BT's status checking and fault reporting setup

What with the incredible storms Britain has been hit with over the past week it was inevitable that we'd run into some form of technical hitch with either the broadband and/or power. Until today we'd been really lucky and not hit with anything.

Today, at lunch however was a different matter, I popped out to get some milk to go in my tea, on my return all my messengers and VPN programs had thrown a wobbly and the router's ADSL light was off. I've had this happen once or twice in the past and it's rectified itself within a few minutes so I decided to have an extended lunch and it should all be sorted, if not I'd call BT.

After another 30 mins had passed there was still no sign of connectivity so I called BT. Having called BT before I was ready for the IVR but BT have obviously added a new twist. I was -to my surprise able to quickly navigate the menu options to end up about 6 options later being told to call the broadband technical support on 0845 600 70 30.

Great I thought* and I quickly got through to an advisor (not surprising when it was no doubt costing me £1 per minute). I immediately had a steak of fear driven into me when I quickly realized I was through to an Indian call center. I explained that I just wanted a "line status check" but he didn't really understand what I meant and wanted to know what email client I was using. Being as co-operative as I could I decided to play along and after a few more questions he asked if he could put me on hold for a minute. After 5 minutes of being on hold I hung up.

*But why didn't they put that on the first option with "If you're having broadband issues".

I then managed to get hold of BT's line status report system (thank Julian) which for the record is 0800 169 0199). All sorts of issues were being reported except for mine (sometimes in a completely in-audible voice). At the end a helpful voice says "If your issue is not reported here, please unplug your router/modem, restart and then try again". I would have expected him to then go on and say "If this still does not sort it please call xxx and report a potential fault" but instead it hung up.

So I went back to good ol' 150 to test the options and get through to an advisor and then I head option 4 - "If you'd like to report a fault please press 4" - I did.

- I waited -

- I waited some more -

Just as I was about to hang up I heard a voice say "You typed in 01384 261779" which is indeed the office telephone number but I didn't type it in. There were no instructions so I thought I'd wait some more. After what seemed like an age the voice came back again and asked if I'd like to report a fault and gave me some options including testing the line myself, checking the status of a previous report or talking to an advisor. So feeling that I needed some human help I went for that at which point it hung up on me.

So back I went to try and do the automated check but that didn't get me any further, no wonder BT's not getting any complaints atm -you can't report them!

In a last ditch attempt I decided to try my usual tactic of Button Bashing™ as it usually gets me to an operator on the basis of "it's a stupid caller" but this time it didn't work and resulted once again in me getting cut off.

As it happens in this instance, it was only a matter of time before the problem would rectify itself...

The ultimate post-training milkshake

I started making this a while ago, I think it was purely out of accident that I first made it, I had a few ingredients and thought “what the hell”.

Ingredients

• 1 pint of milk (I like whole milk –blue/silver)
• 2 Bananas
• 1 spoonful of chocolate powder
• A few scoops of vanilla ice-cream (optional -makes it cooler and frothier)

What to do

1. Throw it all in a blender and whiz it up.
2. Pour it into a pint glass.
3. Enjoy :)

As with all my cooking, the ingredients and quantities aren’t set in stone, it just depends on how I’m feeling at the time.

My PC -what's it made of?

A couple of people have been looking into new PCs recently so I thought it may be of use for me to post what I've got (and to use as a point of reference in the future!). This is fairly old now (nearly a year infact) but it's still doing me proud :)

• Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLI SE (101701)
• Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Dual Core 2.0ghz 512Kb/512Kb Cache (094640)
• RAM: Crucial 1GB DDR PC3200 400MHz (65719)
• Graphics Card(s): 2 x Gainward BLISS GeForce 6800GS 512MB PCI-E (105525)
• Primary (system) HDD: Western Digital 74GB "Raptor" 10k RPM SATA/150 8MB Cache (55454)
• Secondary (work) HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE 250GB 7200RPM SATA2/300 16MB Cache (94403)
• Tertiary (music etc) HDD: Seagate Baracuda V 120GB SATA (115417) -added from old system
• Keyboard: Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 (97577)
• Case: Antec P180 EU Aluminium Super Miditower (91721)
• PSU: Antec NEO HE500GB 500W Modular PSU With 80mm Low Speed/noise Fan 18db (99137)
• VGA Cooling:  2 x Zalman (VF900-CU) Active VGA Cooler (110237)
• Sound card: Creative Audigy 2 (Taken from the previous machine)
• Speakers: Altec Lansing ADA-995 -absolute beasts, I can't turn them above 10% while in the office, the sound from them is superb if you can afford them (Taken from the previous machine)

