Categories
Life

No, that’s not Anakin Skywalker preparing for a pod-race.

Categories
Internet Pet Peeves

Name them and Shame them: paypal edition

c’t magazine runs a biweekly column shining some light on the most egregious customer experiences with IT companies. To no-one’s surprise, thing start to get resolved if the company is facing public outrage and public shaming.

So, in the same spirtit: paypal is worst company in the world.

Further opportunities at Naming and Shaming are the Big Brother Awards.

Categories
Pet Peeves

A very cold Hotfix

I recently upgraded from the old Nokia Suite to the Ovi-branded version. In other word, I replaced one piece of sh***y bloatware with another.

But one thing is interesting: When using USB-based tethering, I get the following notice:

Well, if they think it makes the bloatware work better, ok. Then I took a closer look:

Article ID: 925681 – Last Review: December 8, 2009 – Revision: 3.0

When you try to download a file from the Internet by using Windows Internet Explorer in a Windows operating system, the download stops responding and then times out. The problem occurs when you use a USB modem that has a data transfer speed that is faster than or equal to 240 kilobits per second (Kbps).

Just look at that date. Microsoft found a problem that affects a good part of their customers (USB-based 3G modems are quite common these days), managed to cook up a solution, and seven months later it still wasn’t folded into the monthly updates and is still sold as a “hotfix”.

Sorry, this fix isn’t “hot” any more. It’s cold and very much over-due.

Categories
Tracks

Tracks

After a long break, Clemens and I finally built a decent set of tracks today.

We had lots of fun pushing trains and playing the “can you push the train to this spot?” and the “oh no, wrong turn!” – game.