Manx Telecom Customer Service - Why Bother?

The old broadband whinge, it's coming back again. I see that Manx Telecom are upgrading the network to ADSL2, those in the south of the Island already have it and the roll out will cover Peel, Ramsey etc soon enough.

Me? Oh no I'm still on a connection that is under 2 meg, certainly not the 6 my brother who lives in the middle of nowhere (aren't remote ISAMs great?) gets or for that matter the 7-8 meg that most of my friends get. Still pay the same though.

It's not like I live out in the sticks either, Douglas post code, Douglas rates, we live in Douglas. I'd prefer not to but that’s a different rant. Even worse we probably live in one of the most densely populated parts of Douglas and yet our broadband service is utter shit. I've contacted Manx Telecom loads of times about this and I know for a fact lots of other people around here have to. This isn't my whinge, it's a whinge from a lot of people living in a built up area, in the capital, that believe their broadband speed should be equivalent to the rest of the island. It's always the same answer from Manx Telecom, nothing they can do (they can't justify putting in a remote ISAM, even though it would service the needs of far more people than the current remotes). But I suppose we should just be grateful to have some sort of working broadband, tough shit that you're paying the best part of £30 a month for crap all.

When the new ADSL2 finally hits Douglas (we will be last, we're always last) mine will top out at about 3.5 meg. Awesome. I'll still be paying the same as the rest of the island though the majority of which are averaging between 10 and 12 meg. So please Manx Telecom you monopolising bastards, would it not make sense to provide some level of reasonable service to ALL your customers before splashing the money on upgrading those that currently get the most anyway?

Venda On The Isle of Man - A Rant

I was going to sign up and post this over at Manx Forums but I figure what the hell, why waste good content on a website I don't own? (It's the little details that make the difference between a successful website and one with no traffic ;))

It seems that sarcasm is well above some people and that this little post was taken literally. I thought the give away would have been the suggestion that a bunch of Manx retailers group together to take on Amazon. Nobody see the sarcasm in that? I guess not because my little rantings and ravings have somehow been taken very seriously and been presented in a way to defend the whole Venda situation.

So just to clear things up for those that are not technically minded here's some straight forward opinion about the whole Venda on the Isle of Man situation.

What is Venda? It's a hosted service that lets you easily build shopping websites. Each website is hosted by Venda and for this you pay them money. Simple as that.

Is Venda unique? Absolutely not. There are literally hundreds of competitors for what Venda offers. Some hosted, some you can install on your own server. Some cost money but many are free. AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED VENDA HAVE NO USP.

Could local IT suppliers offer what Venda offers? There is no need for them to. Web applications are easy peasy to program, any developer worth his salt could knock out a shopping based CMS but why bother? Why re-invent the wheel when there are so many free or cheap (globally recognised and top of their game) systems out there that can easily be altered to suit any retailers requirements. Plug this into a rich content website and you stand a chance. Every Manx web company can or should be able to easily do this.

Will Venda make Manx retailers more money? I doubt it. Having a website that creates a profit requires so much much than just chucking a shopping site on the web. The retailers will need the support of experts in the field of internet marketing to stand any chance online. In that regard Venda is simply an added expense with no ROI. Hosting doesn't cost £50 a month.

Was I impressed with what I saw in the backend of Venda? Not really. The only bit I liked was the template wizard, but they are 10 a penny these days anyway. The most alarming side was the complete lack of integration in the stock management side. Retailers will sign up on the promise of the all-in-one hands off Venda solution and end up spending hours dicking around with spreadsheets. The presentation I witnessed made a strong point of emphasising the SEO benefits of Venda and yet when I searched for the clients website they were using as an example using some popular target phrases they were nowhere to be found. Submitting a sitemap doesn't cut it I'm afraid.