As for how it goes? Well, awesome is an understatement, it's a real step-up from my old machine (a Dell Dimension 8300 as featured in Computer Buyer August 2003) and I would say I'm an above average user. I've not tried measuring the noise levels produced from it but more often than not I have to check the lights on the keyboard to make sure it's on in the morning.

If I were re-building the system again, I would however swap the motherboard for the deluxe version as my chipset cooler fan has been a little noisy in the past (however ASUS replaced that free of charge for me). I'm planning on replacing it with a passive cooler though as this one sometimes rattles.

The upgrade to the Zalman VGA coolers are an absolute must, I've routed the speed controllers out through the front of the machine which allows me to control their speed easily without altering the case at all. The difference in noise level is phenomenal and I rarly run them above the minimum setting. My VGA cards from memory (I've taken off the temp monitor) were running around 30C while playing Need For Speed Most Wanted on max graphics settings.

Allmightys launched

Before Christmas we pitched to develop a web site for a friends new idea, we didn't get the project sadly. However last night I got a mailer stating that it was launched so in an effort to help the site get into the rankings a little more and to show no hard feelings (GRRR) I thought I'd post a link here :)

Good luck Filip and Kon! I hope it works out for you.

The mailer he sent out is too wide to fit on here sadly but here's the spiel (typos and all :P)!

50% off at Yo! Sushi

I love sushi so a while ago I signed up for the Yo! Sushi mailing list and now I get all sorts of little discounts coming through, I thought I'd share their latest offering with everyone else. To get 50% off at Yo! Sushi, go to their website and fill out the form:

http://www.yosushi.com/sale.php

I know the sushi purists out there will start going on about how it's not "real" sushi, but it's good enough for me -and tastes that little be sweeter half price ;)

Now go, entertain and impress your clients at Yo! Sushi with your discount -I won't tell!

Those darn icons (again)

After a few months of intensive swapping, I've finally completed something -my collection of free deliveries from Icon Buffet. If you need any let me know, I may have some deliveries to spare. Now I just need to find somewhere to use them!

Here are the 57 icon sets I've got:

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Macclesfield 90 mile canoe race

I'm currently thinking about participating in a 90 mile canoe race called the "Cheshire Ring Race" this year (30th June - 1st July 2007). I've always wanted to participate in a longer canoe race (normally I paddle 8 miles) and I've never had the chance to do anything over 20 miles since they stopped the Trans-Pennine Canoe Race the year I was old enough to take part. So when the opportunity to take part in the 90 mile Cheshire Ring Race came about I decided on the spot that's what I would do.

Eventually I would like to take part in the Devizes to Westminster race which assuming this year's training goes to plan, I plan to do in 2008. The Devizes to Westminster canoe race is about 125 miles of canal and river way starting at Devizes (no surprise there then!) and ending at Westminster. The race is usually at the start of April and can either be done non-stop or in stages over 3 days (for girls!).

The first time I do the Devizes to Westminster race I would do the race in a double (with my canoe partner and brother Sam I expect) so I thought the Cheshire Ring Race would be a nice warm up/test event for us (making sure we can keep up the training with work etc). I mentioned the fact I was thinking about it to Paul Rose (my canoe coach and close friend) wondering if he'd be interested in paddling with me in the Cheshire Ring Race and he was also up for taking part.

I then had two possible partners for the race -I was sure Sam would be up for it, so Paul suggested that we take part as a relay team -Paul damaged his back a few years ago while paddling in a Bristol canoe race with me so wasn't sure if he'd manage the full 90 miles. This sounded a very sensible idea. All that was left was to find another person for our relay team which where my other brother Pat steps in to make our team of 4 :)

Every year Paul Rose likes to do an event for charity and as getting sponsored for the race had already been suggested by Sam it was deemed to have enough of a wow factor to be "the event" to sponsor this year. We've agreed to raise money for two (maybe three) charities (which are yet to be confirmed) but are likely to be from:

• CLIC Sargent [www.clicsargent.org.uk]
• UK Multiple Sclerosis Society [www.mssociety.org.uk]
• The Brain Tumor Society [www.tbts.org]
• Macmillan Cancer Nurses [www.macmillan.org.uk]

Each has it's own reasoning and once we've decided which charities we're going to raise for I'll post a little background :) but for now I should get back down the gym!

