I got a phone call this morning from Joanne Bailey from Public Service Review. She told me about their publications and how the latest edition would be focussed on Michael Gove, the current UK education secretary, and how he wants to improve attainment levels in schools for maths and science.

Apparently, Learnalot had been flagged up in one of their meetings as a company that might be able to help Michael achieve this goal. How flattering. She explained how they would like to feature an article on Learnalot that would follow Michael’s piece and asked whether I’d be interested in that – to which I naturally replied yes. She then told me that “of course” this would come at a cost – £2,396 plus VAT in fact – and that the article would be written by us and not them.

So, I was basically being asked to pay for advertising space in their magazine, which made it expensive irrespective of their subscriber list, but as the magazine seemed like a high-quality publication and the claims she made of their subscriber list were impressive, I still wanted to know more about them before turning them down. I said I was interested but that I would need to check a few things first, and she said that they would send over the agreement. Slightly concerning was that she then asked that I sign the agreement immediately and return it to them before she went for another meeting – which was in 5 minutes. I wasn’t about to sign over nearly 3 thousand pounds in 5 minutes, so I said I’d return the agreement after checking that everything was alright first and not before.

Joanne took from this suspicion that I wanted to see some examples of previous editions first to reassure me of the quality of the magazine. This seemed a little pointless really since by her own account large chunks of it had been written by third parties, and in any case it wasn’t the quality of the magazine that had my alarm bells ringing anyway.

Still concerned by the request to agree within 5 minutes, I got in touch with Laura at Hamilton House, our PR company, and asked them what she knew about PSR. In the meantime, I received a copy of the proposal from them with a note along the top asking me to email the signed copy “straight away”.

In the meantime I Googled the company and found this page, a blog from a guy named Andrew Jaffe and a load of comments from people who had all experienced the same thing. It turns out that this stories about short deadlines and meetings is something that PSR like to use a lot! I forwarded the link to Laura who then called me and kindly suggested getting in touch with PSR on our behalf to find out more about them and their subscriber list. She too was concerned about this “straight away” business and told me that she had never heard of a publication asking for such immediate commitment before. She also thought the piece was expensive – even for a glossy magazine.

Laura got back to me within minutes and said that Joanne had given her some information, but not the specific information that she had requested: namely the all-important breakdown of readership. She suspected therefore that the readership was not at all made up of the maths teachers that I was hoping to reach, and without a definitive printed statement of the readership it was difficult to consider otherwise. Laura also said that she had found Joanne somewhat difficult to deal with.

As soon as I got off the phone with Laura it rang again. I answered and it was Joanne. Joanne claimed that Laura had been very rude to her, which I really didn’t believe. She also tried to nullify Hamilton House’s concerns over her worrying need for immediate agreement and their expensive pricing by suggesting that she didn’t like their website.

Attacking the website and approach of a company one has chosen to work with is a rather odd approach, and overall I was unable to work out how that was relevant. The remarks about Hamilton House’s website were also made despite Joanne’s claim at the beginning of the conversation that her internet access was down because of a virus. In all, this did nothing but confirm beyond doubt that I needed to give Public Service Review a wide berth.

Update: Here’s another link that contains some useful information on Public Service / PSCA.

Read more…

Around two months ago I sold a BMW E36 driver’s side headlight on eBay. In my listing I had described the headlight in considerable detail and I also included a photograph of it. It sold for a reasonable £45, which was approximately what I paid for it a few months before.

A few days after posting it out, the buyer got in touch and said he wanted to return the item because some 3rd party angel-eye bulbs that he had bought elsewhere didn’t work with it. Now, angel-eyes didn’t come out for the 3 Series until the E46 and were never part of the E36 range, and today they are sold as an after-market 3rd party item. The headlight I sold was a genuine BMW replacement unit. I was pretty confident that if these two units were incompatible that the problem was with the bulbs and not with the headlamp, and as I had clearly stated in my listing that returns would not be accepted the only grounds by which I would be obliged to accept a return was if either a) the headlamp was damaged or b) the headlamp was not as described – and neither case applied here. I respectfully declined to accept a return and explained why.

