Phil Leggetter - Software Consultant » Whinge

The O2 Mobile Phone Upgrade saga concludes

Phil Leggetter — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:01:41 +0000

Conclusion

I finally managed to get the O2 XDA Serra (HTC Touch Pro) but boy was it a hassle! (See Trying to upgrade my O2 mobile phone) I had to start a new contract with O2 and lose my old one that I’d had since 2004. I now know that this means I’ve lost 5 years of loyalty bonus points (or similar). I only found this out when I tried to get my PAC for my old O2 contract and the “retention team” offered me 18 months free with 250 text messages and 75 minutes. Yes, FREE.

What I should have done

I should have phoned up and tried to cancel my contract as soon as I was displeased with the service. I then would have been put straight through to the “retention team” at O2 who would have done everything within their power to keep me. This most probably would have included getting the XDA Serra (HTC Touch Pro) for a discounted price and getting a better general tarriff. You live and learn.

Trying to upgrade my O2 mobile

Phil Leggetter — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:01:47 +0000

I’ve been out of contract with O2 for probably around two years now and during this time I’ve been perfectly happy with the XDA IQ that I’ve got. I also carry around a Blackberry that I have for work so use that to browse the Internet, check email, and send tweets. I’ve not also got a 3G USB dongle from work that I can use on the train. All these gadgets have become a bit of a burden and I’ve been considering upgrading my phone to something that I can use as a 3G modem for my laptop, has a reasonable mobile browser, GPS, and has a good set of other applications for it such as Google Maps, a Twitter client, and a Yammer client. I want to replace three gadgets with one.

I’ve been looking at the HTC phones for quite a while since they run windows (I like Microsoft stuff), I can easily sync my contacts and calendar (ActiveSync is still the best for this), I can write .NET compact framework applications for it (I’ve already said I like Microsoft stuff), and HTC are generally up there as one of the best phone/PDA manufacturers.

HTC Touch Pro

So, I was delighted when I recently went to the O2 website to see that they have the XDA Serra which is actually the HTC Touch Pro. The HTC Touch Pro HD and
HTC Touch Pro II are available but I would have needed to fork out for the whole phone myself. I’m an existing customer so I went straight to the Upgrades section of the website, requested my upgrade code, chose the Online 20 tariff, and looked for the Web Bolt-on to give me unlimited* data on my phone. The Web Bolt-on isn’t available.

O2 Upgrade Page

From here I decided to find out if I would get this option I were a new O2 customer. I found out that not only can a new customer add the Web bolt-on but also they get the O2 XDA Serra around £50 cheaper than an existing customer. So, I decided to phone up a “online upgrades advisor” (0800 1313136) to see if they could help me order by phone with the Web bolt-on and at the same price as a new customer would pay. The “online upgrades advisor” was of very little. I was informed that they “don’t have the phone on the system” so the only way to get it was to upgrade online (for a more expensive price and without the Web bolt-on) – No thanks!

O2 New Customer Page

After phone calls to O2’s main number as an existing customer (08442 020202) and customer services, and Hertford’s O2 shop I had to phone new sales. They informed me that since I was on the rolling Simplicity deal I would be treated as a new customer anyway. So, I had to set up a new contract, do a credit check, set up a new O2 account, and set up a new direct debit. I also now have to cancel my existing simplicity one when I get my new phone. In addition, if I could have done the upgrade one I could have selected where I wanted my new phone to be sent to. Since I’ve made my purchase of a new contract over the phone I’ve had to get my new phone delivered to my registered address and I know I won’t be in meaning I’ll have to drive out to the delivery depot to collect it.

What’s my point?

My point is that I wanted to pay £200 for a new phone and sign up for a 24 month contract worth a good few quid and nobody at O2 seemed too bothered to help me out. Also, I can’t believe that O2 force you to get your phone delivered to your registered address. Most people don’t work from home so won’t be there to receive the delivery. How much customer and delivery driver time must this waste?!

I’m sticking with O2 at the moment simply because they offer the best coverage for where I live. When this contract is up I’ll probably have moved so I’ll certainly consider another mobile provider above O2.

My reply to: Which is the worst Transformer?

Phil Leggetter — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:10:21 +0000

I follow Chris Garrett on Twitter and he posted a link to a blog post about Which is the worst Transformer?. As a kid I really liked The Transformers and felt compelled to defend some of them. I posted what is about to follow as a partly tongue-in-cheek comment but it’s been “awaiting moderation” for hours so I just thought I’d dump it in my blog. I’m pretty sure that Chris will agree with me about Soundwave as he’s got the toy on his desk.

