Ringgo my arse!

Originally uploaded by salimfadhley

Like I said I love technology but it hates me.

I've been using Ringgo for a few months to pay for parking by SMS. Usually I use it when I am travelling for work to London by train. There is a code displayed on the platform which lets you get the parking for a bit cheaper so genuine commuters benefit.

Occasionally when I am out and about I will use the service to pay for my own parking (the charge goes to my personal credit card).

Today I used it when I went to visit Robbie in Chiswick. When I went back to the car there was an attendant giving me a ticket. "But I've used Ringgo", I protested in vain.

Turns out I entered my reg. number wrong. Clever. I was able to show him the payment confirmation on my phone but he had already written the ticket so I have to appeal. I am assuming I will win the appeal, as I did actually pay for the parking.

I should have just paid for a normal ticket. I'm not sure why I didn't. You have to pay extra for the "privilege" of using Ringgo.

My fault, but once again I am getting bitten in the arse by my eagerness to adopt technology. Maybe it's a sign?

LoveHate Technology

I love technology but technology seems to want to kick my arse whenever I get near it.

Take my relationship with TomTom: almost everytime I try to rely on it, it let's me down. I spend ages with back and forth emails to TomTom support trying to get the damn thing to work. Eventually I gave up and told them I wanted to send it back for repair. I'd only used it about 2 dozen times in its lifetime.

TomTom received my SatNav (in Glenrothes!) but then I heard nothing from them again. I asked them the other day what was going on and they replied that they had meant to tell me they were going to charge me for an out-of-warranty repair, but seeing as they had forgotten to they would do it for free. Nice one! Actually, they sent me a brand new unit!. Result! Shame I don't actually have a bike anymore, but I have bought the car adaptor kit for it.

I test it on the way home from work and it is fine. Then when I plug it in to the computer and it says it needs to do an update. Okey-dokey I let it update away, thinking taht with a clean new unit everything will be ok.

Then this morning I have to drive from Oxford to Wimbledon for an appointment about my knee. I decide that this time I can rely on TomTom to guide me there. Except now the damn thing won't turn the GPS on! I drive all the way down the M40 with it unable to find any satellites ("Poor GPS signal. Are you indoors?" No, I'm flippin' not!). Eventually on the M4 I pull into the services, where lovely Anita from WH Smith gives me her name badge to reset the TomTom (from now on I will always carry a paperclip in the car!). After two goes I give up and walk back to the car - lo and behold it gets a lock!

Thankfully it now manages to guide me to the clinic with only 15min to spare.

Then I use it again afterwards and it manages to guide me to Chiswick where I meet Robbie for lunch. Then, when I try to use it to get out of London, it fails again. Cue phone call to Robbie asking if I can pop in to his school to nick a paperclip. I will forever be grateful to the acting urchins on Chiswick for donating a paperclip to me.

Without TomTom I would not have found the clinic, nor Robbie's school. I am now going to have to get back on to TomTom support to report this latest problem, and I am sure they will have me plugging the damn thing in to the computer to roll-back the upgrade. Fantastic!

TomToms should come with a paperclip as standard.

BBC Complaint

I've just sent in this complant to the BBC. I'll post up any reply I get:

There is often a perception that the BBC is too London and England centric, and ignores Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. A typical complainant might say that Andy Murray is referred to as British when he wins and Scottish when he loses. I think this type of accusation is generally unfair.

However, there is one area where the BBC shows a lack of understanding and disrespect for the people of Scotland. That is in its coverage of the Scottish Premier League football.

I have got used to the fact that you will only ever seen footage of Rangers and/or Celtic on BBC news programmes. I can just about justify that with these two teams having the largest support in Scotland.

Although the SPL is in general treated like a sideshow, what does particularly annoy me is when you treat the rest of the SPL as if it does not exist.

For example today on Radio 1, I twice heard the newsreader mention that Celtic was playing Aberdeen. Not once did they mention that Motherwell were also playing Dundee United.

To be that shows a complete disrespect to Scotland and Scottish football (granted the quality isn't great!) - the assuption that there are only two teams in Scotland is both insulting and patronising.

I suggest that if you are ever going to mention a Celtic/Rangers game in the SPL, you have the courtesy to mention the rest of the teams playing.