The following day I received an email from eBay telling me that the buyer had opened a dispute with me by claiming that an item was not as described. You can see what he did here. I logged into the resolution centre and posted a number of replies (although eBay asks for as much information as possible, they only give you a tiny little window in which to post it), detailing why the item was actually exactly as described, why the buyer was claiming that it wasn’t and an account of our previous discussion. I also reminded eBay that I was only obliged to accept a return for one of the above conditions; neither of which were met, and that I was looking forward to them finding in my favour. I also called eBay to discuss the case and was assured by the representative that whoever would deal with the case would thoroughly read through the notes and all correspondence before making a decision. I was also thanked for being such a good eBayer and for having 100% positive feedback.

A week later I received an email from eBay stating that they had found in the buyer’s favour and that the buyer would be requested to send the headlamp back to me. I was also informed that I would have to refund the buyer as soon as the headlamp arrived, and the full amount was automatically deducted from my PayPal account in anticipation. In order to use my PayPal account again for any purchases, I would be forced to deposit the refund amount first.

Naturally, I called eBay to ask just what the hell was going on and why they had found in the buyer’s favour when he was clearly lying. I was informed by a representative with poor English that in all cases, eBay had to find in the buyer’s favour and that if it later turned out that the seller was right then they would issue a refund to the seller themselves. This seems totally bizarre.

1. Why bother having a “no returns accepted” option on the item listing if in reality eBay insists that all items are returned regardless of any facts?
2. Why automatically find in the buyer’s favour so that they have to cover the cost of the refund themselves in cases where the buyer is obviously lying? Surely it makes more sense to just properly investigate the claim first and only find in the buyer’s favour when there’s a genuine claim? Isn’t the aim of any business to make money rather than deliberately give it away?

Bewildered by what I was hearing, I asked what was going to happen next. The representative told me that I could appeal the decision and it would be looked into again more thoroughly within 48 hours. So, I appealed the decision and waited. The automated email stated that while most cases were dealt with within 48 hours, that I should allow up to 72 for cases that were especially complex in nature. I was pretty sure that my case was straightforward enough, but having already witnessed the stupidity that was eBay’s customer service I decided to wait the 72 hours before chasing them up. The deadline came and went with no reply from eBay so I got on the phone – again.

This time I spoke to a representative called “Ken Ainsley” (his accent and broken English would suggest otherwise), and after reciting the entire story to him he told me that eBay had been unable to make a decision on this case because I had not supplied them with any photographic evidence that the item was as described. At this point I got pretty angry, because at no time had eBay asked for any such evidence nor had they even given me an email address to which to send it. For over 72 hours eBay had simply sat on the case and done nothing – so much for the “thorough investigation” that was promised. I asked “Ken” for an email address to which I should send a photograph and he sent me the below email in response. I sent a photograph three days later when the item arrived back here.

Hello Gareth,

Please attach the documents confirming that your item is as described.

For better assistance, you can call eBay customer support at 8003586551.

eBay Hours of Service:
8am – 10pm Mondays – Fridays
11am – 6pm Saturdays and Sundays

I trust that this information helps and I wish you all the best in the
future.

Kind regards,

Ken Ainsley
eBay Customer Support

Three days later I received a response from a “Charlotte Boylan” telling me that my appeal had been denied. Naturally this must mean that they decided that the item was in fact not as described, right? Actually no, the reason that my appeal had been denied was, bizarrely, because the item had been returned to me:

Hello Gareth,

Thanks for getting in touch about the headlamp (XXXXXXXXXXXX) you sold
to “xxxxxxx”.

We’ve reviewed this case thoroughly, and found in favor of the buyer. I
understand that you appealed on the case, so I’d like to explain our
decision.

The buyer was able to provide us tracking information showing that the
item was delivered with your signature confirmation to the address
registered on the buyer’s eBay account. We’ve also reviewed your appeal.
Again, because the buyer provided valid tracking information as proof of
delivery, we’re not able to change the case decision.

We appreciate your understanding.

Kind regards,

Charlotte Boylan
eBay Customer Support

Just how eBay expected me to take a photograph of a returned item without actually receiving it first is sadly beyond my understanding. On the contrary, to satisfy their requirement for a photograph as requested by “Ken” 6 days prior, surely I had to get the item back first?!

