August 29, 2006
Anyone for Amsterdam in October?
I'm heading back to the UK at the end of this week. After six months on-and-off in Amsterdam you'd think I'd be sick of it already, but no, I'm already really looking forward to coming back here again! The annual Cocoon GetTogether is just over a month away, and people are signing up fast. 26 at last count, from seven different countries. I wonder if we'll beat the number of international attendees we've had in previous years?
In the photo you can see last year's conference day venue, the Nemo (the strange green wedge, top-right). This year the entire event (including the hackathon) will all be in the Felix Meritis building, which has a great atmosphere and is within easy reach of the centre of Amsterdam.
There's still time to submit papers (I've already submitted a few proposals), and if you hurry you can get the early bird registration. Look forward to seeing you all next month!
Strangest command: invoke the cotton buds!
In the office, just now:
$ maven clean ear
Well, it made me laugh.
August 25, 2006
August 22, 2006
Sprouts?
Tomorrow I'm off to Brussels, to spend a couple of days helping some people develop a Hippo CMS website. Connectivity will be patchy so don't expect swift replies to emails.
I'll be back on Thursday night, if I don't drink too many Belgian beers!
Asking for trouble
Via TUAW: Microsoft are running a Vista quiz prior to sending people Vista CDs. For laughs I filled it in, getting an exceptional one answer out of eight correct. I think Microsoft might be taking a bit of a risk though by making one of the quiz questions "when will Vista ship?". Sadly it's multiple choice so I wasn't able to provide my favourite answer of "no idea, but not before Leopard and probably around March". I think I'll be proved correct on the minimum RAM requirements, too ;-)
August 18, 2006
Hippo CMS makes war
Over the last few weeks I've been working with the frighteningly smart guys at Hippo and with the genius Giacomo from Otego, to make the Hippo CMS run as a WAR (web application archive). Today was something of a breakthrough, as you can now build a cms war that will work in servlet containers such as Apache Tomcat or IBM Websphere.
There's still some work to be done to integrate the changes into the main development trunk in subversion, but it's now easier than ever to get up and running with the CMS.
Apachecon US ...
A gentle reminder: the hands-on Apache Cocoon tutorial takes place on Monday, 9th October at Apachecon US. Come along to find out everything you ever wanted to know about Cocoon, and then some. Sign up as soon as you can as spaces are limited. Only $350 per tutorial? I doubt you can get quality Apache training any cheaper! This is the best place to get a wealth of information about developing Cocoon applications, straight from the horse's mouth.
</advert> ;-)
August 17, 2006
August 16, 2006
Theft
Today pretty much sucked. I had my wallet stolen, and spent most of the afternoon on the phone to the bank. Replacing my driving license, credit and debit cards is complicated by the fact that I'm living and working in Amsterdam at the moment. Thankfully my passport was kept in a different place.
In a moment of quite uncharacteristic helpfulness, my bank wired me a cash advance to cover my expenses for the next few weeks. So for once, well done NatWest, I salute you.
August 13, 2006
August 12, 2006
Cocoon GetTogether release 5...
Registration is now open for this year's Cocoon GetTogether. Looking at the proposed talk topics, this promises to be the best one yet. I'm really looking forward to it already.
Another cool addition to this year is an enhanced version of the person/country counter from previous years, with a visual representation of attendance. Nice!
August 11, 2006
Change of plan...
For obvious reasons, I'm going to detour via Norwich on my way back to Amsterdam (I was due to fly out this evening from Newcastle). I really don't want to risk my laptop going into the hold in just a rucksack (I'm travelling light, which is usually an advantage as I don't have to wait around for luggage), so I'll be picking up a super-reinforced suitcase and a ton of padding from home.
Hopefully some of the craziness will have subsided by Monday.
Everybody's doing it....
... blogging, that is. Maurizio got his blog up and running back in May, Gabriele in June, and now Simone. Welcome, guys!
... and what's this? Thom has sneakily started blogging again, at a new address!
August 10, 2006
The twilight zone
I finally got to speak to the right department at Orange this morning, on the second call I made to them. The person at the other end informed me that I had an invalid travel talk 50 bundle on my account, and that they'd need to contact the IT department to sort it out, which would take 24-48 hours.
Hang on, I'm having deja vu. Didn't the incompetent morons try this one before?
*Sigh*
So now I'm going round the loop again. I'm going to start taking bets:
- Orange will sort this out today
- Orange will sort this out tomorrow
- Orange will sort this out next week
- It will never be sorted out, stick with the 'temporary' number
- Switch to another network
- Phones are overrated, give up already
So far I've spent at least five hours either on hold or discussing my predicament with Orange. Fun!
August 9, 2006
The future's bright
Sigh. Meanwhile my phone is off for the next four hours while my number is in theory ported. Not that they called or texted to say so, I had to spend 40 minutes waiting for someone to answer the phone to prod them to do it.
In other incompetent moron news, I got a text today asking me to call Orange on another number (which they answered right away). Turns out they were doing a customer service survey, and wanted a few minutes of my time to find out how my experience had been so far. They picked a bad fortnight to ask that.
