Category: Personal

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When to upgrade a laptop

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 the gadget phase is starting to pass us by.

All I know for sure is that it was three and a half years before my iMac was out of its prime and that I’ve now had my PowerBook for three years (almost as long as I’ve been a freelance) and I still haven’t upgraded it.

As you may know from my earlier entry on the subject, my PowerBook has been getting a bit temperamental of late. Well, yet another thing’s gone wrong with it. It still works, but it’s gone wrong.

Here’s a list of all the flaws I’ve come across so far. At what point would you have returned or replaced it?

  • Tendency to freeze for no adequately explored reason (I ignored it)
  • Little rubber feet falling off (I let them)
  • Great big black marks appearing on the surface (nothing I could do)
  • Heat scoring appearing on the surface (nothing I could do)
  • Hard drive packing up (replaced it)
  • New hard drive packing up (replaced it again)
  • ‘7’ key falling off (keep putting it back on)
  • AC power supply stopped working (replaced it)
  • Battery life reduced to 40 minutes (replaced it)
  • Screen starting to split away from the back (looking for the super-glue, right now)

If I hadn’t read such scary things about the new MacBooks, I think I would have bought a replacement by now. Plus the 12″ PowerBook has such a great keyboard, even if the 7 keeps falling off. Plus probably all my accessories would stop working as well if I upgraded.

I’m still thinking about it though. Maybe next year…

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Pick a language, any language

So Sarah and I are thinking of signing up for language classes at City University in the Autumn. There’s a choice, but the trouble is matching it to our levels of ability.

Now I did two language GCSEs – French (eight years’ study) and German (three years’ study) – getting on for 20 years ago. I’ve had to use German in my work, French to a lesser extent. I’ve also learnt some Greek, Spanish, Italian and Japanese, but only at a very functional level

Sarah, however, has A-levels in Russian, French, German and Spanish. Her Spanish is much better than mine; her French is better than mine; her German is about the same as mine, maybe not quite as good.

Here are our choices for languages to learn:

  • French (all levels),
  • Spanish (all levels),
  • Arabic (level one only),
  • German (level two and three),
  • Italian (level one, two and three) and
  • Japanese.

Level two means “rusty GCSE” or better. Level three means “rusty A-level” or better.

So which should we pick?

  • German’s on a bad day for both us, but would probably be the most useful for me, since I’m frequently dealing with German companies and we’d both enjoy getting ourselves properly fluent again
  • French is interesting but we’d essentially be attending different classes for that, which defeats the point of learning a language together.
  • Ditto Spanish (no hablo Espa?ɬ�ol mui bien).
  • Japanese would be utterly useless for us both but would be interesting
  • Arabic would be interesting, but we’d have to stop after a year
  • Italian would be fun and potentially useful since we might actually go on holiday to Italy again. But I’ve already done a few lessons, so I’d be at a very slight advantage.

It’s looking like Italian at that moment, with German the main contender. Anyone recommend a different choice?

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The flight from Orange still proving difficult

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 Orange notice, I rung up Virgin to migrate the number.

I got a very earnest person trying his hardest to do the customer service thing. This appears to consist of saying ‘Excellent!’ a lot and going into infinite detail about every step that’s involved, even when I’d already reassured him I’d done something. I don’t have problems with that, really: they have scripts to go through. So I let it coast over me.

First obstacle, before I can migrate my number, I have to pay by direct debit. Before I can pay by direct debit, I have to have set up my voicemail. I’ve already set up my voicemail, but clearly not on the new number once it’s migrated to Virgin. But that’s all right because it’s Virgin and we’re chummy at Virgin. So I set up the direct debit.

Next step, they need my PAC number. I gave it to him. When did I get it? 14th June. Oh, you won’t be able to use it then. You’re best off going back to Orange and getting a new PAC code. Why? The letter says I’m okay to use it within 30 days. Ah, but migration takes seven days. By the time the PAC number needs to be used, it will have expired. Could they not have put that in the letter? No one’s ever thought of that. Could you try the PAC code anyway? It won’t work. We could try but I don’t want you to be disappointed. I want the migration to go as smoothly as possible.

It’s a little late for that.

Advice point 1: Use your PAC code within 20 days of getting since the letter is a lie

So I ring up Orange to get a new code (remembering my contract probably expires on Friday).

Well, I try. “…please call our Mobile Number Portability team on 0800 376 2885”. I do. The number’s unobtainable. So I ring the main Orange number, type in my mobile number, descend through the seven layers of the “Press 1 to be connected to Satan” voicemail system, get asked for my mobile number again before finally being allowed to ask for a new code.

Okay, we’ll send that out to you and it should arrive within three to four working days. Can you not give it to me now? No, it has to be done by letter.

Okay. How come you don’t put on your letter that it needs to be used within 23 days, incidentally? Well you need a new PAC code because you let the old one expire. I didn’t. I used it within 30 days. It’s the networks that need an extra seven days. You let the PAC code expire, so you need a new one. No…

Eventually, she understands what I’m getting at.

Could you perhaps put 20 days or even 23 days on the letter?

It’s not up to me. It’s Orange who decide.

Well, could you suggest it?

I’ve had lots of customer suggestions and this is the first time I’ve had this request so they probably won’t listen to me.

Could you suggest it anyway?

No.

Ah. Orange customer service. And they wonder why I’m leaving.

I’ll keep you posted.

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Strategy for dealing with call centres revised

A while ago I developed a strategy for dealing with calls from call centres. I’ve a new one now and it seems to be working. It’s also kind of fun.

Basically, if you ask BT nicely, you can get a second number for your line. It’s an extra feature (‘Call Sign‘) that you can get by itself for £1.75 a month or as a bundle with three or four other features like Caller ID. So that’s £21 a year for this, basically.

The great thing about your second number is that if anyone dials it, your phone makes a completely different ringing noise.

So what you do is you give out your main number to everyone you don’t like or don’t care about and your second number to everyone you do like and care about. Then, whenever anyone calls the main number, you just let it go through to your answer machine; if they call your second number, you answer it.

It’s great. You never have to answer a “courtesy call from MBNA” again.

More amusingly, as I mentioned in my last entry on the subject, overseas call centres take quite a while to connect once you’ve picked up the phone. I’ve just re-recorded my answer phone message. It’s not short – about six or seven seconds – but it’s shorter than the delay at their end.

So now, every time a call centre rings, my answer phone gets filled up with a stranger person from India going “HELLO?” at the top of their voice, because they didn’t hear my answer phone message.

Very funny.

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I’ve let my Salon Premium membership lapse

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.

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Moving to Virgin

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.

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Friendlier Claris It! add on

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.

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Fairview? Really?

Block at NightWent 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.

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Putting the blog to good use

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.