I got on the phone again. Bear in mind that it’s not actually possible to just call eBay like you can call virtually every other company on earth – you need to jump through hoops on their site first to get a PIN number; without this PIN number you get no further than an automated message telling you that you need to go and get one.

Once again I got through to someone who seemed to have English as a second or third language, and I was told that what I needed to do was send in a photograph. Now I really exploded. I actually shouted down the phone at this guy, asking him if anyone there knew what they were doing. I explained how I had already been asked for a photograph and had already supplied one. I explained how I had made an appeal against their decision because an item that was sent back to me was actually exactly as described and how this appeal had, for some totally bizarre reason that was beyond me, been refused because of the fact that the item had been returned to me. Having realised that I was not interested in any more BS, this representative told me that he would forward the case to their appeals team and that I would get a full refund “within 4 days”.

Seven days passed and no refund. No communications from eBay either – nothing. I got on the phone again. This time I spoke to a guy who was adamant that I was not eligible for a refund as eBay did not issue refunds for such things. Clearly having got through to an idiot who couldn’t even read his colleagues’ case notes, I hung up and dialled again.

This time I got a woman who kept insisting that she couldn’t hear me. She kept calling “Hello? Hello?” down the line despite the fact that I could hear her fine. Eventually she left me on hold while she went to check the records. She came back and said that normally she could have given me a refund (so much for the previous guy’s claims), but that she couldn’t in this particular case because there was no record of them ever taking the refund out of my PayPal account. This was ludicrous. I suggested that she wait on the line while I log into PayPal and get the date for her (since she wasn’t capable of doing this herself), yet as I was logging into my account to get the exact date of the transaction, she terminated the call without warning.

Now I was really pissed off. I called again, desperately trying not to throw the receiver. This time I got through to a woman called “Jane Maddock”, and after reciting the entire story to her she recited back her understanding. To my amazement, Jane knew the difference between the headlight of an E36 and an E46. She also knew that angel-eye bulbs were never part of the original E36 specification. She put me on hold for a short time while she read the case notes which by now were quite lengthy. She came back and told me that far from getting a refund within 4 days as previously promised, the best that she could do was escalate the case which some additional information that she would add herself. In around 6 days I will be informed whether or not I’m getting a refund, though obviously, unless Jane follows this particular case through to completion I won’t be holding my breath. I asked for a direct line to her because litterally everyone else that I had spoken to had been incompetent, but unfortunately she couldn’t give me one and could only apologise for my experience.

In all honesty, I have never been impressed with eBay’s customer support. Throughout the 6 years of my eBay membership, every time I’ve contacted them for whatever reason I’ve been left unimpressed and wondering how these people manage to dress themselves in the morning without a carer. There are exceptions – or more accurately, an exception in the form of Jane – but on the whole I’d rank eBay’s customer support team below chimpanzees in terms of intelligence. This latest example just takes things to a whole new level of incompetence, and after 6 years and over 1272 transactions, I’m seriously looking for an alternative to eBay.

As if it isn’t bad enough that someone who is brand new to eBay can make an “item not as described” claim with nothing more than a pack of blatant and obvious lies (the buyer contradicted himself on at least four major points in the resolution centre and anyone who read what he said would have seen that), the fact that a seller with 100% positive feedback over 1272 transactions has to supply photographic evidence to the contrary (in itself an indication that, in eBay’s eyes, the burden of proof is on the accused and not the accuser which is the exact opposite of the requirements of the legal system of every developed country in the world) is beyond a joke. That such evidence can then be set aside in a sea of incompetence as each representative contradicts the last is beyond comprehension.

All told I must have spent at least 3 hours on the phone talking to these idiots and for what? I’m still no better off today than I was a month ago. This is how eBay treats its loyal customers. This is how eBay thanks you for being a “good eBayer” and for maintaining 100% positive feedback over 6 years.

I’ve searched for an alternative to eBay as I desperately want to take my business – and my money – elsewhere, but all I’ve found are tiny sites with no more than a few hundred listings – if that. If anyone does know of an alternative that has competent staff, please feel free to leave the relevant information in the comments section below.