They scored 10/10 for beating my expectations in friendliness and helpfulness of their call handlers, who have always been polite and courteous. In every other way they scored 0/10 or less. Failed my expectations. Extremely dissatisfied with the service. Wouldn't recommend them. Would actively discourage others from switching to Orange.
August 8, 2006
Destinations North
This evening I'll be jetting off to Newcastle, to spend three days with the University helping them with Apache Cocoon, and more specifically the portal, and all things JSR 168, WSRP, etc. Should be good!An Orange-coloured hell
I figured I may as well make the best of a bad deal and try and use my phone, despite the incompetent morons' best effort to prevent it.
Shozu showed up in the FlickrBlog the other day, so I figured I'd download it and give it a go. It advertises itself as much better than wireless email, which is what I'd been using for my moblog before.
Unfortunately, it turns out that Orange have something called "Orange Safeguard". They've classified as 18-rated all adult themed content that includes gambling services, violent gaming, unmoderated chat and sexually explicit material. They've identified 18-rated content in the same was as community standards for films, video games, or other age restricted media.
Unfortunately it's broken by design, since I'm clearly over 18 (having signed a legal contract with them for my account) and it would be difficult to classify Shozu as 18-rated content in the same way as community standards for films, video games, etc. The Safeguard blocking page provides a useful "query this" button, so I did - surely Orange would lift the restriction on this site as soon as they saw what it was? Not so. "Your request has been actioned and the content is confirmed as only suitable for customers over the age of 18."
Time to phone Orange again, and get the restrictions lifted from my account. After an hour of waiting to be answered last night, I hung up and called again this morning, and was answered almost immediately. The guy at the call centre apologised for the restriction, and agreed with me that the site appeared to be fine ("oh, that's useful software..."), and then went on to try and remove the restrictions from my account. Except, it turns out that pesky travel bundle prevents any modifications to my account. And, interestingly, he said it was marked to be removed on 27th August. Hmmm.
Meanwhile, I asked him what Orange were doing about the absurd waiting times to get through to customer service. His answer? "They're closing their northern call centre and making 900 people redundant."
I've experienced first-hand problems with Vodafone, O2 and Orange, and heard horror stories about T-Mobile. I wonder, has anyone bad stories to tell of Three, or are they a last safe refuge from this madness?
August 7, 2006
Mobile phone networks: institutionalised stupidity
Orange managed to render my mobile phone number useless today, the incompetent morons. I'll be unreachable by mobile phone for 24-48 hours, sorry about that. You can still contact my office number, where messages will be taken, or just use email - but be warned, I'm travelling again so it might take me a while to call you back.
It all started three weeks ago, when our bookkeeper needed copies of our phone bills in order to reconcile the accounts. I've been with o2 for a couple of years (since Vodafone messed up in Corfu and then messed up in Cyprus), so I headed on over to their web site.
Long story short: the o2 billing site was down, except they swore it wasn't depending on which department you called, there was some confusion over who owned the account, then a hard sell by o2 who refused to accept I didn't like their level of service, and finally after three days of chasing them, they agreed to give me the PAC I need to port my number elsewhere. Everything about the fiasco convinced me that o2 are incompetent morons.
Jump forward a week, and I call Orange after getting the new phone to make sure that international roaming was enabled on the account. It takes about 15 minutes on hold to reach a human operator. Orange tell me that as well as signing contracts in store, they'd quite like me to also fax through a password. They tell me this 30 minutes before I'm due to be on a plane. I tell them I'm on the road and could I email, but no - it has to be a fax. When I reach my destination, I borrow a printer and a fax, and the corner of an office from which to phone Orange and chastise them.
Four days later, after another 15 minute wait on the phone, they acknowledge that they've processed their queue of faxes, and have mislaid mine. Could I possibly email it through instead?
The following day (after 15 minutes, I think this is the usual level of service), they finally accept my credentials and let me give them the PAC to port my phone number, and tell me it will take one week to happen. Fast forward to today.
Around midday my old phone tells me the SIMM is no longer valid, but my new phone hasn't received the text message I should get to tell me to turn it off and then on again. Later today I start receiving comments from people telling me my phone number isn't working, so I phone Orange.
Apparently my calling plan has an invalid travel talk 50 bundle on it, and whenever they try to make changes (such as, for example, adding my phone number) everything gets rejected. In order to fix it the IT department must be emailed, and they have a turnaround time of 24-48 hours. And they can't be reached by phone.
So I've had this phone since 28th July, and I can't do anything with it. Even better, I now can't receive calls on my old phone. I am so impressed with Orange thus far. I can't wait to see how else they manage to screw up my communications.
(I thought about being polite and just registering mild irritation in this post, but I am paying extra for a business tariff, and Orange are messing with how I make my money. I think I'm entitled to be extremely annoyed at the inconvenience they are causing my customers, and the potential loss of earnings they are causing me. I would switch to another provider tomorrow, except I think by now it's safe to assume they are all equally bad.)