The original blog post: Which is the worst Transformer? Blog post

I’ve got to say that I generally disagree with your choices here. The main saving grace is that your choice of No. 1 naff Transformer is probably correct. I know you’ve got a car thing going on here but some of the Transformers you list were great characters which surely offsets the things that let the toy down.

My main objection is that you are slagging off a lot of the Transformers that were the main characters in the original 1986 Transformers the Movie that I think completely rocked! The 2007 version isn’t bad but has nowhere near the story or scale of the original move. Give me Orson Welles, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy and Frank Welker (plus the obvious) any day of the week. Give me Unicron, Cybertron, Cybertron’s moons, Earth, The Planet of Junk and two massive battles! Wow, I’m going to get the DVD out after this.

Transformers: The Movie - 1986 poster

Anyway: Blurr, Arcee, Kup (who doesn’t get a mention – good), Hot Rod/Rodimus, Springer and Ultra Magnus were a new group of Autobots who were main characters in that great movie. Ok, Blurr is a bit annoying, but isn’t that just because the guy doing his voice (Scatman Crothers John Moschitta Jr.) just repeated the same line over and over again. That’s not Blurr’s fault, it’s the fault of the guy who write the script. The toy may have been crap, I don’t know. Ok, I’ll give you Blurr too.

Astrotrain – the toy does look pretty pants! In the movie he transports the defeated Decepticons back to Cybertron and needs to “jettison weight”, whereby Starscream gets rid of Megatron and we gain Galvatron. So, he has his purpose. I can only assume that the toy was that terrible that for you it justifies the No.8 slot.

Soundwave – What planet are you on? Soundwave is a great Transformer. He was there at the very beginning. He is a vital part of a majority of the Transformers stories. And… And.. And he can eject other small Transformers out of his chest. That’s Awesome! “Rumble, Frenzy, Ravage, Ramjet eject!” The toy wasn’t bad either. If I remember correctly you could get small cassette transformers (mentioned in the quote) and put them inside his cassette deck. No, he’s not a car but he was a great Transformer. You’re just plain wrong with this one.

Rodimus Prime – Have you ever seen Transformers the Movie?!? “This is the end of the road Galvatron”. He even gets to say Prime’s quote of “Autobots, transform and roll out” and it works. He also has a pivotal roll in bringing Optimus Prime back to life in The Return of Optimus Prime (brought back to life, eventually, by a Quintesson…..). So, NO, he’s not one of the worst Transformers ever (but his toy did look a bit like a mobile home, hmmm).

Wreck-Gar – Again, the toy may have been rubbish but that doesn’t mean he was one of the worst Transformers ever. He is the leader of the Planet of Junk/the Junkions. As you mentioned, he was voiced by Eric Idle, which IS cool. If his arms fall out he can just stick them back in again with some special blue glue (using his legs?). Now that’s cool, not crap.

Bumblebee A.K.A Goldbug – He wants to be friends with people so he’s rubbish? What? He’s one of the first Transformers and deserves to avoid this list on that fact alone. You just can’t put any of the Transformers that were on the Ark, which crash landed on earth with Prime, in the list. Period. Oh, and he’s a VW Gold…

Jazz – How can anybody say that Jazz is one of the Worst Transformers ever? Jazz wasn’t the best in the new movie but they got the character wrong. Jazz has been in Transformers since I can remember and killing him off was just wrong. His toy WAS great. It was one of the first Transformer toys to be made and wasn’t all plastic like the more recent ones. He was on the Ark AND he’s a Porsche.

Ultra Magnus - Firstly his toy was actually pretty cool. He could fire rockets. He was bigger than Prime. His cab was exactly the same as Prime’s and Prime was a great toy. He “couldn’t take over the leadership when the driving drumstick (Rodimus Prime) was in charge” What? Do you mean that he couldn’t open the matrix of leadership after Prime had been killed because it wasn’t their “darkest hour”? I got an Ultra Magnus one Christmas and my parents still speak to me, and I’ve just double-checked, like me. You ain’t justifying this one buddy! I think he gets a bad rap – leave him alone.

Ultra Magnus - Now, light our darkest hour

So, I’ll give you Arcee, Blurr and, at a push, Astrotrain. Personally, I’d list Wheelie and any of the Insecticons. I’m also surprised that the non-car Dinobots didn’t get a mention.

