Jul 14 2008

‘your a high priority customer’

Category: employment, geek — jkt @ 07:11

Yesterday I received an email from Carphone Warehouse:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for placing your order with the Carphone Warehouse.

We regret to inform you, that due to high demand of the order placed, we have no stock at present.

However stock is expected to come in next week. In order to guarantee you stock as your are a high priority customer, we have taken payment on your order and secured you a unit for the next batch we receipt.

Congratulation your one of the first to pre-order the next delivery of this new generation 3G iPhone.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused, and Thank you for choosing The Carphone Warehouse.

Kind Regards
www.carphonewarehouse.com On line team

Let’s go through the errors on this email:

  • ‘due to high demand of the order placed’ – this would make most grammar parsers want to quit their jobs!
  • ‘In order to guarantee you stock’ – who wrote this? A retard?
  • ‘as your are a high priority customer’ – They could have gone with ‘as you are’ or ‘as you’re’, but dude, c’mon, this is middle school English stuff! Postulation above confirmed.
  • ‘for the next batch we receipt.’ – Do they mean ‘the next batch we take reciept of’ or ‘the next batch we receive’? Answers on a postcard. (Thanks for spotting this one Steve!)
  • ‘Congratulation’ – Singular? Just the one single congratulation? Damn, that’s mean.
  • ‘your one of the first’ – AAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!
  • ‘and Thank you for choosing’ – Capitalised T in this middle of a sentence. Who knew that ‘thank’ was a proper noun?

Given all the bad press they’ve been receiving, along with O2, over their handling of possibly the most important product launch of the 2008, you would think that they would be attempting to do everything right from now on in order to improve customer relations.

I’m not too bothered that they’ve taken the £59 payment for the unit, but I’m offended at the elementary school grammar errors in this mailshot.

F – Could do better.

Jul 14 2008

Another tale of iPhone woe, and then joy.

Category: geek — jkt @ 05:54

Dan wrote part two of this iPhone Hunter story, and includes part of my experience of how incompetent Carphone Warehouse are as a company.

‘Jonathan, incidently, isn’t one to be messed around with…‘

Jul 11 2008

Zachary, hard at work.

Category: children, consultancy, productivity — jkt @ 21:01



Zachary, hard at work.

Originally uploaded by downagain

Zachary came with me to a client’s site while I did some work. He made good friends with the MD (in the backgroud, who’s talking to Zachary on the phone) and managed to eat (quite) a few biscuits!

Jul 11 2008

iPhone, crash, stock availability problems.

Category: geek — jkt @ 10:43

This morning I headed down to the Carphone Warehouse on The Strand at around 0730 (the store was ti open at 0802). There were only 4 people in front of me, however by the time the store opened, there were about 25 of us queuing. Over the road at the O2 store there were around 40 by 0730.

Anyway, the store opened, and people piled in. After 40 minutes, the first customers were still having their credit checks done and the manager then told us that there were no 16gb phones available. Yes, that’s right, on launch day, this Carphone Warehouse store didn’t have a single 16gb iPhone to give to customers.

So I left the queue and came back into the office and ordered one online. They’re out of stock there too, but they’ll post it to me when it becomes available.

Oh hum.

Jul 09 2008

Unfortunate headline of the week

Category: humour — jkt @ 06:13

Call for specialist rape squads

update: They’ve reworded the headline now.

Jul 07 2008

Headphone suggestions?

Category: shopping — jkt @ 13:19

The signs are that I should get some new head phones for my mp3 player. First, I’m using Emma’s spare set as I melted my last pair*. Second, I lost the left headphone nipple and the only one I could find at home was is a little too small and falls out of my ear.

Unless they’re covered in sweat proof (see footnote) rubber, I don’t want them to be too expensive (ie, sub £30?), and ideally in-ear ones.

Are there any you recommend?

* the rubber was literally desolved by the sweat on the back of my neck. Sexy huh?

Jul 06 2008

Zachary, in need of assistance.

Category: children — jkt @ 12:49

Another day in the nut house.

Jul 06 2008

This is the start of a new stage in your life, all change please, all change.