Could this be done better? Absolutely. I have no invested interest in this at all. I'd certainly not be bidding on the work, screw that. But there is a chance here to create an optimised, working community of websites for small retailers on the Isle of Man. It could be done with a fraction of the money the DTI are about to give Venda. Use the money and give it to local IT companies so that the retailers can have their websites not only setup but also marketed and managed for them. Any IT companies not up to the task or any retailers whose products aren't a success online get pulled. Not all websites are profitable - fact. Use the resources of the Isle of Man, use various web developers, various hosting companies (with different IP's, not all stuck under Venda) and knit it altogether in an online community that leverages the links and traffic in the best possible way. This is how networks of related websites naturally grow on the web and this is what is needed to ensure traffic for the retailer’s shops.

So does that clear things up? I see Venda as nothing but a huge waste of money brought on by a clever sales pitch and the usual government consultants throwing opinions around on things that they don't have the first bloody clue about. Also see the need to upgrade to Vista and the cutting edge accounting system sold on the basis that "it works like Excel" as further examples. The end.

Perspective

I can't really remember us losing our own home and moving into a council house, I was too young.

I can remember us buying the second hand Talbot Sunbeam, I think it cost £900. I certainly remember the sacrifices that had to be made to afford it.

I can remember the regular visits by the catalogue person, just about everything we owned was paid for on the drip from the catalogue.

I remember our first and only family holiday. A week in the Butlins park at Pwllheli, Wales.

I remember my dad holding down 3 jobs, us hardly seeing him except when on his 9 days and I suppose what it eventually did to my mum and dad.

I remember the guilt of going away with the school when I was 11 and just how much it cost.

I can remember my dad’s dream of owning a "decent" boat. By decent I think he meant one with a cabin. The excitement when the bank said he could borrow the money, all £1500 of it. It was paid back at £80 a month if I remember correctly.

I remember the company I worked for going tits up a matter of months before I was due to get married. Of being out of work without a penny to my name and if truth be told – without a care in the world deep in the belief that it would sort itself out.

As I sit here now in front of 5 grand’s plus worth of computer equipment, in the house my wife and I own where I work, creating content for my own business where I choose what hours I do and don't want to work, I feel like a right selfish prick. Why? Because the only thing in life I've got to worry about is the fact I know my reserves are going to dip below 12 months of salary in the next few months - and it's giving me sleepless nights. I was brought up during the eighties when nobody really had much, but I can never remember my mum and dad having sleepless nights or freak outs over money. Note to self - get a fucking grip fella.

Great White Shark vs Killer Whale, Who Would Win In A Fight?

When not pondering what makes the world go around these are the things I like to occupy my mind with. You can't beat a good old animal fight.

In the red corner we have the Great White shark. As far as sharks with teeth go it's a true heavyweight but when you compare it to the Killer Whale it's probably more a super-middle. Full of teeth and aggression, grrrrrrrrrr!!! In the blue corner we have the somewhat girly looking and placid Killer Whale. It's only when you go further than skin deep though that the real potential winner in this fight shows up. In terms of speed, power, agility and probably most importantly intelligence the Killer Whale has it hands down. The only possible doubt in this fight being the Killer Whale’s nature, or what we perceive to be its nature. You know it's not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog and all that? Still if I was a betting man I'd put my fiver on the Killer Whale every time. This video backs that up:-



This whale is known as CA2, not much of a name but you obviously do not try and steal her chips cheese and gravy! And we thought cows were dangerous.

How Wrong Was I About Venda?!

Having seen the guts of the system - wow wee, she's a beauty! Does the lot, I'd definitely use it for my online store. Maybe the Manx retailers could group together and by the power of Venda challenge Amazon for that number 1 e-tailer spot, I reckon it could happen.