As far as eBay is concerned, I’ll post a link to this article to their customer support and maybe call their head office with a link tomorrow, but I don’t expect that anyone will actually resolve the issue for me.

UPDATE: At 6:11pm on Tuesday the 28th of September – just 2 days after posting this article – I received a full refund from eBay. There was no message and no apology – literally just a refund – but at least it’s here. The only uncertainty now is whether it’s here because Jane did as she promised, or because eBay takes complaints a lot more seriously when they’re pasted all over an SEO’d blog. Hmm.

After getting the kicking of a lifetime over their controversial plan to force gamers to use their real names when posting on its official forums, Blizzard vice president and executive managing director for international operations Michael Ryder told Eurogamer before StarCraft II’s midnight launch in London that the “process” had “worked”.

So, it turns out that getting their arse kicked by the community for coming up with such a stupid idea was all part of the plan.

To celebrate this revelation, I have prepared a couple of images that show other people’s plans coming together.

After my launch Xbox 360 died on me the night before last, I ordered a new Xbox 360 S. It arrived a couple of hours ago (though sadly the data transfer cable was sent separately and won’t be here until tomorrow – thanks, Amazon!), so I quickly opened the box and took out all of the essentials.

First off, the console is gorgeous. It’s noticeably smaller than the original and very shiny. The power and drive tray buttons are both touch-sensitive so you only need to tap them for them to work and there are 5 USB ports instead of the old one’s 3 – which means my USB hub is now unemployed.

Somewhat annoyingly, the connection to the power brick has also been changed so I had to go behind the TV and untangle a load of wires to get the old brick out so that I could put the new one in.

Anyway, once all that was done I looked again at the console. The hump that housed the HDD on the old model has disappeared and in its place is a little slot with a little cover clipped on it. I took this cover off and found a little HDD case about a half inch tall and about 3-4 inches wide. I pulled out the HDD to take a look at it and saw a couple of standard Serial-ATA connectors on the other side. Was Microsoft finally letting people upgrade their machines with unofficial drives that were bigger and cheaper than the official offerings?

A discussion with @XboxSupport on Twitter revealed that no, this is not the case. Somewhat annoyed by this since my PS3 is happily running a 7,200RPM 500GB drive since I got it, I asked why. The ensuing conversation (after the jump) has been edited to make it more readable but the content is untouched.

g4r37h: Hey guys. I got my 360 Slim today. The HDD has standard serial ATA ports on it – does that mean I can install a bigger drive?

XboxSupport: It is not possible for a larger hard drive to be installed into the console. ^RH

g4r37h: Hmm, so what would happen if I connected a 500gb laptop drive? It would physically fit, right? But the software would block it?

XboxSupport: The drive would not be properly formatted to work with the 360. ^RH

g4r37h: So the answer is yes you block it through software. I guess that’s so that you can charge twice as much for an official drive?

XboxSupport: The official drives have been formatted to work with the 360 software to ensure security of the files and system. ^RH

g4r37h: Come on guys, I know formatting is nothing more than the file system which is controlled by software. You could make unofficial drives work quite easily. In fact, you’ve clearly gone out of your way to stop them working if an unofficial drive won’t work. I think it’s down to being able to charge crazy money for official HDDs. Tell me I’m wrong.

XboxSupport: If you’d like to use an external USB drive you can for storage from 1-16GB. ^RH

g4r37h: I don’t want 16GB USB storage. I want a 1TB drive in there. There’s no hardware reason why I can’t – the connections match. So can you confirm that a 1TB drive wouldn’t work because your software would block it? I have a 500gb drive in my PS3 and have done since launch. Why can’t I do the same with my 360?

g4r37h: OK I’ll be honest – I know it’s so that you can charge crazy money for official drives. I just wanted to hear you say it :P

XboxSupport: It is not a feature supported by the 360. We do not have specifics on why that decision was made. ^RH

g4r37h: Of course you do – check out my previous post!

XboxSupport: We do not have specifics on those decisions that were made. ^RH

g4r37h: OK let’s make a deal. We’ll agree that it’s so that you can charge double for official drives until you give me an alternative.

