Personal: June 2006 Archives

Salon, everyone's favourite whiny liberal American news and comment outlet, has an interesting scheme. Pay $30 (or something similar) and you get to read all the articles without adverts. Don't pay the cash and you only get to read the intros to the articles – except if you click on a logo and watch an ad, in which case you can read every article on the site for free that day.

I've let my Premium membership, as it's called, lapse. The trouble is there just aren't enough good articles on the site anymore for me to bother paying the money. The ads really aren't that irritating and if all I have to do is click a logo once a week or so, then I'm not that fussed.

Premium does offer other benefits, including access to the Table Talk chat room (like I need to pay to have arguments on the Internet) and various free magazine subscriptions. The trouble is you have to have a US postal address for 90% of those subscriptions. Not much use for me.

Salon did have a survey a while back, in which I pointed out these shortcomings. When my membership was about to expire, I got an email begging me to stay and giving me two free offers – valid only if I had a US postal address. Clearly, they weren't listening.

Anyway, I'll just stick to Slate and Greg Palast for my diversionary political reading for now. When I fancy a laugh, I'll read Spiked. Good job that's free, mind.

Incidentally, what do you think of the Slate redesign? I hate it myself. I can't find anything on the front page anymore. Thank heavens for RSS feeds.

So first there was the singular problem of getting Orange to actually accept I wanted to leave. Then there was the problem of having to pay Orange £20 to use my phone on another network.

I've overcome those two issues. Last week, I got an email with the unlock code for my phone. I typed it in and my Virgin SIM card now works just fine in my phone. Hooray.

The next step was to change all the settings on the phone so that it can use Virgin's 3G/GPRS and MMS access points rather than Orange's. Turns out Virgin has a handy little web page for doing just that: just select your phone model, type in your number and if it's sufficiently modern, the phone gets a text message that will add the correct settings to your list - no fiddling with menus required.

Of course, Virgin's MMS services are a bit pants, it turns out - certainly, messages from Virgin to Orange take two days for the message to arrive and when it does, it's just a text telling you to view the picture online. I'll have to wait to see if what Virgin to Virgin and Virgin to networks other than Orange are like.

But I'm nearly free of Orange. I'm a bit worried by this bill I've just received saying I'm paying for services until the 21st July, when I actually gave them notice on the 14th, but hopefully that'll be the last thing I have to sort out. In about a week, I'll ring up Virgin, give them my PAC code and get my mobile number switched over - if I'm going to be paying Orange anyway, I might as well use up as much of my allowance as possible before the contract expires. Once the five to ten days necessary to migrate the number have elapsed, I'll swap the SIMs, delete the Orange settings and that should be that.

How do I know it's not going to be that simple? Again.

Updates and related entries
July 10, 2006: They just won't let me go. It's just getting ridiculous. Didn't I tell you they wouldn't? Last I left you, I'd got a PAC code to migrate my number from Orange. Today, 26 days from the day I gave...

I've a new beta script that's an add-on for Friendlier Claris It! It'll be available to anyone who's registered once the final version is released, but if you've already registered and would like to give it a try, email me and let me know.

In case you'd like to know what it actually does first, it allows you to modify the attachment links at the top of messages so that if you've moved the attachments, the links will point to the right path again.

Went flat-hunting at the weekend. Took a train all the way down to Orpington, which turns out to be very nice indeed, with good transport links, loads of buses, shops, etc. Sarah had spotted an ad in the Metro for the alto apartments from Fairview: two bedroom flats to buy for £156k - not too bad for London.

Suffice it to say, you get what you pay for. There were two things in the ad that should have warned us in advance. “This exciting restyled development…” and “many of the apartments on the upper levels enjoying panoramic views across open fields…”

What the ad actually meant was “former council tower block, stuck in the middle of an estate with the remnants of burned out cars nearby, given a patchy paint job and tarted up with some nice furniture but not much else”. It was indeed a spacious flat with a lovely view of some trees - in fact, all you could see was road and trees, not sky or fields or anything else – but you know some expenses have been spared when the show home's doors have been propped open with bits of cardboard.

Plus what was it with councils in the 70s? Separate toilets without their own basins? What's going on there? Would this not have been a good opportunity to fix this oversight?

Anyway, Orpington looks good. And more to the point, it looks like there are better, cheaper flats around than the alto apartments, so if you're tempted, spread your net and you should see something more interesting.

Have you seen the Society of Professional Journalists' new code of ethics? Probably a bit scary to most UK journalists, but there's a definitely a lot to think about there. In particular, there are various bits on giving the voiceless voices. Which put me in mind of a cunning idea: why not let people provide input into my articles using this blog?