When Governments Go Wrong

What's £300,000 between friends? I suppose when it comes to government spending it's bugger all, especially on the IOM. That's the amount the DTI are willing to spend of our money on providing local retailers with a web presence. They've gone with an off-island supplier so in a creative double whammy not only are they chucking 300 grand of tax payers money off island but are also taking away business from the local website designers at a time when they need the business most. I'm not a website designer by the way, I don't do clients - well except the very privileged :)

What really really fucks me off about this more than anything else though is who made the decision to go with Venda? What qualifications do they have to justify making an educated decision on an ecommerce supplier? I'm going to talk about 1 aspect, the 1 I know best, SEO. Search Engine Optimisation, the Venda product has been sold to the IOM Government I'm guessing on the basis that is will provide excellent search engine visibility to the local retailers. My entire living is based on search engine traffic, if my websites don't get traffic then I don't make a penny. The mortgage doesn't get paid, food doesn't get bought etc etc It's an ass twitching industry. I guess that makes me qualified to at least have an opinion?

My opinion on Venda for SEO, it's shit. The first alarm bell is something that takes 5 seconds to figure out. Do a Google search for "ecommerce solution" (their primary keyword target) how far do you have to go down the results until you find Venda? I gave up at page 7. IF they can't rank their own website then they sure as hell can't guarantee great search exposure for the retailers. Maybe I'm wrong though? The next thing to do is to have a look at their existing clients - I'll pick 2 at random, Superdrug and Arsenal Football Club.

This is really basic stuff for anybody sourcing a website supplier, lets have a look at the source for the web pages created by Venda for these big name clients. I know that 85% of search ranking will be dependent on the link profile of the websites but if the on-the-page stuff isn't correct then no amount of links will compensate. Any CMS needs to create search friendly HTML in order to stand a chance. The search engines will punish or even at worse ignore shit. Venda was sold on the basis that it does SEO, let's see?

From extra white space characters in the title tag (enough to break some search robots), descriptions that are far too long, or too short, missing keyword values, duplicate keyword/description values. URL's that don't include the product name, instead using a product ID to the single biggest sin in on-the-page SEO - using the same description across the entire site. If you're not going to create a unique description for each page then don't include one at all! I've spent 5 minutes looking at this across their clients sites and I can say without a shadow of a doubt, they are dishing out some of the most search unfriendly websites that I've seen from any CMS. And we're going to give them £300,000 for this?! If their clients rank it's only because of their branding and the natural links that it attracts. Manx retailers will not enjoy that branding power.

If they've bullshitted on 1 aspect of their sales pitch then what about the others? They may be big, they may be well known, they are also very over priced for what they do and just love public sector money. Local retailers are going to sign up for this (subsidised by you and me) and expect to find their products online through the search engines, it's not going to happen. Don't believe me? Do a Google search for Arsenal shirt (that's gotta be the most popular term in terms of traffic for the Arsenal store?) and see where the official Arsenal store powered by Venda appears?

In 6 months time it's going to be another 300 grand down the drain and nobody ever mentions it ever again. So who made the decision, and how were they qualified to make it? More importantly why didn't they ask me, I would have at least gave them an idea of what they should be looking for, for free.

Super League: Super Fans

I’ve just spent the weekend @ the Super League Road show event: Murrayfield Magic in Edinburgh and what a fabulous weekend it was. All 14 Super League teams play over the 2 days, so from £12.50 you get to see 7 matches.

The atmosphere was brilliant with loads of people in fancy dress and having a laugh and of course a few beers. It was great to see 14 different sets of supports all mingling and joking about each other’s teams. Then when the matches started they would all run back to the stands, often sitting next to each cheers cheering and booing side by side. Then back to the beer tent to top up on alcohol and rib each other about the match.

It just felt good to be a Rugby Supporter.

Could you imagine if the Premiership did something similar? They would need a separate beer tent for each set of supporters and lines and lines of police between each group. On the whole weekend in Edinburgh I saw TWO coppers, laughing and joking with the crowd…. That is all. Two coppers to police 60,000 supporters….

I love Rugby….

Swine Flu (What Recession?)