CB500 Winter Hack for Sale!

My trusty CB500 is for sale on Ebay. Bidding currently stands at £45.

Bid now and get a bargain!

Domain Name Scams

If you are contacted by a company called Euro Systems www.es-systems.com then you may want to consider reading the following websites:

Domain name scam link 1
Domain name scam link 2
Domain name scam link 3
Domain name scam link 4

Interestingly, Euro System's phone number (08445442955) is listed on a website which reports scammers.

I'm not saying they're scammers, but their pitch was nearly 100% word-for-word the same as the domain name scams listed above. I'll let you make your own mind up.

Meanwhile, if you do want to register more domain names associated with your company, then I recommend 123-reg.

Along came a Spider

Well after looking for a car for about... a year now, I finally took the plunge and got one.

Say hello to my 2001 Alfa Romeo Spider 3.0 v6. Not bad for a first car!

It does about 145mph and 0-60 in 6.5s. I reckon I will be taking it a bit easier than that though as the fuel economy is terrible. Sadly I have given up my bike insurance and transferred the NCB to the car policy, so I will probably be getting rid of the bike.

More pics here.

Cheques taking longer to clear

I have been waiting for a cheque from a car finance company to clear with the garage from which I am buying a new car.

So far the bank has had the cheque for 6 days and it has not cleared yet. Apparently the garage had a letter from their bank telling them that cheques would now take 7 days to clear.

Pretty scandalous, considering the OFT were meant to be cracking down on it when it was 3-5 days as standard.

Can I have my spider back?

Nice weather for a convertible

I was meant to be picking up my new car today, but it turns out I can't. The garage only received the cheque from the finance company yesterday and they have to wait for it to clear so I will probably have to wait till Tuesday or, more likely, Wednesday.

What a bummer. It is a pretty gorgeous day today and it would have been perfect for picking the car up. Oh well - I just hope the rest of the week is as nice.

Just as well probably as I'm no affy weel today.

Is Africa a continent or country?

Yes Sarah Palin really was a thicko thickie!

Coming soon...

Phew!

America in "Not voting in another idiot" shocker!

My political analysis: the world will now be hoping that the USA makes the transition from being a "baddie" towards being a "goodie".

The fruit fly world responds

Who studies fruit flies?

Just in case anyone is in any doubt - fruit fly research is the cornerstone of pretty much all genetic research which is kinda useful in medical research.

That woman really is terrifyingly thick. Amazing to think she could run the US if Ol' McCain wins and then pops his clogs thereafter.

Bike or Car?

It's starting to get cold again and as I ride my bike in to work in the mornings I am reminded why I wanted to get a car so much earlier this year.

My reasons were: sick of getting wet; sick of getting cold; sick of not being able to carry much stuff; sick of not being able to turn up looking smart to work; sick of being confined to Oxford or wherever public transport will take me.

I did try to buy a car last month, but found the credit crunch had closed the doors to all reasonable loans. I tried to apply again to the AA for a £7000 loan - the lowest they will give. Refused! If they won't give that to me who will they give it to?!

So once again I am torn by the car situation. Should I spend a few grand on a car - a depreciating asset that will cost loads to run; or should I spend a few hundred pounds on some new winter bike gear and just keep riding the bike?

Problem with getting a car is that I don't want a crappy small car. Problem with bikes is that riding them in Winter sucks.

'ING rubbish!

Just got a letter from ING. Seems that since the Bank of England has reduced the interest rates they have reduced the rate on my ISA to 4.25%. That is rubbish! It is probably below the rate of inflation. Obviously the multi-billion dollar handout from the Dutch government hasn't made ING feel particularly generous.

Must look for better investment...

Biomechanical mess

I finally had my appointment on Friday with the podiatrist-type guy. Previous appointment was cancelled because he dislocated his shoulder! Turns out this had prevented him from emigrating to New Zealand. Bad for him, but, as it turns out, rather fortunate for me.

Anyway, the consultation lasted an hour. I had high hopes for this and had been looking forward to the assessment, not least because I am quite fed up of being unable to walk properly.