So I've set up a new category on the blog, Current Commissions, into which I'll be posting details of my current commissions, including deadlines. If there's an article you'd like to comment on, you can either email me or add a comment to the entry. There's also an RSS feed so you'll always know when I get a new commission. Hopefully, it'll be useful.

Had joyriders driving round the estate last night. One ploughed straight into the back of a parked van that a nice little old couple own. He legged it before anyone could even check if he was all right.

You think that that'll be the end of the story but from that point on, the following groups of people turned up:

• The police, to supervise and take down information and witness statements
• The scene of crime officers to get evidence
• A low-loader lorry to take away the crashed car
• A dog unit to chase after the escaping teenager

So it was a couple of hours before the whole thing died down - always good late at night. Thank you joyriders.

I've just noticed this blog's first entry was on the 18th June 2005, which was yesterday. Happy first birthday blog!

I've updated SCHWIF2004's latest beta to fix a bug where a warning would come up telling users they need OS X 10.3, even though they already have OS X 10.3. You can get the beta from the SCHWIF2004 page.

As you may recall, I swapped my ISP to Be recently. They're still providing the same download speed as before - 4.5Mbps, which isn't as good as the 24Mbps they suggested i might get but much better than Zen's 1Mbps. I'm starting to get annoyed by Be's “planned outages”. Since I've taken the service on the 19th May, there have been three planned outages of the services, lasting several hours, during which they've conducted “necessary maintenance”. I don't recall BT every having to do any maintenance on the exchange before, so quite what Be's doing, I don't know. But it's starting to irritate.

It wasn't £35 - it was £20 to get my phone unlocked.

Thanks to the helpful people who pointed out that there are plenty of free ways to unlock the phone that are available on the Internet. Unfortunately, I have a Nokia 6630 (I say unfortunately advisedly) which so far appears to be uncrackable. Nokia won't even tell the network providers how to unlock the phones - they have to write off to Nokia and get a code sent back to them that's specific to the phone being unlocked. So it's £20 or an unusable phone, unfortunately. Still, given that's less than a month's line rental, I'm perfectly happy to pay up to be shot of Orange.

The end is in sight.

Why did I think, even for a second, that escaping Orange's clutches would be easy? They've locked my phone so that only Orange SIM cards will work with it. That means I either need to give them £35 or something to get it unlocked (assuming they agree) or I need to buy a new phone. Curse them all.

Updates and related entries
June 14, 2006: It wasn't £35 - it was £20 to get my phone unlocked. Thanks to the helpful people who pointed out that there are plenty of free ways to unlock the phone that are available on the Internet. Unfortunately, I...

The trouble with freelancing is working out when to have holidays. It's not the same as when you're self-employed. There are so many caveats, most of them of the paranoid rather than the actual kind.

1. There's the whole idea of not doing any work. If you don't work, you don't get paid. So if you take a week off, that's five days at your normal day rate (£650) you won't be earning. Basically, whatever you're paying for your holiday, freelances pay double. Of course, you factor that into your rates, but you see the start of the terrible thought processes?
2. What will happen with your regular clients while you're away? If you're employed, someone at work will cover you, or they'll hire in cover (maybe even a freelance). If you're not around and you're freelance, maybe they will find someone to cover you during your absence - maybe someone they like better and they'll use instead of you in future. So now you have to time your holidays as much as possible around regular commissioning editors, just in case, except print days are just so spread around the month, trying to find a week - or even a few days - that don't conflict with someone's urgent delivery date is almost impossible
3. What about new clients? Who'll be answering the sales queries when you're sunning yourself on the beach? You'll get back only to find they've gone somewhere else because you weren't available.
4. Slippage. I was supposed to be on holiday yesterday, but I got summer lurgy on Monday, couldn't finish a feature and had to spend yesterday writing it instead. Do I take another day off or just accept that as a day off I couldn't take? Soon, you find all your days off have disappeared as you fit in just one last article that they begged you to take.
5. There's the problem of what you'll be doing when you get back. If you don't set up any work for your return, all those holiday days will be days when you've not been pitching. That means the first few days after the holiday will be days without work while you start pitching again. Which means less money again.

I'm supposed to be having a couple of days off right now. I need it after working a fortnight of double shifts at the end of last month (subbing by day, writing by night). Instead, I've spent the morning blogging and pitching. I still have to return a prospective new client's phone call from yesterday. And then there's all those low-priority emails I have to answer.

I'm going to die an early death of a stress disorder, I know it.

Called Orange a minute ago to let them know I wanted to leave. Well, I tried anyway. I called 150 from my mobile. After being asked to press 1 to confirm it was a mobile, not a broadband query, I was told that 1 was an invalid menu option. Tried calling back but I couldn't even get through. So I had to call Orange the mobile phone network from a landline to get through.