This is starting to get on my tits now. Flu kills a percentage of people that get it, fact. That percentage has and will always be higher in third world back waters like Mexico. Here are the symptoms of Swine Flu (from the BBC):-

"Swine flu symptoms are similar to those produced by ordinary seasonal flu - fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, chills and fatigue"

No limbs dropping off, no spewing blood, no eyes seeping black pus? IT'S JUST PLAIN OLD NORMAL FUCKING FLU! Only a tiny percentage get seriously ill from it, even fewer drop dead. Chances are we will all get it at one point or another, thanks to modern living standards a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage will die. Some people will probably die in the UK from it, then again some people died from flu last year, and the year before. The media are cunts.

But in the mean time we can all panic about something new and completely forget that the elected fuck wits of the world have fucked us over and plummeted us into financial meltdown.

People in third world countries need to worry about Swine Flu, the rest of us have got other things to worry about.

The Joy of Self Employment

There is one thing that I couldn’t live without – and therefore why I wouldn’t consider working for “the man”.

Singing. I love singing.

Currently, I’m bellowing out Star People (George Michael). And I mean bellowing. Not like that half-hearted mumbling I did at my last job (sorry to all the staff there).

Closely followed by:
Michael Buble – It had better be tonight
Take That – Shine
Bobby Darin - Mac the Knife
Etc.

In fact, I have an actual Playlist called “Singers” which contains all the songs I THINK I can sing. And who cares if I can’t. I’m in a converted attic in a Victorian house with 3 foot thick walls and all the neighbours are out, working for “the man”.

I think I’ll add REM – Losing My Religion – I bet I can sing that.

M.

p.s. Praying for Time – another Georgie Michael tunette just started! I might have to stand up for this one. And then I'm gonna put some clothes on.

UK Budget - An Advert For The Isle of Man

As anybody who knows me will tell you, I'm no huge fan of the Isle of Man, well that's not fair exactly, it's not the island as a whole that I don't like, rather just the moronic imbreds that have positioned themselves in power via the old boys club. Anyhoo, it's not like me to big up the place but having just watched the UK budget I feel like I've got to do my part.

If You Earn More Than £150,000 A Year You Must Move To The Isle of Man!

I'm being serious. The UK budget sees a 50% tax being levied on those that earn more than £150k a year, can you believe that? Before you even get started with NI or VAT (or simply just plain old living) you get to hand over half of your wages to the tax man. Fuck that. That's knocking on the door of communism.

I'm in the lucky position of working for myself so I have some understating of what it takes to start a business from the ground up. I'm not in the UK and I certainly don't earn more than £150k a year so I'm not being biased here. It takes a shit load of work, commitment and sacrifice. Behind every successful business there is a story - usually involving struggle. Labour have decided to ignore that. They have worked on the assumption that everybody earning over 150 grand a year is unworthy of it and should have it taken from them immediately. What about the people who have spent 8 years studying law? Those that have spent 12 years training as surgeons? You fuck them and the entrepreneurs, business owners, risk takers over in order to make life better (the truth as they shall will be in the pudding of this) for the people happy enough to plod along in life. The western capitalist world is based on a notion of risk and reward, sure it can get out of hand but it is based on the idea of free will, we all set our own levels of risk that we are willing to accept. To punish those that succeed (and at the same time bring about the opportunities for those that prefer the easy life) is fucking stupidity of the highest order.

What incentive is there to run a business in the UK? What incentive is there to push yourself harder, to work harder for that pay rise? £150k a year is not a ridiculous amount to earn, not when you consider that any old shit for brains with a GCSE C in English can easily earn £30k plus in the Civil Service. The majority of the people earning big bucks in the private sector have earnt it, they bring value, if they didn't they soon get let go. Of course there is the odd piss taker, the recent economic crisis has taught us that, but they are the con men, the dirty salesmen, they are the minority not the majority of high earners.

