Archive for the ‘could_do_better’ Category
Azure account disabled
After just 2.5 days of my 90 day trial my Azure account has been disabled: I *think* this has happened because I’ve exhausted the (paltry[1]) 20GB bandwidth allocation that comes with the trial, and that this happened because people were downloading OpenELEC builds/images from the web server I stood up in part 2 of my […]
Filed under: cloud, could_do_better | 5 Comments
Tags: alerts, Azure, bandwidth, disabled, limits, Microsoft, monitoring, MS, trial
KVM mort
This isn’t a post about the KVM Hypervisor, which I believe is alive, well and rather good. This is a post about keyboard, video and mouse switches. At both home and work I have multiple machines, and monitors with multiple inputs, so all I need is a KM switch to share my keyboard and mouse […]
Filed under: could_do_better, technology | 2 Comments
Tags: digital, displayport, DVI, HDMI, keyboard, KVM, monitor, mouse, switch, USB, VGA, video
For a little while I’ve been experiencing lousy service from my credit card providers, and judging by what I hear from others I’m far from alone on this. The level of false positives from card company fraud detection systems has reached a point where it’s creating a bad customer experience, and it often seems that ‘common sense’ […]
Filed under: could_do_better, grumble, travel | 1 Comment
Tags: algorithm, analytics, big data, card, convenience, customer, customer experience, customer service, data, fraud, gas, social, travel
The suckage of hotel Internet
I’ve been on the road now for a week and a half, which has brought me into contact with some of the slowest, most expensive Internet access I’ve suffered in some time. I’m used to mobile Internet being expensive and slow, but this has been even worse. My problems started in an airport lounge in […]
Filed under: could_do_better, grumble, technology, travel | 1 Comment
Tags: download, hotel, Internet, lounge, mobile, speed, travel
One weekend, four upgrades
I found myself upgrading a bunch of stuff over the last weekend, which gave me cause to reflect on what was good, and what was not so good. Android First up was my ZTE Blade, which I’ve had running Cyanogen Mod. I wasn’t super impressed with version 7.0. There were few things that it did […]
Filed under: could_do_better, did_do_better, grumble, technology | 1 Comment
Tags: 11.10, android, cyanogen, Cyanogen Mod, distribution, iOS, iOS5, iPad, iphone, kindle, Linux, upgrade, ZTE Blade
This isn’t a post about the nym wars. I understand why people are upset about the real names policy, but I’m pretty ambivalent about it myself. I certainly don’t have anything to add to the great stuff that’s been said already by IdentityWoman, ESR, Kevin Marks and Charlie Stross. My concern is more mundane – […]
Filed under: could_do_better, identity | 2 Comments
Tags: contacts, email, G+, google, home, identity, persona, profile, work
Lenovo fail me again
OK – before I even start on this, I should know better – this sort of thing has happened before. Let me begin by saying that I love Lenovo gear. I like the build quality and durability. I prefer trackpoint over touchpad. I’ve had 4 Thinkpads over the last decade and they’ve all been brilliant. […]
Filed under: could_do_better, grumble, technology | 7 Comments
Tags: cancelled, end of life, fail, lenovo, x121e
There’s a passage on governance in Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus that I really like: ‘Groups tolerate governance, which is by definition a set of restrictions, only after enough value has accumulated to make the burden worthwhile. Since that value builds up only over time, the burden of the rules has to follow, not lead.‘ It […]
Filed under: could_do_better | Leave a Comment
Tags: books, ebook, fail, google, governance, search, SOA
I was very pleased to see Google’s announcement yesterday about Email authentication using DKIM now available to all Google Apps domains[1,2]. DKIM is an important weapon in the war on spam, and may well be crucial to stopping email from slipping into irrelevance. Of course this may just make the spammers go after our Google […]
Filed under: could_do_better, technology | 5 Comments
Tags: DKIM, GABE, GAPE, gapps, google, Google Apps, Postini, spam
A week ago I ordered a Push N Go Thomas for my nephew from T J Hughes (Amazon only had the Percy version). The site showed that they had it in stock (unlike some of the other sellers that I’d found on Google Shopping), and I was even willing to bear the somewhat steep P&P […]
Filed under: could_do_better, grumble | 1 Comment
Tags: cancelled, customer service, Froogle, google, online, order, product search, ranking, shopping, T J Hughes
Chris Swan's Weblog 