For anyone else interested in joining in (you're welcome to be on our support crew if you'd rather not paddle -would be great to have you there!) here is the brochure:

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The importance of routine

As part of a forthcoming series of articles I covered the importance of adhering to a routine. This was something that I've always done and always felt is important but quite how important I didn't realize until this month.

This month Stacey is having a few weeks off work while she's waiting for all the CRB checks to come through before starting her new role as Senior Management Accountant at the Birmingham City Council which she really deserves after a few really hard years studying to become a Fully Qualified Chartered Management Accountant with CIMA. Anyhow I digress.

As I've got a fair amount of work on at present, I knew I wasn't going to be able to spend time with her for all the time she had off but I decided having a few late mornings wouldn't hurt. How wrong could I be? The most disruptive thing this month so far has not been Stacey wanting to do things (which I thought it would be) it has been the semi-lack of routine.

For the past 3 years I've got up with Stacey around 6:30am and got into the office after seeing her off (usually around 8am but in recent months due to lack of motivation for her job this dropped to 9am) and then I would work until her return at around 7:30pm. This gave me a good 11 hours office time a day.

What I've found however is with the lie-ins etc over the last week is how your mind gets into a routine. When you disrupt the routine i.e. by getting up at 9am, your brain suddenly finds it harder to get into gear with what you're working on.

This disruption basically means, where it used to take me 10-15 minutes in the morning to gather myself for the day ahead (turn on computer, check emails, think about where I got to the night before etc) it's taking me closer to 30 minutes. I'm also finding I'm getting distracted a lot easier! This week, we've started getting up at 8am, then starting work around 9am and already I've been at least 50x more efficient (though still going to bed around 2am means I'm getting increasingly knackered!).

I'll stress again now, if you're planning on working for yourself in the future: have a routine and stick to it!

Customer service reaches new hieghts...

My mobile contract expired just before Christmas and because of the issues I was having with Orange earlier this year (Seeing Orange) I decided I’d take my business elsewhere.

Every year we go through the same charade trying to find a new contract, something that has what we want at a reasonable price and every year the sales people completely ignore what you ask them. This year however SERIOUS took the biscuit and we couldn’t help but walk out laughing.

In our local shopping centre The Merry Hill Shopping Centre (aka Merry Hell) we have all the usual names within walking distance (in fact IIRC Phones4U and Carphone Warehouse are next to each other) so we spent an hour or so wandering around them all, having being seduced by the adverts for Phones4U I thought we’d give them a go.

First of all we were accosted by a guy on the door who, once we’d got past all the pleasantries asked what we were after. Having gone through this routine a couple of times already today I reeled off: “We’d like two separate contracts, one 2-300 minutes £20-25pm and the other 5-600 minutes £30-35pm. We’re not too worried about the amount of texts we get as neither of us text much so show us your best (cheapest) deal”.

The guy then asked me what phone I currently had, quite how that was relevant I couldn’t figure out. He then asked to see my current phone so I gave it to him mainly out of curiosity as to why he wanted to see it. He had a look at it and then told us he would take us someone that’d sort us out.

He then walked us over to some kid sitting behind a desk and told him that we were looking “for a contract* that has lots of minutes and texts** and could this guy help us?” I couldn’t help but laugh as they both had cheap matching pin stripes on.

*We were looking for two
**We didn’t want any texts

The representative then started taking details like our names, phone numbers, postcode, names (again) and then he started wanting things like home phone number by which time we were growing impatient, trying to work out the relevance. So Stacey subtly asked what relevance it had to finding us the cheapest deal. He went a little quiet and then proceeded.

Looking a little lost I thought it would help to repeat “We’d like two separate contracts, one 2-300 minutes £20-25pm and the other 5-600 minutes £30-35pm. We’re not too worried about the amount of texts we get as neither of us text much so show us your best (cheapest) deal and we’ll sign”. Sadly though it didn’t help, he just mumbled something about cutting to the chase and then told us he would get his manager to help us find the best deal.