XboxSupport: We don’t have details on that decision but it is not for that reason. ^RH

g4r37h: Oh come on. If you don’t know what the reason is, how do you know what it isn’t? It’s not hardware – the hardware is the same. It’s not software – because you control that. The only other variable is price. Why let people buy 500GB if you can charge them the same amount for 120GB! It’s a great business plan.

XboxSupport: The official hard drives are there to be trusted sources and help keep the platform secure. ^RH

g4r37h: Trusted sources? So a brand new drive with twice the capacity and half the cost wouldn’t be secure? Can you explain why? Because as far as I know you could still format the drive, encrypt the content etc just the same.

g4r37h: I was happy to let this go with a gentleman’s agreement but since you’re trying to tell me it’s something else now I’m curious!

XboxSupport: We don’t have details on that process, sorry. ^RH

g4r37h: Sony’s PS3 is a lot more secure than the 360 and yet they allow unofficial HDDs. I’d say secure sources isn’t a factor.

g4r37h: Hmm ok then. Is that your final word on the matter? Because all of this is going into my blog as we speak. :)

XboxSupport: It is a decision that was made by Microsoft when developing the console. Sorry, we don’t have any details outside of that. ^RH

g4r37h: Yes I know when the decision was made and who made it. The question was why. I’m saying it’s all down to pricing.

XboxSupport: We do not have full details on why the decision was made. ^RH

g4r37h: Yeah I got that the first time! Then I said it was so you could charge double for official HDDs and then you failed to retort.

g4r37h: Never mind. I think everyone else knows the reason even if you’re not allowed to confirm it. Thanks for the chat!

XboxSupport: Have a good day. ^RH

So, there we have it. When I put it to Microsoft that there was no plausible reason for blocking unofficial HDDs other than the fact that they want to be able to over-charge for official drives, they had no reply. I know we all knew that anyway, but it was still somewhat disappointing that Microsoft couldn’t just admit something that is painfully obvious and instead tried to fob me off with some rubbish about security and reliability – security on a console that is a lot less secure than its main competitor (which freely allows unofficial HDDs) and reliability on a console that is plagued by RRODs – none of which are related to the HDD.

Microsoft, if you’re going to lie about the reason you don’t allow official hard drives, at least come up with a half decent excuse!

Just over a week ago, United Utilities issued a hosepipe ban because we’d had about 3 days of sun and apparently all the reservoirs were running low. Since then it’s done nothing but rain and today we’ve even had flooding all over the north west – which has even made the news – and still the hosepipe ban persists! In the south of the country though where the weather has been much warmer (and not raining), there is no such ban!

Here’s a photo that I took of a road that’s less than a mile away from my home – clearly this is not the weather for hosepipe bans. United Utilities: sort out the leaking water pipes, you clowns. We all know it has nothing to do with the weather!

Having already convinced four family members to sign up to one of the offers that Vodafone’s UK Deals Team is offering, I’ve decided to write about them on my blog so that even more people can take advantage of what they have to offer.

I got the HTC Desire with 300 minutes, 3000 texts and 500mb data on a 24-month contract for just £20/month with the phone itself costing me £55.

If you look at what the competition is offering, the same deal would cost £30/month at the Carphone Warehouse (although the phone would have been free), which over 24 months means that I’d have paid £185 more overall – including the cost of the phone.

It’s a similar story at Phones4U where the same deal again costs £30/month although the duration of the contract is lower. However, all is not as it seems. While Phones4U would claim that an 18-month contract is better than a 24-month alternative, in this case it simply isn’t. Allow me to demonstrate:

£30/month for 18 months and a free HTC Desire = £540
£20/month for 24 months and an HTC Desire for £55 = £535

At first glance Phones4U looks only slightly more expensive here, and if you speak to them on the phone they make a big deal about it “only” being an 18 month contract. However, for that you’re actually getting 6 months less service, and to have a working phone for the same length of time you’d need to extend the contract by another 6 months which would cost an additional £180 which brings it up to the same cost as the Carphone Warehouse. No-one only needs a phone for 18 months, and that’s what they’re relying on here to make their deal look more attractive. It doesn’t take much to see through their false logic though.

