June toys...

Well, it's been an.. interesting month. Here's the post I've promised a few people to show the toys I've bought this month. But 1st, a little bit of background.

Notebook : Well, it is the dream of most developers to obtain a notebook of decent strength so that you are mobile while running all 300 database engines that you might require as well as the 4 different web servers and still be able to play games ( normally a nice extra. Depending on your budget), and so with that in mind I had looked at a great range of notebooks available to people in the UK basically ever since we got here and had inet... I've only heard good things from numerous people about Asus and have always been a fan, they tend to make really good notebooks, a little more pricey sometimes, but quality that's more than worth the extra few pounds.

So we moved in, not having anything in the lines of a tv, I had looked at the finances and had ordered Sky TV (although installation ofcourse, would take a week or so to get here and done though, not a worry as we didn't have a tv yet). Being that we required a tv I was in a bit of a fix, had worked for the cash ( salary a month in hand thing again) but hadn't received it yet, and the Sky installation was due the weekend before payment.. so no chance.. so I started looking at tv's.

1st things 1st, it required a scart input due to Sky operating that way. There was a 28" crt LG on sale in the flat block for 180 pounds, but it was crt, so.. huge backside, and the current furniture wasn't going to support it.. to heavy. That also said, I was looking for something that would be a bit thinner. So after looking at sizes, and looking at the budget, and looking at a lot of other things... I got this....


Yip. Full model : Samsung LE26R74BDX, with built in Freeview digital tuner ( not that it was at all the defining reason for my selection ) Has all the new bells and whistles, and a great 8ms response time on the LCD panel, great for.. wait for it.. DVI output gaming from the notebook.. :) Yup, it should be illegal, and yes I have already done it with TOCA 3, looks great.

One thing that someone at work highlighted to me (and I have seen since the Sky installation). Everyone here is hyping HDTV tele's (as this one is as well), but what they forget to mention is that the service to customers aren't HD yet, except if you buy the 299 pound SKY HD box.. which..in all honesty.. I was not willing to do. (Not to mention not have the budget for either).

I was at a tad of a dilemma before buying the tele. The price of the notebook I could justify because it is already starting to pay back for itself ( I've done some freelance work already for previous colleague that is currently in Ireland, and got paid for it today as well :). But the tele is a complete splashout, something I am not use to doing for myself. I like spoiling other people, spoiling myself is not something I tend to do often, and when I do I have to admit it's normally with other people in mind.

So ya, I bought that beautiful baby, and had it delivered the next day to the flat ( brilliant service from http://circuitciti.co.uk/circuitciti/if anyone in London is keen on anything tele digital. On the same day I ordered this...... the spec list to be found here, and here, interesting to find that they don't do them anymore though.. oh well.. I had my eye on this one since the begining of the year. And so I ordered this as well. They both arrived the day after order and payment ( was very impressed with laptopsdirect.co.uk as well). [edit : Had a look again at the spec list, and it seems I got treated to a bit of a surprise, I don't have a 256 MB nVidia 7300 Go processor, I got a 512MB one :), nice to get something extra for the same price, and that's still dedicated memory, not shared with the RAM.. shweet..)

So yeah, that said.. spoilt myself rotten, put the Sky installation back by another week ( cause it was possible) and on the day of installation I got these as well :)

Yip, I went out to buy the games, but the gamepad ( Saitek P2900, wireless [radio], I ordered through the inet and got it on a Saturday no less ( after ordering it at 21:00 on Thursday night).

So that said, I have done the following : Hooked up the notebook to the tv, fired up the game, and configured the gamepad to work for Toca, and started to enjoy the toys by playing from across the living room.. can't express how kewl it was.

All things considered, very happy with the buys and the fact that the notebook is already starting to earn me some money on the investment as well. Hopefully soon there will be some more income from it, but all in time all in time.

For now I should get to bed and enjoy a day of learning new things tomorrow, new things I suppose people would say I should have known, but I'm changing my attitude towards that, no more the pessimistic coder which feels he knows a fair amount.. but keen on learning the ways... very keen actually.

Nite all..
Z

Broadband explained...

Hi there all.. it's Sunday afternoon, and the promised post about our internet problem is happening today.

Promise I'll try and keep cool and calm while posting...

Righto. So we moved into the flat on the 21st of May, signed the 3 month contract. The Monday afterwards I didn't do much other than to get my bicycle from previous place to here. For the 1st week it was all about just getting used to living here and settling into a semi kind of routine.

So the checklist was set up, need the following. 1st off, require BT line.. so applied, went through the whole process of ordering and activation, which was done remotely as this is an apartment block and they basically only had to activate the line on the exchange (pre-wired). Line was activated on the 3rd of June and so on the following Monday ( 5th) I went through the online process of ordering broadband service from Tiscali UK. Now this was done because we used them in the previous house and all things considered it was fairly painless to set up and get going on it.

They quoted the normal 10 - 15 working days to receive service, which was fine although I did phone up and they said that normally it only takes 8 working days to complete from ordering to activation, the quote is for if something goes wrong. More than acceptable as everything on my side was in the right I was of the thinking that it would all be sorted out.