So this is why I'd suggest anybody running a business or earning more than £150,000 seriously consider relocating to the Isle of Man. Besides the superb quality of life we enjoy our upper personal tax rate is 18%, not 50%, 18%. On top of this there is a tax cap of £100,000 in place meaning that you will not pay more than £100,000 in personal income tax. Just think of the savings for a minute. I'm not going to go into the various advantages of running your business here, that's perhaps a post for somebody from the DTI to make.

The Isle of Man government has tried to attract exactly the sort of people that the UK seems determined to punish for a while now with not much success. This budget may well provide the Isle of Man with the influx of creative, intelligent businessmen and women which it craves.

Twazmuppet

And so what is a twazmuppet? Glad you asked! First, you take a large banking corporation (such as the Royal Bank of Scotland), then, with cutting edge idealism that you learnt in your youth (the 50's were such a good era), burden said corporation with ridiculous loss-making purchases (don't worry - accountants count debt as a good thing! All those creditors look good on the balance sheet) and gather amongst yourselves a droneful of yes-men to your board and switch to smug-mode as the economy soars!

Whatever you do - jump ship before any economic wobble - or else a plummet in share price will follow and you'll look a right twazmuppet. But don't worry - with the right exit strategy you'll land yourself a sweet, sweet pension deal and probably some sort of golden parachute leaving bonus.

Good News For The Isle of Man

Woo hoo, we are a white tax haven! Maybe to mark this we should rename the Isle of Man the Isle of Wh.... oh hang on a minute.

Here's my uneducated take on things. We managed to avoid a OECD tax haven black list that ONLY has 4 countries on it, Costa Rica, Malaysia, the Phillipines and Uruguay. Notice that none of them seem to have any real connections with the major world players? I wonder what you have to do to get on that list?! hmm

Everybody else has been bunged into 2 lists, a white list and a grey list. The Isle of Man is in the whitelist so what does that mean for us? Actually bugger all, there is no reward for being white instead of grey. We do not get a Brucie Bonus. The only difference is that we have implemented some stuff for information sharing instead of "committing" too. We have been very busy running around kissing asses. So if you're a wealthy ex-pat looking for somewhere to LEGALLY put your money you have a choice between the Isle of Man (who will squuueeeaaalll your details at first asking) or a nice "grey" tax haven that is treated the same as the Isle of Man but won't be so obliged to share your details with every Tom, Dick and Harry that asks. Now where would you put your money?

I reckon this bit of free marketing is going to do wonders for Costa Rica, Malaysia, the Phillipines and Uruguay (cos there will always be a black market). The countries on the grey list will probably do OK out of it as well. The tax havens on the white list - not really much of an incentive to use them now is there?

Best April Fool So Far

Has to be some sour faced bint by the name of the Badger on GMTV preaching to the new hoard of recently scrapped dole-ites. Her top tip:-

If you want your CV to stand out from the crowd, use coloured paper!

Genius I tell ya!

I also have some tips to add to Ruth's expertise:-

1. Use a different font for every line of your CV
2. Headers need to be BIG, anything over 80pt preferably
3. If after all the above your CV still doesn't stand out enough for your liking consider drawing small shapes like stars, butterflies and houses in the corners (and trees, everybody loves trees)

Un-Fucking Believable

A pay rise is not your right, you should ONLY get extra pay for WORKING HARDER.

Private Sector - Unemployment Up

Public Sector - Pay Up

But is was a 3 year deal? Fuck that, when a "fixed" deal goes against the employee's side all hell breaks lose in order to have some work around sorted out to give them more. The employer's side (that is supposed to represent tax payers) will just pay up without a grumble. That deal can now be quoted by every other public sector group in pay negotiations - public sector pay just goes up and up whilst the mugs paying for it scramble around shitting their knickers over just keeping their job.

In other related news a private care home in Peel have told staff that their hours are being cut, it's either that or some staff are let go. When will the dickheads in charge of running this island come down from their ever so high fucking high horses and take a little look-see in to the real world?

