AOL (revisited)

Once more AOL/Carphone warehouse have been at it, from 22:47hrs on the 19th march 2008, the line went down and has so far (now 13:37hrs) stayed down!

Initially only for about 10 minutes, but then it went back down and with it, any chance go getting in customer services until 8am in the morning. So there was nothing to do but tidy up the desktop and head back into the other room to get back to what the vast majority of people would be doing at that time of night, watching the not so square box in the corner, with a very strong cider and snack food.

7.45am arrived. Switched on the modem, hub, router, pc. The routers light's popped on one by one, except the internet one which stubbonly flickered red or remained blank. Took the phone in hand and waited for 8am and with the last number dialled as 7:59 and 59 seconds turned over, I was amazed to actually get through within 20 seconds, a definite first.

So once more it's a network outage, she had no idea why, just that it was an outage been looked into by their technical support people. I viciously doused the thoughts of they need retraining, from reaching handset and expressed my disappointment at been an aol member for over five years to be treated so badly.

She promised it should be up and running in at least two hours time, and with the time now at 13:38hrs there is still no connection.

I believe my grounds for leaving this crumbling edifice of broadbandhell are increasing leaps and bounds.

Passing of a legend

R.I.P. A.C.C.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
~ Arthur C. Clarke

Webosphere

A bit of a change, and who'd have thought it.

"It's 2075 and even the odd skeptic, inured to the spectacular increases in global weather unpredictability, has been forced to have their patterns uploaded and blasted out into the depths of space; between the Arks heading towards 6185-2.

During the last decade, earth's glaciers have all gone. Desert areas have more than trebled. There has been a 20 fold increase in earthquake and volcanic activity, along with ferocious raging seas.

Food is at a premium. Oil, gas and coal reserves depleted, and time has run out for their replacements.

The last of the worlds democracies has been brought to its knees, from a wave of suicide Nismits, that have over the past couple of years brought the world crashing back down to the brink of hunter gatherer status. For the majority, all thoughts or ability of arresting and reversing climate change is forever lost.

For a very small lucky few, huge stellar ships blast away from a spaceport island. As in the distance another explosion rips into the sky and Washington is gone.

Recording through reinforced e-screens the sky is full of biogen, nuclear, chemical globes of death hurtling to all points across the dying earth..."

Belated offerings

The new Samsung SH-S223 DVD Burner with 22x recording capability sounds wonderful.  If it had been brought out two years earlier. 

With the next generation of optical rewards going to Bluray, for the next 3-5 years until something better comes along, why spend the money on a faster burner?  When by just waiting a couple of months down the line, the prices for bluery players will significantly come down in price and you can still use your old dvd's and new bludiscs, without the extra hassle of another same capacity drive?

Here's a lovely picture of one though.

The absolute hell of AOL

After a period of time when AOL seemed to be getting their act together, they went and sold a bit of themselves off to Carphone Warehouse.

Since the integration of AOL customers has been going on and databases, links etc transferred from one to the other the amount of outages has more or less quadrupled.

Before, I could happily boast about how wonderful the service was, and it was, if somewhat behind in the speed stakes. But when I'd call and complain about something, which turned out to be their fault, they'd offer me a sop I would graciously accept and be a happy customer again for at least five months.

Nowadays you have to make the most of your connection whilst you can, as at any time of day or night, it will go down. And will remain down for anywhere between an hour to over six hours. And as nearly half their customer base seems to be experiencing the same problems that's quite a few people trying to vent their rage to a small number of helpless people who are just sitting their taking those punches.

So what to do.

Look into your service agreement, as they're sailing close to breaching it. If you're on a monthly contract and want to upgrade to something else, make sure they know where they stand and get that laptop and PS3.

Failing that and in the last resort, threaten court action. Bearing in mind that if you've brought your mobile phone from carphone warehouse, you won't be flavour of the month.