Ross Goodman

What A Week !

Ross (Admin) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:31:26 +0000

It has been a very busy/eventfull week this week!

Monday – Radio Scotland

The excellent Radio Scotland program Get It On is a theme based program where you can suggest songs that match the theme. On Monday, not only did Brian Burnett play a song for me, the whole program was based around a theme that I had suggested: Happy Then Sad.
Then, to top it all off, my song suggestion on his blog prompted some great donations to my fundraising page http://www.JustGiving.com/26Miles4CHAS for CHAS – Childrens Hospice Association Scotland.
A HUGE thank you to Bryan and all the listeners !

Tuesday – Instant Karma

I managed to finish work a little early on Tuesday so I headed home to avoid the usual M8 congestion.
I pulled off at Junction 5 – Harthill to phone home. Pulling into a little side street to use the phone safely, I realised too late that the road was thick with ice and muddy puddles and I got stuck fast.
A HUGE thank you to the kind gentleman who took the time to help me get my free.
Less than one minute after freeing my car and continuing my journey, a car was coming towards me with flames coming from under and around his engine compartment. I managed to flag him down, he had not realised that his car was on fire.
Neither of us had a fire extinguisher! As I had just been stuck I had my shovel handy. A few shovelfulls of snow and the fire was out.
I dread to think what the consequences would have been if my altered journey times and kind samaritan had not happend just as it did.

Thursday – Winner !

Since restarting my jogging at the start of the year I have been a huge fan of the ParkRun concept, a weekly free 5k timed run, especially my local Glasgow ParkRun in Pollok Park.
I found out on Thursday that I had been selected as February’s SweatShop monthly prize winner. SweatShop are one of the fantastic sponsors of ParkRun that help make this fantastic free event possible!
The weird thing was, on Monday I was considering buying a new pair of running shoes so that I could get them broken in in time for the Edinburgh Marathon on 23rd May!
Karma strikes again!

Friday – Bandwidth Issues

Walking to work on Friday morning I got an E-Mail on my Blackberry from PlusNet, my ISP and website host.
Due to my website using considerably more than my allowed bandwidth my website had been taken down.
I had no idea as to why this was, I expected a spike on Monday following the publicity on Radio Scotland but had no idea why the spike happened on Thursday or Friday.
It turns out that Real Radio were running their Bring £1 To Work Day campaign. Part of this included them spending the day at Rachel and Robin House and soing a broadcast from there.
Some intrepid Googling turned up an mp3 that I had on this site of when Emma went to Real Radio with her friends from Rachel House. I have removed the file from my site and this is what casued the bandwidth problems. If you would like a copy, email me and I’ll find an alternative file host.

Get It On With Bryan Burnett – Radio Scotland

Ross (Admin) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:38:15 +0000

WOW! What a way to start the week!
Bryan chose my suggestion from Friday to be the theme for tonight’s show.
Then to top it off he even played my suggestion.

A fantastic show (as always)

I’m a happy man!
http://www.JustGiving.com/26Miles4CHAS

Dell Tech Support – Must Read The Script

Ross (Admin) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:01:46 +0000

Dell: Can I confirm that your laptop has been collected.
Me: Which one, I have had two collected in the last week.
Dell: The one that needs the repair to the palm rest and screen.
Me: Yes that was collected last week, a day later than was arranged.
Dell: OK, Thank You.
Me: Can you confirm the status of the repair?
Dell: Yes we received the laptop last week and are waiting on the replacement parts.

I’m glad to see that the Dell quality processes have finally kicked in and they are confirming that they are actually repairing the laptop that they have collected and that they have not mistaken my laptop with someone else’s that has the same service tag and the same fault.

Update

The laptop was returned all fixed today !

Dell Support Woes Again

Ross (Admin) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:53:23 +0000

As you will have read here I previously owned a Dell Inspiron Mini 10 (1011) and had a host of issues that resulted in the laptop being returned for a full refund.
I really liked my Dell Mini 10 so I thought I would give them another go.
I ordered another Dell Mini 10 from the Dell UK Outlet.

Once Bitten…

Things looked good, they now have the laptop with Windows 7, the last one was XP, they had lots in stock and the laptop was delivered in under a week, great service as usual.
Unpacking the laptop the alarm bells started to ring.

