Scargill

This just blew me out of the water – enjoy…

It looks like the morons at Orange are at it again… regular readers will know of the struggles I’ve had with them over the years…

The last time we were in the Orange store, they offered us inexpensive home broadband as we “upgraded” Maureen’s mobile phone. That would be around 3 weeks ago. We duly signed the papers, took the new phone and went about our business.

A couple of days later, I tried the broadband (not REALLY expecting it to work quite so soon but keen to at least get it set up). It immediately struck me that I’d need a username and password for the modem – so I rang up Orange. They confirmed the order but we were not yet on the system so they could not give us the information.

At that point both Maureen and I had to leave the country and head for the USA. We spent 2 weeks over there during which time her sparkly new Android phone from Orange simply would not connect. Orange were useless during this time as they had NO idea why it would not work and could only offer that I swap SIMS with my iPhone, purely to determine if the SIM was at fault.. or the PHONE was at fault. It was the phone.  On the last day in the states, at the airport, her phone started to work all by itself!

Today I rang Orange to get the username and password and ended up talking to some mindless idiot from a call centre in India. “I’m sorry but I can’t be helping you today as you are not the holder of the contract” – he said, despite being reminded that this was on MY mobile phone bill and I signed the contract at the Orange store.  I left it until Maureen returned.

I just had a very upset wife on the phone. Firstly the broadband won’t be on for another 3 weeks because they screwed something up and didn’t bother to get in touch… and another mindless call centre idiot after very long and convoluted conversation, told her that the “phone was not designed for International use”.  I should point out that this is the internationally used HTC Desire on Android, designed somewhere in deepest Asia and sold all over the world.

Bunch of complete idiots. As soon as I find the time to get to the Orange store, one of their employees is going to have a very hard day…

Amazing how something comes along and the reviewers are so keen to support something new they don’t bother to test things properly.

When it was time for Maureen to get a new phone, Orange wanted over-the-top up-front money for the iPhone, so based on rave reviews we got her the new Android phone, the HTC DESIRE

And now here we are in America, despite a roaming-enabled SIM it is UTTERLY incapable of handling AT&T or Verizon, SKYPE is not available for Android and TRUPHONE does not support that model. In other words, while we’re here, the phone is absolutely and utterly USELESS.

Orange don’t have a CLUE what’s wrong – we’ve narrowed it down to the phone, not the SIM as we swapped SIMS with my iPhone and the SIM in my phone connected immediately and the text messages came in – swap back – nothing – the Android phone may as well be a BRICK.

I can see a replacement coming along here.

Pete.

Andrew J. Flando Jr died on 20th June 2010. The wake took place in the afternoon and evening of Thursday 24th June. Friday 25th of July 2010 saw the funeral which began at 9 a.m. Friday, June 25, at Kelley & Spalding Funeral Home, 1787 Deerfield Road, Highland Park, followed by Mass at St. Mary Church, Buffalo Grove. Many of the guests finally had lunch with us at the Arboretum Club in Buffalo Grove, IL.

Andy was my father-in-law, a World War II veteran of the Navy and an attorney-at-law. He was the beloved husband for 59 years of Mary Frances “Mimi” (Heffernan). He was a great person and will be sorely missed.

Anyone wishing to leave messages of sympathy on the web, can so so by simply making a suitable entry in our guestbook.

At the lunch, the many guests present were given a short presentation of photos we’d put together from several sources, a few of which are re-presented below…

There are more photos of my family and more in the USA at my Google Web Albums site

You would THINK no-one would be buying fuel from BP – but the garage we visited had plenty of business – note that’s $2.85 a gallon! Pretty much business as usual I guess though BP is part of the top of conversation here along with constant references to people’s religious background which just escapes me completely “That’s Mrs xxxx, she’s Jewish” – I’m trying to think how we normally introduce someone…. I’m thinking “That’s Mr xxxx, he’s an engineer” or similar…   anyway, couple of rough days ahead then hopefully at the weekend we’ll get a trip into Chicago itself. I’m currently torn between the less expensive and longer open-topped bus tour, or the more expensive and shorter but startlingly modern SEGWAY tour – and of course I’ll have to look in the Apple store.

We popped into Aldis this morning, it may be just a small version but I didn’t think it was a patch on the ones I’ve seen in the UK – prices however were admirably cheap, which is more than can be said for most of the stores which I’ve already found to be very expensive – especially food!

That’s about all I have time for now, time to head off into the shower, then into the suit… and off to the wake.  Somehow I don’t think this is going to be the spiritual highlight of the trip…

After waiting what seems like years but was probably just weeks for the update for the iPhone to version 4 then after waiting half an hour to grab iTunes on my laptop (not normally used to sync the iPhone so there’s a tip for you – NO you don’t have to use the PC you original setup your phone on) I proceeded to the upgrade button and upgraded my iPhone 3GS to iPhone version 4.0 OS software – another 20 minutes and no problems whatsoever.

That done the first thing I noticed was that my chosen background now appears on all screens – that’s nice!  The second thing that’s immediately obvious is the fact you can now drop one icon onto another and make instant FOLDERS which is nice. Each folder can now hold 12 icons and with a bit of planning you can how hold 12 times as many apps on the phone as before or opt for less pages of icons. That’s a plus though you’re not going to get all your games in one folder – you CAN thankfully make identically named folders if you like!! None of this takes any brainpower or manuals.

