I hate Dell

I have only had to shout down the phone twice in my life. Once was in 2005’ish I believe. The other time was this week. Both times were to Dell, although the first time was to technical support and this time was to sales support. It’s somewhat encouraging to know that their sales support is as bad as their technical support. I assume their presales support is better otherwise they wouldn’t sell anything.

So here’s the story.

One of the perks of my life is hardware. I have one old client from my pre Blue Fountain days and every now and again they fit me up with a new laptop. Due to some confusion, the first order, placed on the 24th was rejected. On the 26th (having mulled some more and upgraded some of the specs (including lighting on the keyboard and bluetooth), I tried to place the order again rejected again.

Approximately three hours later I suggested I use a different one of their company credit cards and I’d put in all the details myself. I also made the delivery address the same as the invoice address which I know can cause issues otherwise. I also added a digital camera to the order. To my joy, about thirty minutes late I got an order confirmation. Hoorah. Or so I thought. The confirmation page doesn’t mention the original order number but if I’d looked at the specs on the PDF it would have told me that they had issued an order for a laptop, the first spec laptop. I would have also noticed that it had no camera with it.

But at 18:39 on the 26th I got a Dell order check. They gave me two internet receipt numbers. One for the first order I’d placed on the 24th and one for the last order that I actually wanted, placed a few hours earlier. Those clever Dell people. They’d realised the issue and were asking me to confirm which one I wanted. at 19:03 I replied that it was ONLY the last order I wanted. And I felt happy with the world. Sad deluded fool I am.

At 21:31 on the 26th, I got another confirmation email. Odd – this was just for the camera. The order screen was still showing as the first order processing, the third order was for a camera only. The order screen for the laptop was showing the previous spec.

OK, I thought, I’ll ring Dell in the morning. Oh no you won’t matey. Once you’ve placed your orders Dell will not answer their phones apart from during working hours. Worrying. Still, I’d get it sorted Monday.

Sunday brought interesting news. My laptop was in production. Worrying. Even more worrying was another potential duplicate order message. This time the first order reference was for the second order I’d placed! The second order reference was a number I’ve never seen in my life and to this day I don’t know what it is. Entering it into the system gives me “We’re unable to give you an update at the moment”. I replied to this confirmation mail saying ‘DO NOT PROCESS ANYTHING, UNTIL i SPEAK TO YOU IN THE MORNING’.

The next day dawned and I prepared for the joy of customer support. Lady 1. Listened patiently and explained to me that the laptop was on the first order and the camera was on the second order. OK … but the first laptop is wrong – I replied to your confirmation mail which says I have three working days to reply. I replied in 30 minutes.

“Ah so sorry”, she says, but it is in production and can’t be stopped.

“Sorry? Can’t be stopped!? I replied in 30 minutes!”.

“So sorry sir.”

What should I be doing then.

“When it’s delivered you can return to us with an explanation and you can have your money refunded.”

Splutter. Er, you want to make a laptop – I don’t want. Send it to me. Let me send it back to you. Then you give me the money back. And then I order the right one again!? Did I get that right?

“Sorry sir, there’s nothing that can be done. “

Well yes – we can do something. We can refuse to take this ridiculous situation and tell them where to put their laptops. I am not sure how long I was on the phone but by the end of it I’d been promised her senior would be calling me to see what could be done. And I was exhausted. Having somebody just repeating to you something nonsensical regardless of what you said back was exhausting. I am told my voice was clear across the breadth and depth of the Liverpool office. 

Man 1 phoned me back. He helpfully explained that the order was too late to be cancelled and that there was nothing that could be done. Back to the order check email I went. No budging. Why did they then process PART of the third order? He didn’t know but there was nothing that could be done. I told him that a) I would reporting them to the credit card company b) I would not be accepting anything they tried to deliver to me  and c) I would then turn this over to the company solicitor.

This resulted in a 10% discount offer. Which threw me a bit off balance. But the fact remained. It wasn’t what I ordered, they’d asked me for a confirmation which they now claimed was pointless as it was too late AND they’d tampered with the third order. Somebody had seen that order, cut the laptop off it and just gone ahead with the digital camera. That was not automated. He even had the affront to tell me that I’d placed the third order for  camera only. I vented.

“I’m sorry sir, can you tell me what you actually want.”

“I want the items on the third order. That’s all I want. Nothing else. Nothing more. Nothing less.

“The third order was for a laptop as well sir!?”.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhh.

He said he’d talk to somebody and call me back.

