26.point.1

My Email to Sky

// February 25th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // FURY!, Random Stuff

Sky have really annoyed me. So much so that I’ve complained.

—

I have been a Sky subscriber for a couple of years now, and in May last year I upgraded to Sky HD. At the time I was charged what I considered to be an extortionate amount of money for an engineer to essentially come out and plug a new box into my existing cabling.

Since that happened I have only been able to record things intermittently, the Sky planner has only worked for a few hours after the box has been rebooted, and Sky Anytime has been unavailable since pretty much day one. All of these things I put down to only having one input signal - something that I was never told about when I ordered Sky+ HD that I would need. But being in a flat I couldn’t put a second line in and I just lived with the fact that I was getting a degraded service because of this.

Then about 3 weeks ago I returned home to find the message “Your sky card is not made for this box” - with an error code 7. This occurred on the Monday, and like everything else with the Sky service I receive I just presumed if I left it it would come back on. On the Thursday it hadn’t come back on and I gave your customer services people a call.

They had me read my viewing card numbers, software numbers, and other assorted details from the systems page of my Sky box and “sent a signal” which was supposed to pair up my card and box. But this could take 24 hours. I waited.

And then 24 hours later when it was still not working I called up again. And I read out all the numbers again, and was told that a signal was being sent. And it would take up to 24 hours. I waited.

And then 24 hours later when it was still not working I called up again. And I read out all the numbers again, and was told that a signal was being sent. And it would take upto 24 hours. I waited.

The next time I called I was informed that my case needed to be referred to a higher department, and that they would contact me ASAP and definitely get the service working. I waited some more, and then 4 days later I gave customer services another call.

And read out the same numbers again. And the man on the end of the phone talked me through pressing a number of buttons on my set top box, he was polite, knew what he was talking about, and after a 5 minute call my Sky was up and running and working.

However, in the process of making me press these buttons I also noticed that my Sky box was not set to single LNB mode (which I was informed to set it to by the helpful customer services guy) and this has since corrected the issues I had with the planner, with recording, with Anytime.

So my complaint now that everything is working? It turns out that I paid extortionate money for “installation” of my new Sky+ HD box that was never installed correctly AND it seems that most of the staff in your “something is broken” department only know how to take the details of a persons Sky box and press the “send signal” button on their terminal, and if this doesn’t work then they just keep doing the same thing over and over again.

I appreciate that time and time again I was told that money would be removed from my bill for the time I didn’t get Sky, that’s hardly the point though, I pay for a service which could have been restored when I first called up if you had well trained engineers there to answer calls.

As a very minimum I would like my installation fee refunding as it’s clear now that the service was never fully installed, and I have been paying for a service that I have been unable to take advantage of because of this.

At every level of my Sky experience from sales (where I was mis-sold), through to installation (which wasn’t completed), and now customer services in the service (where I was given the run around for over a week) I have to say that I would score you 1/10.

I look forward to your response and hope that in itself it is better than the previous touch points I’ve had with you.

Guns

// February 1st, 2010 // No Comments » // Random Stuff

Last night while sat drunkenly eating my Chicken sandwich in kaddas, the turkish sarnie shop, a randomer commented on how I could beat him up cos I had big “guns”… How I laughed.

Review and Resolutions

// January 4th, 2010 // No Comments » // Diet and Exercise, Money, Quiz, Random Stuff, Reviews, snZero

8/10 & 1920 x 1200 for the laptop, about the same for the Mac on the TV.

2009 has been and gone now, and I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand I’ve made a load of new friends through taking over the quiz at The Adelphi, Pin and doing one at the Nation of Shopkeepers here in Leeds. I’ve made a fair few new friends through my endeavour to unite the digital folks of Leeds with snZero, which is still getting more than 50 people a month turning up. I even made random friends in the shape of The Salts girls through a drunken night out early in the year. Truth be told that my facebook friend count has gone up quicker and to a greater degree than ever before. And for this I am happy.

That said, work has been a up and down slalom of emotions, busy for 12 months, new clients, demanding decisions, new people, old people, gone people. And for the first time in my life I think I really know what stress is. Even when I used to work 18 hours a day it wasn’t as stressful as the last year has been. If I had hair I think that it would have deserted me by now. But of course it deserted me ages ago.

On the plus side, I went and lost almost 4 stone in the middle of the year. Granted I then went and put a stone of it back on. But hell, only a couple of stone too heavy … and not “obese” any more. So that made me a happy bunny. Not happy enough, but happy enough to fit into a 34″ pair of jeans - and my black Boss suit from years gone by. So yeah, happy.