You could argue that with Phones4U you’d be getting your upgrade 6 months earlier than you would with Vodafone, but the £185 more that you’d be paying for a phone that works for 24 months would cover the price of an upgrade from Vodafone (for a similar phone) over 3 times over.

Vodafone’s UK Deals Team is also offering the HTC Legend on a similar contract for just £15/month (which is the one my father and two of my sisters have taken) and they have lots of other deals for different manufacturers as well.

First things first, for nearly 600 photographs of the event, click here.

Last weekend I went to Classic Car Live 2010 with my father, to Mondello Park near Naas (nay-ass) in Ireland. We went in his 1966 Ford Mustang and got the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin on Saturday morning. The crossing was incredibly smooth and you only knew that you were on a boat when you looked out the window.

We got to Ireland to find that it was sunny and pretty hot – a welcome change from the last time we went to this event back in 2008 when it was chucking it down and blowing a gale. Sat-nav on my Desire got us onto the N7 carriageway without having to go through the centre of Dublin and we got to Naas in good time.

When we got to Naas we checked into the hotel that we’d booked to find that the room was unavailable because some woman who had slept in there the night before still hadn’t checked out – and this was at 3pm. They offered to put us up at a house that was also owned by the hotel owner, and since there was some OAP party on at the hotel we accepted. We left them to sort the house out and get it ready for us and headed into town for some beers.

It is at this point that I have to make a couple of complaints about Ireland. As I’ve mentioned previously, it’s incredibly expensive over there and despite the Pound having made up some ground against the Euro since last time we were over there, everything still costs at least 1.5x as much as it does in the UK and sometimes more than that. The second is the selection of beers on offer – there’s no Carling, no Fosters, no XXXX and no Stella. There’s Heineken, Budweiser and Carlsberg. I don’t like Carlsberg as it leaves a bitter after-taste and drinking Budweiser is pretty much the same as drinking still water, so that leaves Heineken and not much else. The Heineken in one place was nice; everywhere else is was awful. Luckily I spotted Kopparberg while trying to find an alternative drink, though sadly only the sickly mixed fruit version and not the pear version that I could drink all day. My father took a couple of those but then had to move onto something else; I stayed on them for the rest of the night.

The next morning let itself into my room earlier than anticipated thanks to some super-thin curtains. At 5am the room was lit up like it was midday, so it wasn’t long before we were both showered and ready for breakfast before making our way to the track. The paper-work we had from the organisers stated Gate 1 as our entrance; Gate 1 was closed and locked when we arrived. We continued down the road past gates 2 and 3 before finally arriving at gate 4 which was open letting people in. Since we were so early (not long after 8am!) there wasn’t much there yet, but this gave us ample opportunity to put our names down for some parade laps later in the day and for me to wonder around the paddock taking photos of the cars that would be screaming down the track in a few hours.

Over the course of the entire day more and more cars flooded into the grounds – from a rusty old BMW 2002tii to a quarter-million pound Aston Martin DB5 and everything in-between. An unfortunate down-side to the event being so popular was that the track was rammed with cars for the parade lap, and as a result the traffic was much slower than it was two years ago. The event organisers seem to have come up with a money-making solution to this problem though – for 50 Euros you can get onto a less populated track and race – which I think is what we’ll be doing next year. It’s not necessary to actually race the car, but to just be able to go quickly without being flagged down and without getting stuck behind some 1920s chariot-with-an-engine.

I really enjoyed Mondello Park this year, even though I was pretty badly burned in the Irish sun and even though there wasn’t a familiar pint to be had. The weather was great, the event was a huge success and it was a great opportunity to sink some beers with the old man since the Isle of Man trip a couple of months ago. This event was also the first event that I’ve gone to with my new SLR – a Sony Alpha 500. While I think there are still a fair few things for me to learn about using an SLR, I did manage to make some cool-looking wallpapers from a couple of the photos that I took which are also available to see in the Flickr section.

Next stop: Le Mans!