So over comes his manager to help us, but instead of acknowledging we were there she decided to talk to the sales guy (loud enough so we could hear), he pointed out the notes he’d made on the form emphasising that we’d not given him many personal details or told him about our current contracts though why that’s relevant seeing as I told him what we needed.

The manager then spent a couple of times ticking and crossing the form and told him that we didn’t have one of the phones. Rather than telling us they then started muttering to each other again before she nodded to him and told him to suggest it. Rather than telling this herself somewhat like a parrot he repeated exactly what she’d just said, then they decided to confer a little more and again he repeated that they weren’t sure they could help us as we know what we wanted. Throughout the 5mins the manager was there, she never once made eye contact or spoke to us directly without using her puppeteer of a sales person. She then mentioned something about going away and she’d be back (hardly audible) and left us wondering what was going on.

I think the best of it all was when the sales guy felt it would be a good idea to make some small talk while waiting for his manager to return so he asked whether we were at Merry Hill shopping. Instead of then listening to Stacey’s response his eyes wandered around the shop –clearly not paying any attention to us so I said a couple of times “Stacey, he’s not listening to you” –the fact that he didn’t notice while we were talking to him demonstrated that. It was the most bizarre situation I’ve ever been in, to top it all, he waved to a friend and then a few moments later actually got up and walked away WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING!! I still can’t believe how un-believably rude that was and I’m just glad that we got up and walked out.

Funnily enough, I have to agree with what Stacey has repeatedly said since about Phones4U –the weird people from the adverts are really the sales people…

I’m still wondering why sales people don’t take on board what you’re telling them instead of trying to sell you something that’s clearly unsuitable for your needs or just irritating you so much that you just walk out. If one of the three sales people we spoke to at Phones4U had actually listened to what we were saying or even interacted with us normally they may have got their £70 commission.

Anyways, I ended up getting the phone I wanted at the price I wanted but obviously not from Phones4U! Perhaps this is a more realistic logo?

Web.Config, Visual Studio and Intellisense Issues

I’m not sure how many people this applies to but a while ago I found I was loosing VS2005 IntelliSense when I was working in my web.config. More specifically I lost IntelliSense after editing any of the site’s settings using the Web Site Administration Tool in ASP.Net 2.0.

I quickly realised that the issue was being caused because the Web Site Administration Tool updates the root element (<configuration>) of your Web.Config file to include an attribute of “xmlns”. If you’re loosing IntelliSense, just delete the attribute and you’ll have it back in a tick :)

Should be:

p.s. Yes Doug, I can already hear you crying out “Not for me –I don’t use VS” *yawn*

DasBlog Login issues

While updating the layout of the DasBlog I needed to alter some of the source code to output lists rather than tables etc and after uploading the latest version of the blog the login form suddenly failed to work. When logging into DasBlog it would accept the parameters and either kick me out to the error page or redirect me to the logged in page.

DasBlog includes some fairly indepth error logging (not using Phil Winstanley’s Error Reporting code mind you), one of the events it logs is logging in. I noticed that I would get one of two errors when logging in, when I was shown the error page it would say: “Password Challenge was null in ViewState! <br>   at newtelligence.DasBlog.Web.LoginBox.doSignIn_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)” etc and when it took me to the front page it would log: “Audit: SecuritySuccess” and the standard who logged in from which IP etc.

As I’d edited the DasBlog source my immediate thought was that I’d changed something in the login process so I copied the original DLLs back onto the site and tried again without any success. After a fair amount of searching into the issue on Google and the DasBlog forums I was at a loss as to the issue so I asked on the DasBlog forum (http://www.dasblog.us/viewtopic.php?t=417).

A couple of people responded including Tom but sadly none of the suggestions applied to my situation. In the end I found that the issue was being caused because I was running the site under ASP.Net 2.0. When running DasBlog under ASP.Net 2.0 you need to make additional changes to the web.config file as outlined in the install documentation. When setting up the staging site I copied the directory from my main blog so I had the same content to test with, although I remembered to alter all the relevant areas in the site.config etc files, I had neglected to alter the cookie path setting in the web.config. So if you’re getting the same issues, check the web.config cookie path values.