And on the minus side, I’m still single. And still have no hair. Though I do have  an ace flat. Rough with the smooth eh…

Back at the start of 2009 I made the following guesses for what the year would bring…

• Sort out my tooth-ache.. Yeah, I did this. Not had a toothache since March.
• Cut out 90% of my Coke intake.. Yup, did this too really. Not had more than a can a week really.
• Lose 1/4 of my body weight.. Probably managed 1/5 … ish.
• Become financially viable.. I have a credit score of 900/1000 - which must be good? Still owe almost 20k…
• Blog… Yeah, not really.

So as you can see I managed most of them to a degree of success. 2010 is all about…

• Lose 1/5 of my body weight.. I want to get down to 12 stone… ish.
• Become financially viable.. I want to be down to 10k debt by year end…
• Blog… NO, not really… Though I do want to take a photo a week…

And those are my real resolutions.

last night on earth…

// November 5th, 2009 // No Comments » // Random Stuff

My god, for the last day on earth as a 32 year old today has been a mixed bag. I’m apparently “impressive” - it doesn’t surprise me at all, would be nice to be impressive more - wish people would let me get a word in edgeways.

And I’m in London and missing the fireworks. I wanted to be “someone’s definite source of entertainment” in Leeds.

But I have a cool new laptop bag I guess. Taking the rough with the smooth.

Well, here’s to 33!

Disgraceful facebook ad… 1

// November 5th, 2009 // No Comments » // Random Stuff

I’m all for exploitation, but this seems a little strong… “Single mum? Need cash? GAMBLE”

Hull Digital Live

// October 16th, 2009 // No Comments » // Random Stuff

So this past week I went to Hull and East Yorkshire’s first digital and technology conference, Hull Digital Live. The line up was one that looked great on paper, with people from Sapient, The Guardian, TechCrunch, The BBC and GSK amongst others speaking on a variety of subjects - all in all Jon Moss did an absolutely fantastic job of getting them all together in one room, in Hull. No idea how much money he had to bribe some of them.

I sat dutifully through it until the end, hoping to suck up what I hoped would be knowledge which I could pass off as my own in the future - and for the most part failed. It wasn’t through lack of trying, there were very few of the speakers who I dismissed almost out of hand - and I was very interested in what everyone had to say, it’s just that what was said was either a) IMO wrong, b) plain bloody obvious, c) not applicable to me.

For the a’s and b’s were for my liking Rob “the bird” … who young as he seemed is one of the 30 most influential designers in the UK apparently. What he had to say fell into the a and b categories and he was one of the weaker choices of the day for speaker - one of his points being have a good design and don’t worry about how people find  you - they’ll come through word of mouth. Yes that may be true when your “product” is design - and the people that are speaking about you are in design forums. It doesn’t translate well to “my products are mobile phones” where the final product is a million miles removed from what the design of the website is. But not to say too many a bad thing, his visuals and slideshow were truly great and powerpoint they were not.

For the b’s alone, well that has to go to the chap from the BBC who delivered the keynote for the event - which is to say that he walked us through the last 20 years of digital in the UK - complete with rehashings of BBC reports about how digital britain is not. All old news really. And delivered with the passion of a bean-sprout.

Finally, the not really applicable - that would be Jaan from Sweden who was frankly an awesome presenter and his talk had merit - if you were a freelancer or running your own small agency that could accommodate Noding. I work in an agency of 45 people, it’s not feasible.

There were of course absolutely great presentations too - Kai Gai from GSK was not only a brilliant speaker, but what he said made sense and I felt enlightened at the end of the talk about what people in pharma have to deal with when it comes to marketing. Mike from TechCrunch delivered a talk about startups which bordered on inspirational - and delivered it in a way that no one else on the day would dare try to mimic. Charles from The Guardian again delivered words of wisdom on getting yourself noticed by the press. These were all great talks!

The biggest let down of the day? Not the lunch no, it was the chap from Sapient who wowed us with his client list and then told us his 5 trends for the future - and I swear he pulled them all from Wired or .NET magazine - it’s fuckin’ sapient, wow me. And not using Augmented Reality demo’s please.

I actually had a very good day for the most part with the good talks more than making up for the bad ones, I just worry that when the event was being planned there was an inclination to go low-brow with some of the talkers rather than aim for the stars - also there was in my opinion way too much emphasis on Hull and Yorkshire - yes, it’s the regions first conference, but as the TechCrunch guy said - it’s the internet, no one cares if you’re in Hull. So deal with KC once and then let it go. It was a good day, and I’d give it a solid 7/10 - I don’t get to many of these conferences and it provided a certain amount of inspiration and knowledge, but next year I hope that the speakers get vetted a little more - really, don’t invite Yorkshire Forward back.

