfers?
I know (before Gordon says it) that this is one of those events where user-centred design would work really nicely. I don’t care how the phone transfers the address book – I want it to Just Work™, without being a nightmare faff of cables, or one-by-one data transfers. Just one simple ‘Move my address book to another phone’ option – or perhaps even a first-use option (i.e. one where the process is part of the initial phone set-up) that simply says “Copy the address book from your old phone?” – and if you choose it, you get to choose whether the data transfer is done by IR, Bluetooth, WiFi, or something else. (Bluetooth is the ideal candidate, of course, with WiFi a close second).
Is that too much to ask?
Rural
Posted: Tue 19 June, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Geeky Leave a comment »The image below should provide ample explanation of why I hadn’t bothered (until today) with getting a 3G phone. Dark blue is the area where O2 have 3G coverage in this area…
You could, of course, check where you live, too.
Servicing
Posted: Tue 12 June, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Getting Organised, Travel Leave a comment »I forgot to say earlier, but today my car is in the garage.
It’s recently gone over the 60,000 miles – which means I’ve done just under 4,000 in the poxy thing already – so it was time for what Ford term “a major service”. I’ve no idea what that entails, but it’s about £225 to do.
As it is, I’m faintly optimistic that that’s all I’ll have to pay – I haven’t had any calls saying “Oooh, we found that the kajoogly sprocket is nearly frubscotched, that’s gonna cost you £xxx” (or words to that effect, anyway).
Still, I’ll know more when I get there at about 5:15…
Planning
Posted: Tue 12 June, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Getting Organised, House Work Leave a comment »On Friday, the first stage of our planning application for the extensions to the new place passed through. So far as we know, no-one has complained or lodged an objection to our plans – the notice went up outside our place three weeks ago, and the deadline for objections was Friday.
According to the relevant website information (It’s great, being able to track the application online, and know what’s coming up) we should get the final approval through around July 9th. It’s not the fastest of processes, but that’s the “joy” of dealing with local authorities.
In fairness, it’s also quite a lot faster than I’d been led to expect. In the previous place, our neighbour told us he’d made the initial application for planning permission back in January, and the council hadn’t even processed it ’til the start of April. In fact, his notice about plans, and the request for objections went up only a couple of weeks before ours.
So far, we’ve been lucky (or organised, I’m not sure which) in that we’ve had an architect draw up the plans, and do the planning submission for us. It means he’s known what we want, and how to get it through planning permission. And if it goes through without a hitch, well then, I will consider his fees (when he eventually sends us a bill) will be well worth it.