The iPhone now also handled multi-tasking – of a sort.  By double-clicking on the HOME button you can now see active tasks and switch between them.

The big plus is the ability to play a game or whatever.. and STILL keep SKYPE running in the background – depending on whether or not you’re a SKYPE user that makes a big difference… BUT NOTE: Skype does NOT yet run in the background – despite showing demos and saying that NOW you can run Skype in the background they have not actually YET released the new version. I’m awaiting this with baited breath as I use Skype for all calls and also keep my phone in my pocket all the time so this will be a game changer for me.

Another plus is the unified inbox – now if you have multiple accounts as I do (Exchange and Google mail) you have the option to read the inboxes separately or as one – nice idea – why don’t MS so that in Office 2010?

Other than that it’s largely business as usual though sitting here I’m having immense difficulty getting the newly updated iPhone to download the updated TomTom and it’s telling me to update that particular package via iTunes – granted TomTom is HUGE.

At least on the surface of it, updating is worth the effort but beware if you’re reading this on the publication date, the Apple site is running like a DOG!

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A good thing about being in the USA is it makes me feel thin. Not that servings are large here but last night we popped over to Hackneys, one of my favourite places to eat when I’m here – and the picture shows the starter which is their “famous” onion dish…. and very nice with it… there are some large people here – given the choice they have in the supermarkets and the quality of the food, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out why it’s so easy to put on weight.

As always, everyone is super nice – granted not the best of circumstances being here this time… and after the horrifying discovery this morning that Vodafone were ripping us at £29.95 for 50 meg which they deem “adequate” for most people and which I polished off in the first hour of handling emails etc, we finally got the WIFI working so at least from that perspective, all’s well.  Interestingly there’s a box with a telephone line attached that produces telephone, TV and WIFI all in one – you cannot tell the difference between the TV which is clearly coming in via the Internet – and normal TV. The usual endless channels etc.. none of which stops the WIFI coming in at up to 20meg and the phone working at the same time.

Weather is fine – it’s hot and sunny though a little humid right now, I can’t remember how to convert back to old-style Fahrenheit but I reckon it’s in the lower 30s centigrade here.  As soon as I have some transport I intend to do looking for an iPad case. Maureen has gone off shopping with her sisters.

Here’s a thing – www.bbc.co.uk – the news pages etc.. you’d expect them to be the same everywhere? Wrong – the same pages here in the US are different!!!!

I note the expected response from Labour to the budget. You would THINK that having put the country in the MESS it’s in – they would have the grace to keep quiet for a while as the coalition try to mend the damage – but no- straight in on the defensive with their pals in the unions… what WERE we thinking about keeping those guys in jobs for so long…

Oh! Nearly forgot – as you walk through the door at Hackneys – you come across this – a genuine red British phone-box! Not very often you see those in the UK!!

When I got the iPAD a while ago, it came with a VERY impressive USB power supply. Why impressive? well because it was hardly bigger than a normal mains plug yet puts out a wopping 10watts of power while running freezing cold (which means it is HIGHLY efficient). Most USB supplies put out no-where NEAR that.

The iPAD can’t handle the normal supplies or indeed USB outputs from most hubs and laptops because they simply don’t put out enough power, hence the more powerful unit supplied.

I thought little more of that until today, sitting in the window looking out on suburban Chicago and forced to use a dongle for broadband…. or more specifically the SIM from the dongle inserted into a NOKIA phone running Joikuspot to provide WIFI to both of our laptops. After about half an hour the phone died as the WIFI router uses LOTS of power. So I plugged the phone into it’s charger… no joy, as soon as the Joikuspot program came on the PSU was unable to keep up and the phone went dead again.

Then I remembered the iPAD power supply… having a usb-to-Nokia lead I tried that and BINGO – no problem at all – full use AND charge at the same time  – slightly marred when I found out that theiving Vodafone wanted to charge £29 for 50 meg – making a download of iTunes to the laptop cost £60 what a joke – VODAPHONE IF YOU’RE READING THIS YOU’RE A BUNCH OF THIEVES. The charger ran freezing cold which is more than can be said for the phone.

The moral of the tale?  Make sure as far as possible that all your gadgets charge using USB leads and get a couple of decent USB mains chargers (lead plugs into the charger) – forget the cheap Chinese crap and go for something like the Apple iPAD units which CLEARLY are built to a specification, not a price. A tiny additional benefit being that as they are very efficient, their standby current if left plugged in – is almost non-existent.

Regards

Peter Scargill

It’s a tough life being a cat. In the first photo, I  must’ve sat most of the day working on a document and the only time I moved was to yank young Ollie back off the floor as he slowly slid off the edge of the bench fast asleep and eventually fell off, via me. I think the mouse movement on the screen hypnotises him….

Here then are a few recent pics of my cat in action…

As I’ve just finished moving my pictures from Flickr to Google Web Albums – mainly due to their association with Getty and Corbis – a timely reminder as we enjoy wonderful sunshine here in the Northeast, what it was like just a few months ago!