Well, the consultation was excellent! He really seemed to know exactly what was wrong with me. At first I had to stand there, then on one leg then the other. Some various static testing on the bed too. Then I did some walking over the force-measurement plate which feeds in to the computer. Then I went on the running machine (at walking pace!) and he watched my dodgy gait.

As predicted, I have a shockingly bad gait and my overall biomechanics are really messed up. In one of the tests to look at flexibility in my hips I got a score of -5. He was looking to see how much over 0 I scored and I was below! So, my dodgy hips turn my femur inwards and my dodgy gait turns my leg out the other way, so I have two opposing forces meeting at my knee. At least that is mu understanding of it. The problem in one leg is made worse my one leg being longer than the other.

I felt such relief hearing him explain it. Everything made sense to him, which made me feel really positive.

So he is making an orthotic shoe insert to hopefully sort some of this mess out. I should get it in about a week. I'm looking forward to trying it out!

The guy's practice is called Motion Lab. If you live in the South East of England and have any problems I highly recommend you see him before he leaves the country. I'm hoping I can get sorted before he goes.

GoogleMail Tabs in Firefox

Has something changed with GoogleMail?

Perhaps the only annoying thing about GoogleMail is that it is impossible to open different emails in multiple tabs in Firefox. You can only read one email at a time. It's a pain, but I put up with it.

You can, however, open different emails in tabs if you use the GoogleMail preview on your iGoogle page. That was fine for me.

However, since this week something has changed which is very annoying.

Every time I open an email in Googlemail from my iGoogle page I get this message:

Your Google Mail account has been signed out.

Google Mail automatically signs you out of your account when it detects that you've logged out from another browser window, or when you sign in to another Google Mail account from another browser window. This is done to protect your Google Mail account, and to ensure the privacy of your information.

Is it maybe detecting that I am logged in on my other computer? I have a "Home" tab and a "Work" tab on my iGoogle page so I can use one iGoogle page for home or work. I thought that was the point. Now Google is being all pi$$y.

Can someone explain what is going on? It's very irritating!

CreditExpert Con

Since getting refused for a few loans I decided to check my credit rating at Credit Expert - which is run by Experian. This is the company that the banks use to judge whether you are worthy of their money.

Turns out my credit rating is only "Fair". Apparently the only thing that counted against me is the fact that I applied for some loans, which seems a little "Catch-22" like.

Anyway, I have since found out that Experian has a little bit of a dodgy business model. You have to submit your credit card details to access your score. That is fair enough as you need to really prove your identity. They then send you a code by post to your credit card address to log-in. Again, fair enough.

You actually don't get to see your credit rating for free - you can only see the information that they hold on you. Still seems fair.

To view your actual credit score, you have to £6.99. Okay, so I paid the money to find my score.

They then want you to stay as a paying user of Credit Expert, so you can regularly check your credit score to avoid fraud etc. Only £5.95 a month. Ummm, no thanks, just checking the once will be fine thanks.

Of course this is the same practice that the likes of Lovefilm use - entice you in, take your credit card details and then "ta-da" you are paying a monthly sub...unless you cancel. Now Lovefilm, if I remember correctly, make it fairly easy so you can cancel online if you want. That is the correct thing to do.

Not Credit Expert - you have to phone them to cancel. Now there is no good technical reason for them to have this obligation - most companies will try to do everything via the web because humans are so damn expensive (they need fed and cleaned regularly).

So the only reason to have this system is to trap chumps who never get around to phoning - chumps like me.

So now I have to try and remember to cancel this damn thing tomorrow (of course they are not open on a Sunday). What are the chances the phone queue will be rather long...

Pins in my knee

I had my third acupuncture session this weekend. Pic is my leg with the acupuncture needles in it. This time it was a different "doctor". Tellingly, he put the needles in different places from the other guy with none in my knee at all. He stuck one of them in teh top of my foot. You can't see it in the photo, but it didn't feel too nice getting stuck in. As usual I got the "I think my leg is going to start twitching" feeling towards the end, which is a bit scary.

After about 20min he came in and I though he was going to remove the pins, but no - he was just there to "tweak" them! Argh!

Anyway, once he was done I went out, drank some Chinese tea, let the girl tell me I needed another seven sessions, then smiled as I bolted out the door. I might try acupuncture again, but maybe elsewhere.