iRiver forever!

It finally happened - I upgraded an electronic gadget, rather than buying a new one! While 99.9% of the population are happy to use Apple iPods, I (and a handful of other people with impeccable taste and a dislike for market saturation) prefer the iRiver - the HD320 to be precise.
But why do I like it so much? I'll tell you:
1) The build and sound quality are outstanding
2) It's a joy to use
3) It looks cool
4) Most importantly - computers treat it like an external hard disk, meaning you're not tied into the crapness that is the "My Music Library" part of iTunes. You can simply plug it in, copy the files you want, and unplug it.
5) It has other stuff built-in, namely a picture viewer, FM radio, and a microphone
6) The firmware is user-upgradeable, and there are several funky "RockBox" options to choose from
7) You can watch movies on it
8) It has a 20GB user-upgradeable hard drive, which knocks most of the opposition into a cocked hat (bar the more expensive iPods).
9) Native support for Ogg files

Pretty compelling reasons to get one! Sadly the HD320 and 340 players have now been discontinued, but you can still buy them on eBay.

I've had mine for nearly 4 years, and the battery has recently started to under-perform quite noticeably, providing just 2 to 3 hours of life for each 4-hour charge. Thankfully, those fine people at VideoJug have provided a how-to film, showing exactly how to replace the battery. I spent £6.50 on a spare 2200mh battery on eBay, and half an hour of time fitting it. The only fiddly bit was levering up the motherboard slightly at one end, while it made rather alarming creaking sounds as it strained against the plastic clips holding it in place. The battery connector itself is tiny, and you'll either need good fingernails, or a very small screwdriver, to ease it into place.

It's all working beautifully now, and the battery life is back up to around 15 hours. Happy days are here again :)

Smoothie heaven

I've just made (and possibly invented) the tastiest smoothie ever! My taste buds have gone to heaven, on the following recipe:

- 2 whole oranges, cut into segments
- One kiwi fruit
- 2 large ice cubes
- Half a cup of Pomegranite and Acacia berry juice (ready-mixed, commercial variety)
- 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream. I prefer the "Swedish Glace" non-dairy tofu-based brand, but any normal vanilla ice cream would be fine

Add all these ingredients into the blender / smoothie maker, and blend for 20 seconds.

Scoop out the insides of a large, ripe passion fruit, and add to the mix. Blend again for 10 seconds, and serve. I think I'll call it "Orange Sherbert", because that's a good description of its taste. Enjoy!

Radio Wars

Ever since we got a digital radio in the office, we've had an ongoing battle between the programmers, to settle on the "radio station of choice". For me, this is Planet Rock - which plays mainly AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, etc. - but for Zoe, it's BBC Radio 6 Music, which boasts the worst living DJ, George Lamb. This is a man who shouts into the microphone, has an ego the size of Manhattan, and would be right at home selling vegetables in a Sunday market. His "running jokes" consist of a one-second clip of someone shouting "Shabba!", a two-second clip of someone shouting something angry, and his never-ending quest for a nice glass of "ting" (whatever that is). Particular low point of the show consist of listeners phoning in, asking for George to send out a "big Shabba" to their friends (cue the repeated playing of the aforementioned one-second clip, accompanied by moronic laughter). This *might* have been funny once - in 1991 perhaps - for a week, or two at the most. But it's been dragging on for months, and is about as funny as a chronic liver infection.

Thankfully I am not alone in my aversion to this pirate of the airwaves - there is now a "Get George Lamb off 6 Music petition", and a Facebook petition for the same cause. Even the BBC have had to publish a glossary of his inane ramblings, in case his one remaining listener can't work out what he's on about. To paraphrase the man, George, you are clearly a Don who's havin' a bad one, and has gone a bit wafty. Begone.

Salvation has arrived, in the form of the Sussex Gold radio station. This is the best radio station that any of us have ever heard - even Zoe. Their choice of music is first-rate, advertising is kept to a minimum, as is the news. Lots of sing-a-long favourites, from the likes of David Bowie, The Beatles, ABBA, etc. Thank goodness that someone is still broadcasting decent music!

Who moved my Cheese?

"Who moved my Cheese?", by Spencer Johnson, is a fantastic little book, all about coping with change. I read it last year, and copped a fair amount of derisive comments from my colleagues at work. However when I needed to move on to pastures new towards the end of the year, its teachings were highly beneficial.

Using "Cheese" as a metaphor for whatever is important to you (good health, happiness, enjoyable work, etc. - you can use it in almost any context), the book tells the story of four mice, trapped in a maze (a metaphor for "life"), who wake up one day to discover that their supply of cheese has run out. The signs have been there for a while, but they were largely ignored. Now the mice must decide what to do - do they explore the maze, and find a new source of cheese, or complain bitterly, and ask why their cheese has been taken away, and sit morosely, waiting in a forlorn hope that it will be replaced.

After some deliberation, I made a list of what my work-based "Cheese" actually was:

- Doing work that's interesting and challenging
- Feeling valued and respected by my peers, and by management
- Working in a friendly team, who actually want to be there
- Having a salary that doesn't insult my wallet
- Having some formal training every now and then
- Working for a company that knows where it's going, and how it'll get there
- Wanting to go to work when I get out of bed in the mornings
- Feeling that I'm making a positive difference to the company

For many years at Epic I was quite content, because almost all of these "cheese" must-haves were there for me. From November 2006 onwards however, our team fell apart, and the work dried up, for various reasons which I won't go into. Throw in some managerial incompetence, and severe financial difficulties (for the company), and my mind was made up!