Category: household — jkt @ 12:45

Along with reviewing my beliefs, personality traits and not forgetting trying to reduce my cravings for sugary snacks, I’ve been looking at things I’d like to change with the house. Some of these items have been planned for a long time (kitchen, bathroom etc), but the rest are new.

Switch around

  • Switch the living room around so the TV can be mounted centrally on the wall at the other end.
  • Wall mount the 37″ LCD in the bedroom.

New items

  • Extension (kitchen and bathroom refit, new bedroom, new en-suite bathroom).
  • A/V unit to fit in the corner of the room.
  • Dolby 5.1 speaker system.

Upgrades

  • Get a 50-60″ 1080p LCD/plasma for the living room.
  • Smaller sofa and matching chair to replace the huge one currently there which blocks the door.
  • Refit kitchen.
  • Refit bathroom.
  • Replace boiler and central heating system.
  • Decorate throughout.
  • Dining table.

The most expensive items (extension, central heating, kitchen/bathroom refit) can all be done as one job which is quite appealing. Once that’s completed, the decoration could be done and then it’s just the finishing touches. Things to think about anyway. Whatever happens though, I need to start saving!

Jul 03 2008

Items reviewed; into the second week.

Category: self improvement — jkt @ 12:23

A week and a half has passed since I started on an ambitious mission to make some changes in my life. Here’s how I’ve been doing…

Be optimistic: Over the last ten days, I’ve not been as consistent as I was over the first three. A lot of things are changing at home and I don’t always remember this pledge when I’m under pressure. On general day to day things, I’ve been much happier though.

Stop biting my nails: I have between 1 and 2mm nail growth on every finger and on both thumbs! I’ve been filing them down if they chip, and I’m continuing to coat them with fresh Diamond Strength nail hardener. With regular moisturising too, the dry skin around my cuticles is reducing, and over all my hands and nails are much improved!

Cut refined sugars from my diet: There have been three instances where I’ve deliberately consumed sweets/cakes in the last week. The first was a small slice of potato cake for my Mum’s birthday. I baked it, so that’s allowed. The second was an ice-cream on Saturday with Zachary; that’s allowed because he’s cute. The third, for which I have no excuse, was a single mint Tic Tac on Tuesday evening. The cravings are less than I was expecting, and I’ve not had any stabby-stabby-give-me-a-kitkat days since day two!

Read more about GTD: The audio book is on my iPhone, but I can’t get the damn iPhone working with headphones. Until I get that working, I can’t listen on the way to work. I am using OmniFocus to record my workload though, and help me focus on what needs to be done, so I consider that progress.

Resume regular training: Training is going well, I had two sessions last week and I’m on track to have three this. I bench pressed 55kg on Monday (12 reps) too; while it may not seem much, I was chuffed!

Stop externalising insecurities: I am becoming more aware of my insecurities clouding my thought processes, and when I’m seeing that happening, I’ve been discarding and conclusions I’ve come to during that time. This is a good base from which I can develop. This item can almost be paired with the being optimistic, but as it’s working towards a core belief change rather than an outlook change, I’ll keep them separate.

Conclusion: Excluding certain external events, I’m feeling happier, I’m delighted about my nails, my diet’s improving and I”m enjoying the time I spend at the gym. I think that’s an all-round win so far.

Jul 02 2008

Naughty outbound firewall!

Category: geek — jkt @ 09:59

Having been recommended the software by a friend, I went ahead and downloaded Little Snitch 2, which is an outbound firewall. This means it tells you about connections originating from your machine and allows you to block or allow them.

Wanting to see what the full version was like before I part with the cash, I found a serial number which someone had helpfully made available on Google and entered it into the program.

It immediately said the program was registered and I continued using it. However, after a few hours, it switched itself off. I enabled it again; the same thing happened.

Researching the problem, it seems that when you enter the serial number, the software phones home and checks it’s valid before enabling the full version. If it’s invalid, it says it’s valid but doesn’t fully enable (ie, it tricks you).

So we have a piece of software whose sole raison d’être is to tell you about outgoing connections, yet it doesn’t tell you when it is establishing connections itself. Not cool. I won’t be purchasing this.

To get round this naughtiness: install the software; create a rule which blocks the application ‘Little Snitch Configuration’ from connecting anywhere; then enter the serial number 32RPL63HB0-7GH4J. Tada.