All Aboard The Gravy Train

The Four Cats


Four men were bragging about how smart their cats were.

The first man was an Engineer,

The second man was an Accountant,

The third man was a Chemist, and

The fourth man was a Government Employee.

To show off, the Engineer called his cat, "T-square, do your stuff."


T-square pranced over to the desk, took out some paper and pen and promptly drew a circle, a square, and a triangle.

Everyone agreed that was pretty smart.



But the Accountant said his cat could do better. He called his cat and said,

"Spreadsheet, do your stuff."


Spreadsheet went out to the kitchen and returned with a dozen cookies. He divided them into 4 equal piles of 3 cookies.



Everyone agreed that was good.



But the Chemist said his cat could do better. He called his cat and said, "Measure, do your stuff."


Measure got up, walked to the fridge, took out a quart of milk, got a 10 ounce glass from the cupboard and poured exactly 8 ounces without spilling a drop into the glass.


Everyone agreed that was pretty good.



Then the three men turned to the Government Employee and said, "What can your cat do?"



The Government Employee called his cat and said, "CoffeeBreak, do your stuff."



CoffeeBreak jumped to his feet.......







Ate the cookies........



Drank the milk.......


Sh*t on the paper.......






Screwed the other three cats.......


Claimed he injured his back while doing so.......



Filed a grievance report for unsafe working conditions.......



Put in for Workers Compensation...............and



Went home for the rest of the day on sick leave............






AND THAT, MY FRIEND IS WHY EVERYONE WANTS TO WORK FOR THE GOVERNMENT!!

As _____ As A Witches Tit

It's something my dad used to say but I can't remember what the hell the blank was, any ideas? What exactly could a witches tit be?

Why Do We Put Up With Our Banks?

There are 2 things that can really piss me off, 1 is being treated like a dip shit, the other is being lied to because you think I'm a dip shit.

Mrs B has had a problem with her bank account lately, it's a long story but the short version is it got blocked for security reasons. The first part her fault for not remembering her memorable words (doh!) the second part not her fault because the muppet in the call centre blocked the account after only 2 security questions 1 of which shouldn't have been asked. Then to make thing worse when she went in a month ago to get the info she was originally after they assured her the account was unblocked. Yesterday it turns out they lied.

So I decided to go with her to the bank today and get it sorted out, morale support. I was quite happy to let Mrs B do the talking and sit their quietly, right up to the point where the highly trained personal banker came out with the old "it's for your own good" spiel. I've worked in enough banks to know that it's fairly standard that no matter what the circumstances under which an account is blocked you must always tell the customer that it's for their own good. In this case it wasn't for Mrs B's own good at all.

Thinking enough was enough I decided to chip in. Mrs B had been very humble in explaining what had gone on and was just looking for an explanation on why the account was blocked without having been asked the 3 security questions and why wasn't the account unblocked when they said it was. It had caused a lot of inconvenience. Personal banker had got very defensive with a pinch of patronisation thrown in for good measure. So I asked about the second security question Mrs B had been asked. It was about the last transaction on our joint account. That's an impossible question to answer cos there's no way you can know what the other signatories on an account have done today/yesterday. You might as well ask when was the last time your partner farted? They are supposed to ask about the last transactions YOU did. Big difference. They are trying to identify you. Personal banker would not have it, defended the banks stance that they can ask whatever they like about any account they like for a security question. What she was actually doing was lying. Treating us as stupid people and fobbing us of with lies. I wouldn't leave it and eventually after much goading she slipped, only to back track as quickly. So I picked on the fact that Mrs B wasn't asked 3 security questions. She lied again. They can block an account anytime they like, they say it will only happen after 3 questions but they can do whenever they like. That's not right,it shouldn't happen - I just phoned the call centre to confirm that's not their policy, nor is saying you unblocked an account when you haven't.