After that call (Monday 29th, about 13:00), I realised that the prices had changed between the orders as well. I was being offered a discount but the revised order had only added a tenner to the total price, so the whole unit cost must have gone down. So it was a discount on the old price. No wonder they were so desperate to flog me the original laptop.

So I awaited the call back. And waited. Today, Tuesday 30th – I phoned Dell at 17:30. “The person you wish to speak to is not available at the moment, can I ask him to call you back?”. Yes, I replied calmly. That would be nice. He has not done so yet.

Watch this space.

Update 1. Tuesday 30th, 22:28 - They’ve changed the status screen for order 1 to ‘shipped’. Looks like I’ve been totally ignored so far. Will be making another call tomorrow morning unless they phone me first.

Update 2. Wednesday 1st July, 16:15 – The man I need to speak to is on another line. He will call back in 20 minutes. ‘Are you sure?’. Yes sir. No call back.

It's coming back!!

My machines

Hello. I’m not dead yet, although the current quantity of phlegm etc must suggest otherwise. As I can’t sleep and as I have just reinstalled one of my laptops AGAIN I thought I’d take the opportunity to offer some comparisons of the different machines I’m running and how they compare.

There are currently five machines I use daily. Three of them are portable (yes, I've been carrying them all backwards and forwards to the office) and two of them are desktops – one at home and one at the office. Here’s what they do and what they’re running:

Quad Core Custom PC (nickname, the beast)

I built this in March for approximately 700 quid. Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache Processor, Asus P5Q PRO P45 Socket 775 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard, 1TB Drive, 4GB of fast RAM, Nvidea 9800 GTX 512MB Video card. It’s got dual monitors connected to it.

This dual boots Vista 64 Bit and Ubuntu 9.04. It’s an excellent gaming PC although I have little time to play on it and actually use it mostly for just multiple terminal sessions ssh’d to client machines when working from home! Having said that, when (WHEN) I have some serious time, it’s awesome for developing on.

The config is also great for overclocking although on this particular machine I haven’t spent any time doing so. I’m planning on sticking Windows 7 64 Bit on here at some point in the not too near future as I do have some problems with the Vista install. On the whole though – it’s a great (and currently underutilised) machine.

Oh, the cooling fans give off a lovely blue glow as well ;)

MacBook Pro (nickname, mbp – yawn)

  As detailed here, this is my main machine. Awesome machine, dualboots between OS X and XP although 99% of the time is just spent in OS X. At work it’s dual monitor and handles all my web browsing, itunes, emacs, textmate, mail. Everything. Also has vmware on with Ubuntu and XP virtual machines when needed. A thing of beauty – if only the form factor was a little smaller.

Asus Aspire 2920 (nickname Bongo)

My second main machine in reality. This laptop is a little gem. Yes – it does look like a fisher price toy (especially when open) BUT it’s just a great machine for running VMWare workstation on (I had a 12 system Ubuntu VPN config simulated on it once). The keyboard is big enough to make typing easy (I’m typing on it now) but the whole form factor is great. 2GB of RAM and a Core Duo processor T5750.

Until yesterday it was dual booting XP and Ubuntu 9.04. Mostly used for XP and VMWare workstation, yesterday I wiped it and stuck Windows 7 on it. Yes, yes I know. But it runs like a DREAM. It’s far more responsive than either of the other two OS’s were on it (even installed from new), every driver worked from the beginning, hibernation/suspend JUST works, all the special function keys JUST WORK. I’m not a Microsoft fan by any means and Windows 7 is hardly a revolution but I’m impressed (it’s the main reason I’m typing this up).

Because of the size of this machine, it’s the main machine I just pick up when I need some portability (the MBP is just too big for that).

Samsung NC10 (nickname pig)

A new addition to the family.  Came with XP, now has CrunchBang Linux (Ubuntu based) installed as dual boot. I’ve been coveting one of these for a while as I’ve always wanted a NetBook with good keyboard and good battery life that can run Linux. Specifically for just undisturbed coding within Emacs. This little baby does it all. I love it – and I’m about to remove XP from it completely and make it CrunchBang only. The battery life on these is superb (6 hours) and CrunchBang is a great distribution to run on it. I must resist the temptation to put Windows 7 on here as well. Although, mmmm – it’s a nice thought.

Apple iMac G4 (nickname bob)

  The oldest computer I still use, the classic ‘tablelamp’ look still has something about it. 512MB of memory, PPC processor running at 1Ghz, 17” screen. I confess – I really only use this for terminal sessions, iTunes and more recently Spotify – but it’s a great little machine and for a complete audio pleb like me – I like the sound the little speakers give out.