Oh, and did I mention Karen from AudioBoo … ?

snZero - the first month…

// October 1st, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Random Stuff

On September 30th we had the first snZero event, and to say that I spent the day dreading the turn out we would get would be a mild understatement - with events where you give out free tickets you’re never quite sure how many people on the night are just going to decide to go home and wash their dog’s hair instead of actually turning up.

Turns out I had nothing to worry about - having arrived to the venue way later than I’d planned to, having not mentioned to the venue that I’d want people on the bar - and having only 20 minutes to set everything up before the first people arrived (I hoped) I was amazingly surprised when we had about a hundred people turn up…

Only a hundred you say? ;) No really though, the turn out was amazing and I personally got to meet about 20 people who I’d never spoken to before about a whole host of subjects - but mostly for them to say well done and for me to admit that I really hadn’t done much. Needless to say that the free bar that was provided by Hotfoot Recruitment went a huge way towards lubricating lips and ensuring that most people seemed to have a great time!

Now, don’t get me wrong I realised about 30 minutes into the event (somewhat later than I probably should have) that the true test of if snZero will succeed or fail is actually going to be in month 2 (that’s on the 28th of October) - will people come back? Will the word spread? Can we provide something beyond simple meeting random people in your industry that will keep people wanting to leave their loved ones and pets at home while they socialise? Who knows… Though I have had lots of good suggestions on how we can push the boundaries of the event without ruining the one thing that I am determined to be at it’s heart - a place where you can go and talk to who you want about what you want, drinking what you want, and without being preached too… There will never be a “talk” at snZero. Apart of course from my truly awful “welcome” speech that happened at the first months event - someone please remind me that ad-llibbing those things without any prep except 4 bottles of cider is probably a bad idea.

Anyway, hope to see the same number of people next month - if not more, so if you work in the Leeds Digital Industry, then pop along to http://www.snzero.com and book your free ticket… See you there!

40 x (8) days of random girls…

// September 3rd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Random Stuff, Reviews

Been looking forwards to (500) Days of Summer for a while now, and it didn’t disapoint - Isn’t Zooey Deschannel almost perfect? Awesome movie - funny, sad, happy, funny, good soundtrack… Zooey Deschannel.

It did however occur to me that my life mimmicks the first 8 days of the lead male characters life quite a lot… time and time and time again. And then some more.

I should man up.

snZero.BOOM!

// September 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Random Stuff, snZero

Somewhat of an anticlimax, but I’ve managed to throw together a very sleek (read: nothing on there) website for the socialnetworking-ZERO event. If you don’t have your ticket already then you can initiate the process of getting one over at http://www.snzero.com right now! Though there are only 8 left at this point…

Should have known better. Making the same mistake again?

// August 23rd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Random Stuff

A little while ago I bought a brand new sony laptop. It was small and lovely and had a massive resolution, and a really slow processor and I thought “well, I only ever check my email at home - that and organise my iPod, upload my Nike+ runs and download things that are of interest to me - so a slow processor shouldn’t be too much of an issue”. And when I got it, it was brilliant, more than capable of everything I wanted it to do - and then after about 3 days I realised I was lying to myself and that while this sony netbook/laptop was indeed very gorgeous it was also totally not going to work as my home PC.

Not only did it randomly lock up when copying files between two locations, it also ground to a halt trying to show flash movies on the BBC website - oh, and that Nike+ that I wanted to run? Well, it did - but only if you left the machine synching for 30 minutes. So all in all, a purchase that I wasn’t that happy with.

And well, I’ve maybe gone and done it again - or maybe not. Time will tell, but I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone, and back in time about 10 years - and have bought y second ever Mac PC  (which is now connected to my 40″ Samsung LED TV, and being used to write this).

First impressions? Mostly good - though the “not to mighty mouse” is really laggy - something to do with accelaration I believe. Everything else? Seems to be good 3 hours in, though we’ll know for sure in coming weeks as my desire for more and more Windows applications grows and I grow more nad more angry that I’ve had to delete all the music off my iPhone to resync it with my new PC.

It is lovely, and small, and quiet, and plugs into my telly, and … well, let’s hope this feeling lasts more than 3 days. It does work with Nike+ afterall, so I maybe good.