To cut a long story short, I’ve sent the D-Link 655 that I got just over a week ago back to the retailer which, coincidentally, cost me £13.85 because I had to send it back to bloody France! Nope, I seriously won’t be buying from PIXmania again.

The reason for sending the unit back is simple; though actually diagnosing the problem was far from it. Having hooked the D-Link up to my Netgear DGN2000 which was now running in modem-only mode, my internet download speed dropped from 20mbit to 10mbit. Because it wasn’t actually the D-Link that was dialling up, this unit wouldn’t give me any connection details other than “connected” (which was far from helpful) so I had to disconnect that and connect to the Netgear directly in order to access its webmin and check the details on there. The Netgear reported a 20mbit connection, and yet whenever I downloaded anything on any of the computers, I was getting 250kb/sec max.

It turns out that the D-Link was establishing a mere 10mbit connection to the Netgear (the D-Link being a gigabit unit and the Netgear being a 100mbit unit), so no matter how fast my internet connection was I was only ever going to get 10mbit from it. I set the D-Link to force a 100mb connection and when that didn’t work I tried the gigabit option, which also didn’t do anything. Hardly performance that you’d call “Xtreme”, is it, D-Link? There was no such option on the Netgear. I disabled QoS, packet shaping, UPnP and everything else that was there to be disabled but no, nothing made any difference so I logged into PIXmania, found my order and requested an RMA number. I wrapped the D-Link back up in its French SKU box and prepared it for posting. I then did what I now wish I had done at the beginning and ordered a gigabit switch, which I’d use to connect everything to the router and get the best of both worlds – a gigabit internal network and a 20mbit internet connection.

I connected everything back up to the Netgear for now and put that back in modem/router mode, only to find that this was now playing up and refusing to issue a DHCP IP address to one of my computers. Also, one of its ports refused to work with any device. I’d had another Netgear router do this to me 18 months ago – the DG834G – which was what I’d replaced with the DGN2000. Really angry at this point, I binned the Netgear, vowed never to buy any of their crap again and hooked up the old Thompson router that we got from O2 a year ago. Everything connected to that without any problems.

The gigabit switch arrived a few days ago and so far everything with the internal network is fine, though there is an issue with O2′s router which I’m hoping a replacement router from O2 will fix, but I’ll write about this separately as it appears that a number of others are experiencing the same thing.

Hassle, hassle and yet more hassle!

Well, the D-Link 655 router that I ordered a few days ago arrived from PIXmania. First off, the router is a French SKU. The manual, the software CD and the guarantee are all French. The alarm bells rang when I first opened the box and found a UK mains adaptor converter, though my first instinct had been that PIXmania had shipped me an American SKU which was how they make their profit margin. But no, it was French. I don’t think I’ll buy from PIXmania again.

Thankfully the router’s webmin was in English so I wasted no time in setting everything up. Or at least, to a point because I quickly discovered that there was no in-built modem and I’d have to use an external modem to connect to my ISP. That’s not really a problem because the Netgear DGN2000 that I’ve used for two years has been great in every way apart from it only being a 10/100mbit unit which is too slow for the Thecus – but obviously fast enough for internet access. I thought I’d set up the network with the D-Link and then connect that to the Netgear for internet access – should be easy enough, right?

Without an appropriate manual, I was left to Google to troubleshoot when my initial attempt failed. The D-Link seemed to connect to the internet as it was successfully checking for the latest firmware, but nothing that was connected to the D-Link could get out.

Over an hour was spent reading various forums, reviews and articles to try and get the information I required, when I then concluded that the internet is FULL of people who have NO IDEA what they’re talking about. One person would claim that the way forward was to disable DHCP on the D-Link; another to disable it on the Netgear. One person would claim that you put the ISP settings into the D-Link and use the Netgear as a pass-through; the other that you put the settings into the Netgear and let the D-Link piggy-back on it. In short, no-one had a clue.

While searching for answers I also found this thread on the D-Link support forums where someone else was experiencing problems with the 655. I was distinctly unimpressed to see such a haughty attitude on Lycan, the “Technical Engineer Global Moderator” of the forum, as he proved particularly unhelpful to anyone who asked any valid questions about the unit.