This only amplified my surprise when I received an email from Tiscali the next Tuesday (at 16:20) that our application was rejected, because.. the phone line provided was not a BT line.. (after having received an email on the Thursday 8th I think...., that line tests were being conducted to make sure that service would be possible). I was not happy, and this is where the downward spiral starts.

So I have about 40 minutes of time ( cause the order chasing department of Tiscali closes at 17:00) to sort this out. First off I phone up BT, ask them if there is any markers on the database on the line that would have triggered something on the Tiscali system to say that it wasn't a BT line. They assured me there was nothing on their database that indicated any problems or any "markers" as they called it. Additional to that I asked if they could do a line test for me to see what kind of DSL speed would be available to me on the line. They put me through to a very Irish bloke who helped me very professoinally, and assured me that BT could provide me with 5.5 Mb/s dsl service. Sounded very tempting but they don't have an unlimited account policy and thus I phoned up Tiscali again.

So right, I phone them up. Told them that I spoke to BT and that the line is a BT line as there was never any other line at this address/extention and it was newly ordered. They apologised for the inconvenienced and said that they'll be resubmitting the order. Now with hindsight I should have cut my losses right there and went with someone else, but alas.. mistakes are there to be made.

I said that it was not acceptable that I basically had to have a new order from scratch because of a mistake on Tiscali's part. Because of Tiscali having remote (other country) call centers this was not the best call to be putting over my distaste in the progress of matters.

So I called back again about 30 minutes later, got a very keen guy on a much better line who told me that he completely understands and that he will escalate all this to a higher level and basically promised me dsl service by the next Tuesday afternoon.. which.. all things considered nowI should have know was a ruse. But I was a fairly easy bite at that moment, so I was caught.

So on the Friday I phoned up on the Tuesday to check on progress on the order, just to be told that my order has not progressed due to difficulty in their ordering system. This had me up in arms... I was not at all happy, and the only thing keeping my anger at bay was the fact that I was at work and my boss sits just two seats away from me.. I was not at all happy. I spoke to this lady and explained that I know it's not her fault, but that I could not accept this at all. She told me that she was going to put this order through as top priority and that she would escalate it to the highest network level possible.

After about 30 minutes on the phone to this lady and explaining the whole thing I decided it was time to get off, I was enraged with anger and nothing good was going to come out of just going on with the conversation. I kind of had to accept their plight of apology and the extended 5 - 8 working day schedule that was becoming the norm for me calling up.

So on this Tuesday past I call up again ( having previously been promised that service would be activated on the 19th of Jun), this time I had to hear that my order had been "stuck" in the order system due to outtages in their software in the previous 2 weeks.. *sigh*... I basically lost it right there and then, clearly voicing my distaste, as the record of my calling and having problems ( with all the internal service requests ) being in front of the consultant I was talking to. I voiced that I realised this was not his fault, but that he was now receiving my anger because of the company he's working for.

He assured me that he would have felt exactly the same had he be in my place. He assured me that he will escalate the order to top top priority and have this supervisor take personal care of the order, he convinced me, due to him being soft spoken and very considerate.

They gave me a final promise of service for this Wednesday evening, or Thursday morning latest. I have subseqeuntly phoned up a few times since Tuesday to make sure that things are in progress.

And thus it is that on Wednesday I hope to put up the DSL modem and check it all out and get going on our own inet.

This then concludes my rant of service problems in the UK. To be honest I think it was just one particular case and I was the unlucky bugger to receive it.

I was going to post about my new toys today as well, but I'll leave that for somewhere in the week, got other things I have to be doing as well.

Hope all is well with all the readers ( 2 or 3 I bet, if even that much )...

Greets
Z

Broadband throbbing vein in head....

Needless to say I am absolutely raving with anger at this moment ( the only thing stopping me from taking the nearest person's head off with glee is the fact that it's the man that pays my cheque and signs the invoices.)

I'll blog about this in much more detail (fear the pages of wrath that will come forth from it), I just needed to get this off my chest, the fact that I would most likely break a rowing machine were I to be in a gym right now... no one except maybe Grieks will understand at this moment, but hopefully within the next 5 to 8 working business days ( I spit these words, each one) I'll be able to update the blog with the whole story..

Had a great weekend, should be focusing on that really, but when the week starts like this.. it is just so so tough.

Hope you all had a great weekend.
I'm going to get back to work...

L8r
Z

The view...

Well.. we finally got Fanus and Hermien to make a turn at the flat and Fanus was kind enough to take a panorama of the view (being that Saturday was one of the nicest days we've had here in London)...

I have ordered all the extras in this week ( things like inet and sky tv ) but they'll only be active and running in "10 working days", as per qoute from the beautiful people from Tiscali and the likes.

Apparently we are yet again to far from the closest exchange to get a nice big pipe to the net though, so we'll have to settle for 1mb unlimited. Such is life.

Hope all well with everyone else.
l8r