Tag Archives | internet
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Dropbox authentication: insecure by design

By on April 8, 2011 in Linux, Mac / OSX, Operating Systems, Web/Tech, Windows 7

I have tested this, and can back up what Derek is saying. It is more than a little worrying – but also easy for the Dropbox guys to fix.

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Staying flashless with Firefox 4

By on March 22, 2011 in Web/Tech

As mentioned previously – I’ve gone flashless. Firefox 4 makes it quite hard to do that. It has an annoying missing plugin nag-bar (another dick-bar). Well, we can get rid of that:

  1. Enter about:config in the URL bar
  2. Heed the warning then press the button if you want to continue
  3. Type ‘missing’ in the search bar within the “page”
  4. Set plugins.hide_infobar_for_missing_plugin to true
  5. Close the tab

Right, that’s that done. Now what about open in Chrome? Well using a slightly modified AppleScript:

set oldClipboard to the clipboard

tell application "Firefox" to activate

tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "l" using {command down}
    keystroke "c" using {command down}
end tell

delay 0.5

tell application "Google Chrome"
    set URL of active tab of window 1 to the clipboard
    activate
end tell

set the clipboard to oldClipboard

Yes it sucks a bit that I had to bounce via the clipboard. Bit of a quick fix, but it does work. I’m definitely open to a better script. Also, Mozilla – please please fix it for me what when I open Firefox after changing my monitor configuration, it doesn’t screw up the window.

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New job! Awesomes

By on February 6, 2011 in Android, iPad, iPhone, Random Rants

It’s really time I got around to posting again. It’s been quite a while and although not many people outside of family and friends really read this blog; it’s about time I updated “the Internet”

I started work as a Mobile Developer for TweetDeck in London last month. It somewhat explains the lack of posting recently as well as why all the consulting stuff disappeared.

I can’t go into the reasons for moving on from Green Man Gaming. But I’m stoked to be working with such an awesome team of guys and girl and becoming part of bringing a great way to experience Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and more to mobile devices.

The first month has gone great. Jumped straight into iOS work and the new TweetDeck for iPhone. It’s a complete re-write of what is currently available and it is looking awesome. I look forward to it being in the wider world.

I update Twitter far more than I update my blog… so you should follow me @joolz.

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Badly scripted customer service is bad

By on August 2, 2009 in Random Rants

I am a customer of Virgin Media and have been since January of this year. Let me be clear, they are generally very good. The fault number (151) is served by English people during the week if the call volume is low, and Indian people if the call volume is high or at the weekend. The English customer service is fantastic and cannot be faulted. The Indian… well…

Yesterday my cable broadband died. Being an IT guy I did some self-diagnosis before calling. I checked the light on the Cable TV box and made sure that was flashing and looked at the error there of No Return Path. OK, now I know that means the UBR (Universal Broadband Router) is having some trouble. The Virgin Media engineer I spoke to told me so. I logged into the modem itself on 192.168.100.1 and noticed that:

MAP w/initial maintenance region received
No Ranging Response received – T3 time-out
MAP w/initial maintenance region received
No Ranging Response received – T3 time-out

Again, that’s excellent. It just means the upstream is all dead but downstream is fine. This usually ends up being an area fault, and area faults are usually raised out of volume of calls. The more people that call in with the same fault in an area alerts the relevant area of engineers. So, I make the call:

Me: Hi, my broadband isn’t working

CS: OK, what is your name please?

Me: Packham

CS: OK Mr Packham that is a problem I can help you with.

(How does he know that, he has no idea he can help or not… so why say he can?)

CS: Could you tell me what lights are flashing on the modem Mr. Packham

(This drives me crazy, stop repeating my name on the end of every sentence… please!)

Me: The sync light is fully on and the ready light is flashing. The modem pages are telling me that it is failing to lock an upstream link and the TV box is also flashing indicating the same.

CS: I have no knowledge of TV problems Mr Packham. Let me take a look at the modem

CS: Are you running Windows Vista or Windows XP?

Me: What relevance has that got to diagnosing a cable modem fault? I’m running a Mac

… silence …

CS: Ok this is odd Mr. Packham. It looks like there’s no modem activated on your account. Let me send a reset code to your modem.

… pause …

CS: The modem should now reset

Me: It hasn’t

CS: Let’s wait a little amount of time

… pause …

CS: Now?

Me: No

(clearly a communication fault and this guy is following an awful script)

CS: Let me try again

… sigh …

CS: It should reset now

Me: No

CS: Ok remove all cables from the back of the modem, wait 30 seconds and plug them back in.

… I remove the power cable knowing full well that the other cables make no odds at all …

… pause …

Me: I’ll plug them all back in now

CS: Yes please Mr. Packham

Me: Ok it’s booting

Me: And the same problem

CS: Ok let’s book an engineer

Most of that could be skipped. Whenever I have called and had the English call center, we tend to get to the book an engineer point a lot quicker. Mainly because they understand me. I can reel off what I have checked. I usually do things like remove the splitter etc. and try different cables to make sure. I can tell them that, they’ll listen and they will get it sorted a lot quicker.

It just sums up why Indian Call Centers are bad. It’s not their English, nor their intelligence. The issue is they don’t live here. They’ll never have had Virgin Media cable either. They’ll of seen pictures of the equipment involved but no idea really how it all hangs together. They don’t know how to tell the difference between an IT professional calling vs. a mother with 4 screaming brats. They just follow a script. A poorly written one at that. I can imagine that if they deviate from the script they get scalded for it. It’s a crying shame.

At least I can understand why the Status page lacks updates. English engineers are, by their very nature, lazy. They get the job done, and are super efficient, but they never update tickets. The Twitter guys appears to be on the ball though. It pleases me that they are responding to my Tweets and are at least saying they’ll find out why things like the Status page isn’t getting updated.

Thankfully, my 3G dongle is plugged into my FreeBSD  server and providing me with some sort of Internet access.

The other thing worth adding about this is that at least it is getting looked at. BT are awful by comparison. Is Virgin Media therefore just the best of a bad bunch? I’ll let you know when the service comes back. I’m just looking forward to upgrading to 50Mbps at the new lower price next month.

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