Archive for the ‘grumble’ Category
Presenting with a Chromebook
I decided to use my Samsung ARM Chromebook for a presentation at Brighton Pi last night. It did not go well. Creating the presentation Using Google Docs instead of Powerpoint was pretty straightforward. I never do much fancy with my slides – usually just a visual anchor or a few bullet points, so no real […]
Filed under: could_do_better, grumble, Raspberry Pi, technology | 1 Comment
Tags: beamer, Chromebook, crash, dual, freeze, google, Google Docs, hang, HDMI, lock up, offline, presenting, projector, screen, share, unstable
The perils of modern lego
Update 26 Nov 2014 – I’m very pleased that this post has been referenced by Justin Parkinson’s piece on the BBC News site ‘Has the imagination disappeared from Lego?‘, but I fear he may have misunderstood (or misrepresented) what I say about instructions. The blogger Chris Swan argues that instructions marked the start of a decline.[1] […]
Filed under: grumble | 20 Comments
Tags: construction, creativity, design, Lego, Mindstorms, model, Technic, technical
I fly to Zurich a few times a year, and often fly with Swiss, so I’ve been a member of their Miles & More rewards programme (which is run by Lufthansa) for some time. To help keep hold of my miles (and even top them up a little) I got the connected credit card from […]
Filed under: could_do_better, grumble, travel | 3 Comments
Tags: expired, expiry, Lufthansa, MBNA, mileage, Miles and More, rewards, Swiss
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
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
Salt – I want my DVD player back
Seems like Sony are at it again with crazy DRM ruining their customer experience. Here’s what happens when I put Salt into my Kiss DP-600 DVD player: Disc spins up Starts to play Player crashes and switches off When I switch the player back on: Disc spins up Starts to play Player crashes and switches […]
Filed under: grumble | 8 Comments
Tags: crash, DRM, DVD, fail, player, Salt, Sony
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 