Nice opinion-provoking post.

Til all are one!

No related posts.

Problem solving lessons relearnt

Phil Leggetter — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:06:16 +0000

I’ve had one of those days. I set out early this morning aware that I had a tough task ahead of me at work. By the end of the day I’ve made very little progress.

The silly thing is that I know exactly what mistakes I’ve made today that have hindered my progress and what’s worse, I’ve made the same mistakes before.

Don’t spend too long in front of the computer

This might sound a bit daft since you are supposed to be programming and you can’t do that unless you are in front of you computer. However, sometimes walking away from the computer for five minutes, and potentially taking your mind off your problem, can really help. Constantly thinking about the same thing can make you mind go stale. You need to freshen up, take some air, have a cup of tea or have a chat with somebody to take your mind off the problem just for a while. All of a sudden an alternative solution might pop into your head. This is just common sense.

My problem was one of threading, which can be tricky domain, and the mistake I made was that I thought the solution was so simple that I threw myself straight into code. After a couple of hours, and little progress, I took a step back and drew a simple diagram to make sure I understood the problem properly. Whilst the act of drawing the diagram didn’t shed any light on this occasion it took my eyes off the screen for a moment and changed the way I was thinking about things. In addition, the diagram will be handy when I speak to others about the problem…

Do ask for help

You can do this in a number of ways but the best way is to ask those around you. I’m lucky in that I work at a software house so there are loads of people that I can mosey on up to and chat with about a technical problem and even discuss some ins and outs of the technical detail. If you work on your own or don’t work with others that have a similar technical mindset you can see out help and advice from forums, Twitter, email and instant messenger to name but a few. Don’t wollow in the same problem for too long without looking for a fresh take on a problem. For me, this is one scenario where pair programming is really useful. By pairing on a problem you are less likely to run out of ideas because you will be constantly talking about the decisions you are making.

Don’t decide it needs a complete re-write at 6pm

This is exactly what I did today and I got myself into a right mood. What I generally mean is don’t make big decisions or changes right at the end of the day. I didn’t get out of work until around 8pm having only partially re-written the code I wanted to. Then, whilst sitting on the train having aired my brain a bit, I decided I didn’t actually need to re-write everything. There are still alternative solutions that I’ve not tried out yet. There are still other reasons why tests might be failing. I’ve not discussed the problem with others who may come up with a better solution.

Do learn from you mistakes

Today has been an example where it appears that I’ve not learnt from making similar mistakes in the past. But in actual fact I’ve probably corrected the mistakes a little quicker than I have previously so I have learnt, I just need to remind myself of these best practices more often. It’s not like putting your finger on the tail of a wasp – you may do it once, but never again. The problems I’ve described here sneak up on you and before you know it you have spent three hours staring at the same area of code without making any progress. Maybe if I then went out and harrassed a wasp I would learn faster?

One of the great things about working in software engineering is that you have the opportunity to be learning nearly all the time. You don’t just learn software engineering best practices but also common sense, problem solving best practices. Hopefully next time I’ll only waste a fraction of a day before I realise the error of my ways.

Synaptics scrolling not working

Phil Leggetter — Sat, 17 May 2008 09:15:02 +0000

I’ve just updated my Synaptics touchpad drivers and after a restart the scrolling no longer worked. I did the obvious, check the settings and “do a google” but could not find the solution anywhere. I then went back to the settings and then noticed a sub-settings option for the touchpad in the Device Settings tab. Select Synaptics TouchPad and then click the Settings… button. A further properties dialog will appear with a Virtual Scrolling option. Select this option and then enable your scrolling.

Train newspaper recycling

Phil Leggetter — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:06:48 +0000

I recently took a job back at Caplin Systems in London and as a result have started commuting into the city every day by train. Once you’ve done the same journey a few times there’s little new to see when looking out of the window so most people listen to music, read a book or read a newspaper. A newspaper doesn’t generally take all that long to read – or generally only contains a few interesting articles – so people tend to leave their papers on the train when they alight. London has a plethora of free papers (Metro, London Lite and The London Paper) so people think nothing of leaving a free paper behind.