Quelle surprise. They hadn't received my cancellation letter. How did I not see that coming? Oh wait. I did.

Still, the man did I ask why I was leaving. It took a long time to explain everything.

I asked for a PAC number to migrate my phone number over to Virgin. “Well, if you do want a PAC number, you'll have to pay for a further 30 days line rental”. And if I don't? “Well, you'll still have to give 30 days notice you want to terminate the contract.” I did. “Well, we didn't receive it.”

So 30 days of Orange either way. Oh well. It'll all soon be over. I've already got my Virgin SIM card so I'll be swapping over today, I think.

Updates and related entries
June 14, 2006: Why did I think, even for a second, that escaping Orange's clutches would be easy? They've locked my phone so that only Orange SIM cards will work with it. That means I either need to give them £35 or...

It's been a week but there's been no word from Orange yet. Quelle surprise. Clearly cancelling the contract is going to be as hard as I expected.

Updates and related entries
June 14, 2006: Called Orange a minute ago to let them know I wanted to leave. Well, I tried anyway. I called 150 from my mobile. After being asked to press 1 to confirm it was a mobile, not a broadband query,...

I bought my laptop about three years ago. It's a PowerBook G4 12“. There have been things wrong with it since day one, including an odd tendency to crash at random intervals, no matter what operating system I'm using, if I happen to have moved it recently – obviously a useful feature in a laptop.

However, it's been getting worse. The ”7“ key keeps falling off; there's some great big black marks on the wrist-rests, either caused by fused toner cartridge or by the G4 superheating its outer coating to the point where it starts to carbonise. The battery life has also dropped off, and until a couple of days had dropped to about an hour and half during normal usage and less than 40 minutes if I'm playing a DivX. I had bought an extra battery at the same time as the laptop, but about a year ago it started to refuse charge.

Miraculously, though, I tried charging it again yesterday and it works just fine. I've now gone from under 40 minutes of battery life to over three hours. The moral of this story, then, is always to buy a spare battery, but to avoid using it until your main battery has gone pear-shaped. And also, never trust Apple to produce a battery that has any kind of longevity in everyday use.

UPDATE: Incidentally, finally having battery power again meant I was able to test the Notebook feature of Word 2004, which allows you to type notes as Word records via your Mac's microphone. It's actually pretty good. The quality was fine, the file didn't get too large and you're able to play back the audio at (almost) the corresponding points to your typing. I'll be using that feature again, I think.

Updates and related entries
July 12, 2006: Like most freelances, I'm extremely stingy when it comes to upgrading gadgets. I don't know why it should be any different for those on staff than those not - maybe it's because we're a bit older than most and...

May has come and gone, spring is here and summer is almost upon us. That must mean it's press trip season. I'm off to Monaco tomorrow, thanks to Dell, who seem very fond of whisking journalists off to foreign climes for a day to announce things they're going to press release the next day. Not that I'm complaining: you just don't get this on consumer IT mags - God bless trade mags!

Anyway, probably no blogging tomorrow, but I'll bring you back pictures of airports, train stations and probably not much Monaco on Wednesday. Assuming my camera doesn't get nicked like it did in Zaragoza.

Since it's nearly a year since that particular event took place, I'm finally able to cancel the contract that I took out with Orange when I got back from that press trip. Despite really wanting to like Orange, they've been nothing but rubbish and I'm paying out about £30 a month on a contract, even though I work from home and barely use the phone. So adios Orange, hello Virgin Mobile, I hope.

I say/write 'I hope' because getting an address to send my request to is particularly hard now they've merged with Wanadoo and redesigned their site. I've already tried speaking to a customer service rep, who apologised for Orange being rubbish at customer service and then told me to contact the company nearer the time. He really wasn't getting it, was he? I'll keep you updated on my progress.

Updates and related entries
June 7, 2006: So I'm at the gate, ready to board the flight back to London from Nice from my press trip. I've been impressed by Nice's clever plan of having two lines for boarding – one for rows 24 and upwards...
June 12, 2006: It's been a week but there's been no word from Orange yet. Quelle surprise. Clearly cancelling the contract is going to be as hard as I expected....
June 13, 2006: Press trips are all very nice. Who doesn't enjoy flying off to far-away destinations, even if you don't get to see much except the inside of a hotel at the other end? There is, however, a problem for any...
June 14, 2006: Called Orange a minute ago to let them know I wanted to leave. Well, I tried anyway. I called 150 from my mobile. After being asked to press 1 to confirm it was a mobile, not a broadband query,...