Why lie about this shit? It's partly Mrs B's fault for forgetting stuff, fair enough, but it's also the banks fault for not going through with their own security procedures. Somebody deviated from the script and mistakenly asked an impossible security question and then blocked an account when they shouldn't have. The call centre monkey screwed up, that's all. It caused inconvenience to a customer. All you need to do is apologise on behalf of your colleague, unblock the account and the jobs a good un. Why start trying to defend a mistake by acting like a big shot and lying? It's about time that personal bankers were taught to think for themselves and have the stock answers taken away. A tiny bit of humbleness and customer service ability would have gone a long way in sorting this out. You'd think with all the crap going on in banking at the moment that customer service would be seen as being quite important?

When I was a wage slave there were tonnes of times where I've had to apologise for somebody else's mistakes, it's just part of working for big companies. Don't know what it is with UK banks and a lot of their staff but they seem incapable of grasping it. In my overly long and not remotely illustrious finance career I'd worked in enough banks and dealt with them day in and day out to know the score. It was always the UK banks that had problems with bullshit. I used to dread phoning them, I still hate dealing with them today. It's why the first thing I do with a new bank account is setup Internet banking. What is it with the lies and bullshit people?

Never Buy Somebody Game Vouchers

Game, as if anybody needed any more of an excuse to hate the Game chain then I've just found one. Whatever you do never suggest that somebody gets you Game gift vouchers as a present, they're a total pain in the hole to try and spend.

First things first there is the problem of knowing how much you have to spend, it's a swipe card type thing and nobody ever thinks to write the amount they've put on it for you. There isn't anywhere you can check online either so the only option is to go in store, either buy a game and take a chance or stand in the queue to find out. Then when you find out you've got enough to buy a game there's the problems of finding a game from the limited local selection and then justifying to yourself spending way over the odds. I've found the prices in Game shops to be 10%-20% more than what you can find online at places like Amazon.co.uk and Play.com At times when the online retailers are having specials you can save up to 60%. It fucking guiles me to my core to not be paying the best price.

Secondly and more importantly there is the stupid rule that you can't use your Game gift vouchers online. What the hell is that about? Because Game online do happen to have some decent discounts from time to time and being able to use your vouchers to buy these might just about make them worth having. You've obviously got the option online of being able to search for a game you want as well. It's a lot easier than shifting through piles of stacked on top of each other boxes. It's not even like they bother to put them in any sort of order in the shops to help you either. By not making Game vouchers usable online they've made them more trouble than they're worth.

I'm not going to buy any "shop local" shit here either. For a start it's a national chain, we don't even get the VAT from it, then there's the over pricing, then there's the not being able to get through the door without getting hassled by staff and finally there are the dickheads that do shop in there who can easily spend half an hour returning games to fund their next purchase. Game, it's shit.

4 Out Of 5 Schools On The Rock Are Really Good...

...obvious then that we end up in the other one. I ask you what are the odds? (Yeah okay, 5-1)

The Day You Lose All Your Family Photos

It was bound to happen sooner or later, old hard drive in old PC containing 10 years worth of photographs. Of course I'd done the sensible thing and had them backed up, loads of times in fact, spread across god knows how many DVDs over the years. It's just a case of putting them into some sort of order and recovering them I suppose...

Or maybe not, a little while back I was looking into online backup as part of work (work from home) and came across a company (Mozy, same name as my best man) offering 2 gigs of free storage for "personal" use. That was more than enough for all our pictures so over the shiteness that is the MT upload limit (256k) I spent the best part of a day uploading the lot. It was worth it, cue instant (well shitty MT 2Mb) recovery onto the new NAS box.

There are times in life that I think I was born unlucky (how many people have a hard disk just stop altogether on them?) but if you look at it the other way how lucky was I to have backed the lot up only a couple of weeks ago? As an added bonus I can now go through and bin the shit loads of DVD's I've got lying around with god knows what on them.

Backing up, it's a pain in the ass right up until the day something goes wrong.