Technical problems

Vodafone a joke

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Vodafone CEO Jeroen Hoencamp wants feedback

Tax dodging mobile phone operator Vodafone has possibly the worst customer service in the UK.

Having tempted me (a customer since before I was married in 1993) to stay with the phone company after a 2 hour 20 minute web chat, Vodafone then failed to implement the deal it had offered.

Another 47-minute web chat led to Vodafone telephoning my office in a call that lasted more than two hours, yet still the mobile phone company could not honour the deal. Continue reading →

BT complaint fail

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recorder and phone

Recording calls to BT complaints

If it were not so painful it would be funny: BT’s “High Level Complaints’’ just tried to insist that complaining about follow-up emails after they belatedly fitted a phone and broadband would have to be a separate complaint.

They did this to try to ensure I could not take my original complaints to the ombudsman. They have retracted. But you can see what they were up to and it is despicable. BT’s CEO Ian Livingston, who was at the heart of this complaint, is to quit and become UK trade and industry minister. Uh oh! Continue reading →

BT Business fail

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BT logo, reads "you're ready to go"

Not ready: BT failed to provide phone or broadband

BT Business just failed to move my phone and broadband on the moving date. What a useless service. I am now without remote back up.

In June 2010 I blogged about how we set up the remote back-up system and why it is important to back up remotely in the event that the unthinkable happens. And now, because of BT’s incompetence, I don’t have that working. I could lose everything in the next few days. Continue reading →

Apple iOS bites

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Zebra-app

the-Zebra app logo on Apple Developer site

Unless you are Facebook, dealing with Apple as an iOS (iPhone app) developer is challenging. Facebook managed to do two updates within 24 hours but Apple never even looks at my updates for five days and can take almost 24 hours to reply to basic communications.

After protracted correspondence after my latest version of the-Zebra app was rejected, I asked Apple, seven hours after my last communication, if I should wait up for a response or could go to bed. Within minutes my app was reviewed, approved, sent to the store and put on sale. Continue reading →

Marching orders

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Starbucks windows smashed with anarchy A grafittiReporting Saturday’s TUC March for the Alternative and UKUncut’s protests against tax dodgers proved the limits of technology. There may be power in a union but if there’re no power points to plug in laptops and mobiles, nobody will know about it.

Broadband access too is key. We posted our first report and video from Starbucks in Villiers Street, near the Embankment. Trying to upload video in Hyde Park via a Vodafone dongle proved fruitless so, with Starbucks on Piccaddilly smashed up, we had to march for the alternative. Café Nero had broadband but no power sockets. I filed with 4% Macbook battery life left. Continue reading →

Remote back-up

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Macbook Prop, screen and serverBacking up is something journalists rarely take seriously. But we produce magazines for clients so having back-ups for if – is that when? – things go wring is vital. Today I set up a remote back-up with our three main office Macs mirrored on a machine at my parents house.

When I say “I” it’s a bit like the Royal “we”. I pay a local firm of Mac experts – Logo Systems in Greenwich – for IT support Their Paul Richardson came up with the plan after I exhausted commercial data back-up schemes and found them too inflexible – they only back up your data, not systems. Continue reading →

Accessible web

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Writing for the web means complying making your website accessible to blind or partially-sighted web users who may be using screen readers.

It is not just that your site may fall foul of the Disability Discrimination Act – if you are providing services to the public – but because there are ethical and logical reasons to do so. Why would you not want as wide an audience to be able to read your website, after all? Continue reading →

Blog or bog off

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In the past few days I have worked from my Macbook using mobile internet connections from:

  • The top and bottom decks of double decker buses
  • standing up on a London commuter train
  • Seated on a Virgin train
  • On the overground section on a London tube
  • In a Starbucks and a Pret
  • Standing on Oxenholme and Lewisham stations

I have used a mix of my Vodafone dongle and my BT Openworld account. And that is in addition to several other people’s home wireless broadband networks. Continue reading →

Go students go!

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I am heading for Southport for the National Union of Journalists’ (NUJ’s) Annual Delegate Meeting (ADM). In 2009 why can’t we get a Vodafone and 3G signal on a Virgin East coast train?

Tomorrow I am running the NUJ student members’ conference. We should have 25 students there. A mix of students of journalism and students journalists working on student media. Continue reading →