The supplied manuals were not in English.
The power adaptor was NOT a UK three pin plug
The keyboard was a US keyboard rather than the UK layout

Not a problem, I’ll just give Dell a call and get this resolved…
The Dell answer machine confirmed that on a Saturday they are only open from 9am to 5pm, unfortunately I was calling them at 11:30am – why was I getting the answer machine?
Never mind, I’ll use the website and record my problem there. The web site recorded all my details, including my e-mail address. I sat back and waited for the standard template e-mail telling me how important my e-mail was and that it would be dealt with promptly on Monday morning. No confirmation e-mail arrived.
Come Monday afternoon (sarcasm)I’m at a loose end(/sarcasm) and I decide to call Dell to confirm that they received notification of my problem.
I get transferred from Technical Support to Customer Care. I cannot fault the agent I dealt with, he was clear, upfront and honest, but the outcome staggered me.
He confirmed that “We have recieved a LOT of complaints about Romanian units being shipped to the UK”.
My options were:

He sends me out a new power supply in the post, I don’t need to return my Romanian one.
He can arrange for the keyboard to be replaced but this may take a while, he knows of other cases where this has taken over two weeks.
He can arrange for my laptop to be completely replaced by a UK unit and I can keep my Romanian one until a UK one is sourced but he cannot confirm the timescales for this, it may even be months.

This seems fair at first but after some clarification.

If I accept a new power supply, I cannot then have the keyboard replaced.
If I wait until a new keyboard is available, he cannot send out a new power supply before that (rendering my laptop unusable)
If I accept a replacement unit, again a power supply cannot be shipped to cover the indeterminate period

I decided to take option four and go for a complete refund.
The galling thing is I have an agent that claims that there are no UK spec Inspiron Mini 10s in stock and no sight as to when one will be available. (177 inspiron mini 1011 laptops are listed on the web site at the moment)
In the meantime http://twitter.com/DELLOUTLETUK are proudly proclaiming that there is loads of stock and they are even giving money off!
Are they giving money off as they know that these are non UK spec laptops?
To make matters worse the call lasts an hour, yes sixty minutes !

PS
My wife’s mini 10 has a bent palmrest which has scratched the screen, this is being collected for repair “sometime this week or next, will someone be in between 9 and 5?”

In Summary

The two laptops I bought for the kids have been fine!
The laptop I bought for my wife has been rebuilt incorrectly, damaging the screen.
My first laptop was not registered to me, had a hard disk swapped and Windows reinstalled, motherboard replaced and two (incorrect spec) LCD screens sent out before I opted for a refund.
My second laptop is non UK spec with an incorrect keyboard, no power supply and no firm date for a resolution.
Should I buy another Dell?
Discuss!

Running Edinburgh Marathon For CHAS

Ross (Admin) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:51:40 +0000

On 7th September 2008 my daughter Emma Berry Goodman passed away from Motor Neurone Disease.

Last year I ran a half marathon and cycled across Scotland to raise funds for MND Scotland.

This year (before my 40th birthday) I will complete the Edinburgh Marathon on 23rd May 2010. I have also managed to elist the help of my two best friends Angus Denham and Paul Crawford.

The childrens hospice, Rachel House in Kinross was a favourite outing for Emma and she really looked forward to her time there. The staff and volunteers there go out of there way to bring a smile to everyone’s faces!

If you would like to show your support for the fantastic work done by CHAS please consider adding your donation on this page : http://www.justgiving.com/26Miles4CHAS

You can see some of the photos that I have taken at Rachel House in Kinross here.

How Annoying is the Microsoft At Home RSS Feed?

Ross (Admin) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:39:06 +0000

I’m using Microsoft Outlook 2007 and I think it’s a great piece of software.
It has a built in RSS feed reader. Typically I use Google Reader but as that can’t handle authenticated feeds I’m using Outlook for all of my work related Sharepoint feeds.
In order to introduce people to RSS, Microsoft have included two “standard” RSS feeds: “Microsoft At Home” and “Microsoft At Work”.
The only problem is, I’m not really interested in reading these feeds.

No matter how I deleted these items:

Deleting them from the RSS folder
Deleting them from Tools | Account Settings | RSS Feeds

Every time I restart Outlook the feeds are back !
Here is how my deleted items looks:

RSSFeeds In Deleted Items

Any thoughts on how I can make the RSS feeds go away and stay away?