In the end I stumbled across a short discussion about Netgear. Some guy was looking for a way to set his router as a modem but couldn’t find the necessary option, and someone posted a link with a “try this” suggestion. The link was http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?next_file=mode.htm, and opening this link myself brought me to a minimalist page with nothing other than router mode: modem/router or modem only. I selected modem only and immediately the machines connected to the D-Link had internet access. For some really stupid reason, this page is only available to you on the navigation pane once you’ve already set the router to modem-only – when in router/modem mode, you’ve got to type in the address which means you need to already know it’s there. Who’s the Einstein that came up with that idea?

As for the other settings that I’m using, the Netgear has a LAN IP address of 192.168.0.1, DHCP and wireless are both disabled and the ISP details are specified. The D-Link has an IP of 192.168.0.10, DHCP is enabled with a range of 192.168.0.50 – 192.168.0.254, the wireless is enabled and the ISP details are also specified (manually). The internet port is connected to one of the Netgear’s LAN ports.

Hopefully this post will prove useful to others who find themselves with zero documentation and an internet-full of useless guesses!

Having picked up my old Mustek 600CU scanner from my parents’ house over the weekend, I discovered today that it won’t work with Windows 7. The drivers on the website relate to Windows 98, and a Windows 2000 patch that I found years ago (which also worked with Windows XP) refused to work on a 64-bit operating system. Hmm.

Rather than spend a few hours trying to hack something together with drivers from the four corners of the internet, I decided that I’d buy a new scanner. After all:

1. Scanners aren’t expensive;
2. Technology has moved on a lot since I got that old Mustek and a new scanner would give better results, faster;
3. A new scanner (and its software) would actually work on 64-bit Windows 7.

I needed to scan some documents to send over to my graphics designer ASAP, so rather than place an order online and wait a few days I decided to pop down to the local industrial estate and get something from Currys/Comet.

Both Currys and Comet are right next to each other in Southport, so I went into Currys first with a view of seeing what they had available and then going into Comet to compare. On the way in I noticed a huge “Our price promise” sign next to the door that claimed that Currys would beat the price of a range of local competitors including “Argos, ASDA, Comet, Jessops, Tesco, John Lewis… in fact any local retail store”. Impressive.

Inside, Currys had three scanners – a Canon LiDE 100 for £69.99, a Canon LiDE 200 for £89.99 and a Canon CanoScan 5600F for £149.99. Thinking those prices were on the high side, I went into Comet to see what they had. Nothing. Some laptops, some printers, but no scanners. Back to Currys.

At this point I decided to check Currys’ website because I knew their products were cheaper on there, so the plan was to go in and ask for one of those scanners for their online price – something that I’ve done before with positive results. After all, if a company is willing to beat its competitors in price then it should happily match its own website. I got my phone out and navigated to the Currys website where I found that the scanner that I was most interested in (the LiDE 200) was indeed on there for a reduced price – a full 25% off in fact at £68.28.

I approached a member of staff and asked if the store would match the price they had on their website for a scanner. The assistant said no, they don’t match websites. I pointed out that this was Currys’ own website, to which he enquired if I meant Dixons. No, I was talking about Currys. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to price-match his own website, so he went off to check. A few moments later he returned and said that no, he couldn’t price-match his own website. So much for their “price promise”.

I noticed that there was a “Reserve and Collect” facility on the website, which upon closer inspection allowed me to reserve an item online for local store pick-up. I hit the button, selected the store at which I wanted to reserve my item (no prizes for guessing which store I selected), entered my name and email address and then went to the till where my reservation was already printing out. With the ink on my reservation still wet, the assistant asked a colleague to fetch the scanner for me. I paid the £68.28 (I know it’s available cheaper still online, but I really needed it today), got my receipt and walked out.

This was the most bizarre case of red tape that I’d ever experienced when making any kind of purchase. Were it not for the mobile internet exposing this blatant case of double standards, I might actually have been forced to pay £89.99 for a scanner just so that I could take it away today. Thanks to this technology however, I saved myself 25% without even leaving the store.

I contacted Currys about this and referred them to this blog post and asked them for their opinion. They made no comment.