“National Express have teamed up with Metro Newspapers” blah, blah, blah. This is a new message that is announced at most stops to encourage passangers to take their papers with them and keep the train tidy. Never mind recycling. In all fairness the London station I get off at does have a “Newspaper recycling team” that are occasionally seen making their way through the trains to collect the discarded papers. The train station must have hundreds of trains through it a day and there is no way that this team will have time to collect all papers for recycling.

My solution to this problem would be to place newspaper bins or containers on each stations and encourange passangers to simply take their paper off the train with them and pop them in the newspaper bin on the platform. This is easier than having to take the paper to work or home with you and then recycling it. This would be a good idea for two reasons:

1) Most papers will end up in these paper containers and recycling teams can just collect from there at a given point in the day.

2) If you want a paper to read on the train you know exactly where you can get one from at each station.

I’m surprised that this isn’t in place as I think that the green and useful sides of this idea make it a winner. Maybe there’s something that I’ve not considered?

HP/Compaq nw9440: the purchase, review, problems and solutions

Phil Leggetter — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:11:37 +0000

In June 2006 I started working as a self employed software consultant. To mark this momentous occasion I decided to buy myself a shiny new laptop (as mentioned in an earlier post). After a reasonable amount of searching, including asking those I know who are knowledgeable about such things, I plumped for the HP/Compaq nw9440.

The nw9440 is a beast of a machine being a workstation replacement rather than a dedicated laptop. At the time of searching it was the highest spec’d machine that I could find. It boasts a 17 inch widescreen with 1920 by 1200 resolution which is the best I could do considering I’m used to a two monitors with a desktop PC. It comes with a 100GB 7200rpm hard disk, 2GB of memory, a 512MB Nvidia Quadro FX 1500M graphics card, DVD RW and is equipped with an Intel Centrino Duo 2 2.33GHz processor (do-do doo-doo).

I made the purchase direct from HP and the process wasn’t quite as smooth as it should have been. I had to attempt to make the payment four times since it was declined on the first three occasions for a variety of administrative issues (I’m not dodgy – honest!).

When the payment was finally accepted I tried to get delivery on a Saturday as a way of HP saying “sorry” for the troubles I’d had so far. This didn’t happen.

I finally got my laptop over a week after I first phoned up the sales desk to make my purchase.

At the time the nw9440 came with XP SP2 pre-installed and they didn’t offer a Vista upgrade so I went and purchased the shiny new Windows Vista Ultimate to go with my shiny new laptop. Installation went smoothly and HP had all the drivers I needed available on their site. When all the drivers were installed I re-tested my Windows Experience Index (new to Vista) which gave me a 4.7 rating which was restricted by my 2GB of memory.

However, there were a few teething issues. The HP Credential Manager software caused a variety of problems which led to the machine auto-shutting down when attempting to log into the machine. I eventually had to uninstall it leaving the finger print reader pretty useless. I’ve recently heard that this may be fixed but I reluctant to try it again.

The second software problem that I’ve had is the NVidia Quadro FX 1500M drivers cause a really horrible problem where the entire screen redraws over itself causing a really strange blurred/you-could-be-really-drunk effect. I read on various forums that there were problems with the 1500M drivers and that the best solution was to force install the 1500 drivers. This is done by trying to install them, which extracts the drivers to a directory, and then after the installation fails manually installing the driver for your graphics card from the Device Driver dialog.

Since I’m used to having two monitors when I’m not mobile I use a second monitor with my laptop. Unfortunately the nw9440 only comes with a VGA out and not a DVI which I just assumed would be on such a hi-spec machine. When using a second monitor I see interference on the external monitor, or any display, when the machine is under any sort of use. It’s most noticeable when hard disk is being thrashed but can even be seen when wiggling the mouse around.

When I purchased my machine I also signed up for the HP Care Pack. I’ve now had the engineer out three times to look at this. I’ve had my system board and graphic card replaced but the issue is still there. I don’t see the problem as much on my Samsung monitor at home but do see it on the DELL monitor that I’m using on my current contract. The Samsung monitor has around a 6 milli-second response time which may help negate the interference – but to be honest I don’t really know. I have bought a docking station, which has DVI out, which I’m hoping will show no interference.

My experience with the HP Care Pack has been pretty good. The engineers seem knowledgeable and honest. When my graphics card was replaced, a 256MB replacement was sent out rather than the 512MB version and whereas some engineers may have just fitted it this engineer noticed the problem, highlighted it to me and sorted out getting the 512MB version. This did cause a week delay but this wasn’t the engineer’s fault.