My new company is giving me all the cheese I require - and more. All it takes is a little courage to go looking for it, and it's there to be found. I strongly urge all those bereft of cheese, to make a list of what their "cheese" looks like, then to start looking for a new source - it'll make your life a lot more enjoyable.

All this talk of food is making me hungry... I'm off to find a cheese sandwich :)

In praise of Sky

It's finally happened (as you can probably tell by my recent radio silence) - I've got Sky TV. For the last four months I've had no TV signal at my flat, and combined with a lack of Internet access (see my previous posts), I was starting to feel somewhat isolated. The Pipex debacle made me evaulate other options, and I spotted that Sky charge a mere £5 a month for a 40GB/month broadband service (4x the capacity of the more expensive and non-functioning Pipex offering). Deciding to get Sky TV was a logical decision - I'm now paying £23 a month for about 200 channels, and a fast broadband service, as opposed to Pipex's offering of £15 a month and no TV.

Sky customer services have been pretty awesome. The engineer turned up on time, and got the whole thing rigged up within 2 hours. I was notified by text message the day before he came, and was given his mobile number, in case I needed to contact him. He tuned the Sky remote in to my TV, and checked that everything worked perfectly before he left. Setting up broadband was a doddle - they sent the router out within 24 hours, and the CD-rom based installation routine was the best I've ever seen. It's pretty fast too, at 4.5mbps. All Sky's paperwork has been clearly written, and their call centre staff are friendly and well informed. On top of all this, I'm getting £50 of Marks & Sparks vouchers, because I was recommended by a friend. Now THAT'S what I call service! Well done Sky.

As for the TV service itself, there's an awful lot of rubbish, but the UKTV channels are very good, and the documentary channels are quite compelling. Film4 is rapidly becoming a personal favourite, and I've found a channel that shows almost nothing but Star Trek. I've also been enjoying the Parliamentary broadcast channel, and have finally seen Channel 5! The only problem now, is finding time to watch the damn thing...

Silly Season in Customer Services Land

You'll be pleased to hear that my TV turned up! My grumble today, however, is about Pipex (the Internet Service Provider), and their incredibly bad, atrocious, awful, jaw-droppingly incompetent and clueless customer service "team".

Firstly, I suppose it's partly my fault. I wanted broadband in my new flat, so I shopped around, and Pipex looked like value for money at £15 a month for a 10GB limit. I duly signed up on January 9th, and the router, welcome pack etc. arrived the next day, albeit at the wrong address. I waited the 7 working days specified in the welcome letter, and turned the router on - nothing. I purchased a spare micro-filter, and tried a spare router, but still, nothing. Cue two weeks of trying to contact Pipex. If you talk to their customer service people, they'll just say "it's a technical problem, you need to re-dial and talk to Technical Support". If you dial Technical Support, you won't get through. Believe me, I've tried! You just sit in a queue for hours after hours, listening to the same cheesy music. I finally got an email from them last week, saying that they've had a "provisioning problem", and that the broadband would go live on February 15th - five weeks after I ordered it. No explanation as to what the problem is, just "there's a problem". Hmmm....

This morning I spotted how reasonable the Sky TV / broadband prices are, and decided to cancel the Pipex setup. I phoned Pipex, and after 10 minutes in a queue, got through to their cancellations department (says it all really!). I asked for my MAC code, so I could switch to Sky, and was told "sorry, but because your broadband has never worked, there's no MAC code to give you". Interesting... I phoned the BT Broadband tagging team, who laughed, said "It's all Pipex's fault, and it's up to them to remove the ADSL tag request on the line", and wished me luck dealing with them. They also pointed out that the request to ADSL-enable my phone line only came through on January 28th, a whopping THREE WEEKS after I ordered it. So it seems that the "problem" was a case of "we forgot to turn your broadband on".

I now have the joyous task of speaking to the dimwits at Pipex, and trying to get them to remove their ADSL tag from my phone line. At least I'm not alone - check out www.pipexproblems.co.uk

To be continued...

When the Internet goes bad

My new TV is turning into a saga. Having cancelled my order with the hapless Play.com (see my previous blog post), I placed an identical order with 247electrical.com, via Amazon (they're a re-seller). Order placed on Monday - Amazon emailed me to confirm - I've heard nothing from 247electrical yet. Not a single "yes we've got your order" message. I have no idea if they're on the case, or if it's got lost in the ether.

I've tried ringing 247electrical twice so far, and each time have been held in a queue for 10 minutes, before hanging up. They have possibly the worst tinned music imaginable, which sounds like it's being piped through an underwater speaker system. You can't quite make it out, so you listen intently, only for an annoying voice to inform you that your call is important, but everyone is "busy".

So... five days without a TV so far. I've discovered that my PC monitor is quite adequate for watching DVDs, albeit a bit grainy. I'm starting to wish I'd just paid the £80 more and bought it in Sainsbury's last Saturday... maybe the Internet isn't all it's cracked up to be?