Dell Tech Support Woes

Ross (Admin) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:24:09 +0000

I bought a Dell Inspiron Mini 10 in October directly from Dell via the Dell Outlet.
After the usual few days it took to get all the service packs and fixes etc onto it I noticed that the screen resolution was incorrect. The screen has a maximum physical resolution of 1024×600. The properties only listed 1024×768.
When you used the laptop you were missing the bottom 168 pixels worth of screen. The desktop did not scroll. It was still usable, press the start button on the keyboard and the menu appeared, you just couldn’t see the task bar.
If I used the screen magnifier and dragged the mouse off the bottom of the screen, the magnifier showed me the area off the bottom of the screen (the missing 168 pixels worth).

Taking matters into my own hands I un-installed and re-installed the Dell drivers, assuming that this would fix the problem.
It did not.
I contacted Dell technical support who refused to help me as my name was not listed against my system. I supplied my customer number, invoice number and sales reference an they confirmed that they had sold it to me but as my name had not been updated on the tech support system they could not help me.
After four weeks of phone calls http://twitter.com/stephenjatdell managed to get my details updated.

Unfortunately, in the meantime my laptop had started to work as expected. This made me uneasy as I had not done anything to fix it so I knew that it could “break” again with no warning.
Between Christmas and New Year, the original fault returned.
This time tech support would speak to me. We ran a diagnostic and the only error reported was “multi format card reader error – device not ready” (I’m paraphrasing the error). I explained that I did not have an SD card in the slot and that’s probably why the error was displayed. The engineer insisted that this was actually a hard disk error and that was the cause of the incorrect display resolution.
An engineer was dispatched, who replaced the hard disk, re-installed windows and confirmed that the fault still existed.
The engineer also highlighted that as the boot screen and the bios screens were running at the wrong resolution there was no way that it could be a hard disk, Windows or drivers issue.

He diagnosed the fault as a faulty graphics card, which is built into the motherboard.
A replacement was ordered.
The motherboard was replaced and the fault persisted.

The only component left (apart from the case) that had not been swapped was the LCD screen.
A replacement was ordered.
To replace a screen the laptop has to be completely dismantled, motherboard and everything must be removed.
Once in bits it was found that the wrong screen had been sent out.
The mountings on the hinges were completely different and the wiring was different.
A different LCD was ordered.

Again, the LCD screen was of the wrong spec and did not fit.
The response now was to return the unit to Dell for a repair.
I declined the offer and arranged for a full refund.

The laptop was scheduled to be collected that Friday and my refund would be processed within 5 working days.
The laptop was not collected on the specified day.

The laptop was scheduled to be collected the following Friday and my refund would be processed within 5 working days.
The laptop was not collected on the specified day.

The next time I called Dell they claimed that the reason my unit had not been collected was because they did not think I owned it!
Apparently this has now been resolved and the laptop will be collected tomorrow.

Only a day later than claimed on Wednesday 27th January at about 16:30 my laptop was collected by the couriers for returnin to Dell.

Watch this space.

Play.com – Stock Issues

Ross (Admin) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:54:47 +0000

I ordered a DVD for my wife for Christmas in December. I have used Play before and have never had any issues.
This time, the DVD did not arrive.
I had to wait 21 days before I could claim a replacement.
Cue no DVD for my better half !
After 21 days, without any quibbles Play agreed to ship a replacement.
Unfortunately, the DVD was not out of stock. I received an e-mail on 7th January to inform me of this.
To date I have still not received the DVD.

Today I called them up.
Them – We sent you an e-mail telling you that it was out of stock.
Me – But it’s in stock.
Them – If it was in stock we would have sent it to you, its out of stock.
Me – If you look at the Play.com website it says it’s in stock.
Them – Errrm, would you like a refund?
Me – No I’d like the DVD please.
Them – We’ll send you an e-mail when it’s in stock.
Me – But it’s in stock ……….

Back To Blogging ?

Ross (Admin) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:40:37 +0000

photo credit: estherase
The recent fund-raising that I have been doing for MND Scotland seems to have taken a lot of time but more so energy to complete.
Hopefully, I will start to update my blog more often.

To that end, I have had a look through some themes and given the blog a quick makeover. I have removed some of the plugins that were not being used, hopefully that will speed up the site somewhat.
I have also replaced a few, I have switched to using TwitterTools so hopefully Any new blog entries will be automatically Tweeted.
I have also had to fiddle around with my categories to get them to fit properly as a “menu” at the top of this theme.

PlusNet Hosting “Issues”

Ross (Admin) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:15:10 +0000

I’m having some issues with the hosting of this site.
Until it is rectified I have changed the theme to something that is a bit simpler to read.