Three months on from my purchase the nw9440 is performing pretty well despite the initial problems. It seems to cope with Vista’s Aero UI although I’ve turned some of the features off; the fading in and out of the windows just gets on your nerves after a while. I normally have up to two an Eclipse IDE instances open, Outlook, Internet Explorer, Firefox, run a Virtual Machine and have a variety of other background processes running at the same time. There are a few problems with the VM causing the hard disk to be thrashed but I’m putting this down to problems with the VM.

Pros

Good all round specification
Great screen and resolution
Separate numerical keypad â€“ yep the nw9440 is that big
Easily handles Windows Vista

Cons

Nvidia FX 1500M drivers are problematic
Only has a VGA port, no DVI, and interference when output from VGA
All inputs and outputs are on the side of the machine
HP Credential Manager software causes shutdown

Whinge of the Week: Elephant.co.uk – bad experience

Phil Leggetter — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 22:19:38 +0000

I was recently in an RTA. I’ve only once before been in a car accident but this time my car was quite badly damaged and the damage was judged to be “borderline”. This means that the cost of fixing the car is in the same region as the car value. In this case a decision has to be made on whether the car will be fixed and this is done by “elephant.co.uk engineers” viewing the damage either via video link (yeah, right!) or, as I was told, digital images (much more likely). Once this has been done the insurance agency will make a decision on whether the car is written-off / a total loss. If it is written-off / a total loss then your car won’t be fixed and the insurance agency will make you an offer for your car. So, in effect the insurance agency is buying the car off you.

The first of my gripes is that elephant.co.uk don’t provide you with a courtesy car. The car is supplied by the garage that will be repairing your car, but only if the car is going to be repaired. It’s therefore obviously that the speed at which a decision is made on the cars repair status has a direct relationship with the speed at which you will know if you will get a courtesy car. If the car is deemed written-off / a total loss you will need to organise a hire car.

It took the wonderful elephant.co.uk ten days (until 26th December 2006) to make a decision and the only reason it was done this quickly was because I kept phoning to chase things up. Maybe I forced them into scrapping my car?! Yep, it was Christmas and people would have been on holiday and things maybe weren’t getting done as quickly as normal. But, YEP, it was Christmas and I needed a car to visit family. Anyway, by the time a decision was made it was all too late and I ended up having to make less than ideal alternative arrangements.

I had my accident on the Saturday 16th of December 2006. Today is the 29th of January 2007 and I have still not recieved a Total Loss Offer for my car from elephant.co.uk. They are claiming that the paperwork is the hold-up however I have completed and returned any paperwork that they have requested from me within one day of receiving any request. The last letter I sent to them contained my vehicle registration documents and that was at the very beginning of January. Just over a week ago I was told that all the required paperwork was in place and I would have an offer by the end of the week. This week I have been told that the paperwork is just now in place and I will have an offer by the end of this week.

It’s now fourty four days since my accident and I still don’t have a car or any money to buy one with!

The unfortunate truth about elephant.co.uk is:

elephant.co.uk do provide cheap car insurance
elephant.co.uk do answer the phones quickly
elephant.co.uk are moving call centres back to the U.K
elephant.co.uk will provide a courtesy car (via the garage) but only if your car is being repaired
elephant.co.uk will leave you without a car over Christmas
elephant.co.uk will take ages to make a decision on whether your car can be fixed or if it is a Total Loss
elephant.co.uk do take ages to get all the required paperwork in place following a claim and will most probably blame it on the DVLA
elephant.co.uk will leave you without a car or money to buy a new car for over fourty four days and counting

The worst of it is that I’m sure that the Total Loss offer that elephant.co.uk will give me will be way below what it would cost for me to get the same make/model/extras and that I’ll have to spend weeks proving the amount that my car was actually worth!

Whinge over!

–

Update February 1st 2007:

I got a call from Elephant today, fourty seven days after my accident, with a Total Loss offer. It wasn’t quite as much as I was hoping so I queried the amount and asked where they came up with it. It looks like they use AutoTrader to justify the offer along with some other standard price guide – fair enough really. After a few questions I found out that they had added an extra 20,000 miles onto my cars milage. The guy then had to go away and confirm that my milage was 20,000 miles less than he originally thought. He then upped the offer by Â£400.00. So, the offer in the end was reasonable and I could get a replacement car on AutoTrader for it so I accepted. I guess I could have haggled but I felt the offer was fair and that’s all I ask.