 

Conclusion

So in conclusion I think I can safely say, I use far too many computers in my day to day life. Which reminds me of one other thing. I always find there are certain files I want on all five machines and keeping them in sync has always been a nightmare – UNTIL. Dropbox. Works fine on everything. You won’t know it’s there. Perfect.

Now god help me if Apple ever release a 12” MBP.

MacBook Pro

This is a little embarrassing.

You may remember this. Well, I now have one of the new model MacBook Pro's.

2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066Mz DDR3 SDRM-2x2GB
320GB Serial ATA @ 7200
SuperDrive 8X DL
Mini DisplayPort - DVI Adapter
N0 VGA Adapter
No Modem
No Remote
No iWork Preinstalled
No Final Cut Exp Preinstalled
No Aperture Preinstalled
No Logic Exp Preinstalled
KYBD/User's Guide -B
Country Kit-GBR

What happened to the old one? Well there was an ... er ... accident. It's going to be repaired and rerouted to somebody else. So I get a new MBP. Yes, I'm a lucky man.

It's really nice. The screen/audio/keyboard are better. It has the better graphics card. I went for the 7200 disk to eek some better performance out of it.

I've been on Vista for the last couple of weeks whilst this was sorted out. I can cope with Vista but it's good to be home.

Calvados Lamppost III

We have a cat.

For people who know us this may be a surprise. I love cats and Akemi doesn't. I also am/was allergic to cats. But we now have one. We had a holiday in Normandy in August and I noticed then I wasn't sneezing when playing with the landlady's cat. So far I've not sneezed once since Calvados came home (or even when I visited the cat home). Alisa loved playing with the cat in Normandy and as the other two are still a bit wary about animals we thought it was time to take the plunge. Hugo and Selina both seem very happy with the new arrival.

We found her through Mid Cheshire Animal Welfare. She's not a kitten - she's a beautiful young cat - between 1 and 2 years old. She's been with us since the end of August and is pretty settled down now.

Why the name? Calvados as that's the region we were staying. Lamppost as I always had a dream of getting some pure breed cat for showing and exhibiting them under the name of Lamppost. Calvados isn't pure breed but she still gets the name. And with a name like Calvados Lamppost, the III adds a little gravitas. She's known affectionally as Calvy. She'd been in the sanctuary since May so when I let her out for the first time in four months she went wild. Here she tackles a tree.

This cartoon wrote a sweary word on your toilet wall

I don't normally blog cartoons but this one made me pause for thought and laugh.

Django - Named URLS Gotcha

A post in two parts.

First of all - thanks to Magus on #django for pointing out one of my errors to me. I've been working through Practical Django Projects over the last couple of days and it talks about having named urls. Take a look at these three one liners:

# from urls.links.py 

    (r'^$', 'archive_index',link_info_dict, 'coltrane_link_archive_index'), 

# from urls.py

    (r'^weblog/links/', include('coltrane.urls.links')),

# In my template I get the url using 

  {% url coltrane_link_archive_index  %}

We give our view a name (coltrane_link_archive_index), then we call that view with urls.py so it's context will be /weblog/links - and then in our template we can just use the url tag to call that named url. If the url gets moved, your templates will still work - and of course it saves a lot of tedious typing. Great.

So working through the book, the blog application requires a lot of templates and views and stuff. So I thought I'd just do the main one and get the minor ones working later. But I did check to make sure that links to those views were working and they were not.

Written like this, the problem is obvious, a named view won't work if the view it's pointing to doesn't work. So if your url tag's don't function - make sure what they should be taking you to are ok.

But there's more. Because when I wrote the underlying views it still wasn't working. And I discovered something interesting. I had a problem last night after restarting the web server - The first time I'd go to a page I'd get

ImproperlyConfigured: Error while importing URLconf 'coltrane.urls.tags': name 'Link' is not defined

For some reason I couldn't work out why that was happening last night. I have no idea why I could not - it's blatantly obvious. I wasn't doing an import of the Link model for my tags url file. But I was ignoring it yesterday because I found that if you just asked for the page again it then displays (not the tags page, I hadn't written that, but the rest of the site seemed to be working. I put it down to some strange 'glitch'. It wasn't.

I'm guessing here somewhat but I think what happens is the first time you load your site up, Django precompiles the regular expressions used for your urls. During that compile if it hits an error you'll have some urls working (up to where it failed) and some not. The second time you hit the site that doesn't happen (it thinks the regular expression compilation has completed) and doesn't raise the error again. But of course all the urls that failed won't be working (hence why url tag wasn't working).

On a final note, you'd think by now that I would have learnt that when you have a 'strange glitch' there's something bigger lurking there that you really need to understand.