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  • Oh UniFi, don’t promise if you can’t deliver!

    Oh UniFi, don’t promise if you can’t deliver!

    A classic example of this uniqueness has unfolded over the past 3 months with UniFi (TM).

    In late October Unifi called offering a free upgrade from 50Mbs to 100Mbs. Absolutely no cost! (we will see about that) they advised. But they would need to attend the house as part of the upgrade to “validate” our network (God only knows what that means – perhaps a new modem and router). However, they said that this would mean intermittent internet until the technician came by. As we were going away we suggested that they should call back later to arrange a convenient time after our return.

    We went away and then came back anticipating a call from UniFi. But no call came.

    So after about 6 weeks of silence, in early December, we called them up and ask what was happening with the free speed upgrade. We were told we had rejected their offer. I patiently explained we had not rejected their offer, rather what we had said was that it wasn’t convenient at the time as we were going away. The sweet girl on the phone said she would investigate, and true to her word some days later we were told our speed upgrade could still happen and they wanted to arrange a date in late December/early January for the home visit. I said we would be away in late December and early January until 8th January. So it was agreed their technician would come on 9th January. Perfect we thought.

    We patiently waited at home on 9th January for the technician. No one came! So we contacted UniFi to ask what had happened. Oh, we were told, orders outstanding over 14 days were automatically cancelled!! O!M!!G!!!

    They said they would reinstate the order. Phew!! It was still going to happen. But 3 weeks and a number of queries later, I was beginning to wonder if this was just some sort of pipe dream or nightmare as exactly nothing was happening.

    Then all of a sudden out of the blue an email appears to an email address (not the one registered with our account) saying that on 11th Feb (morning session) that someone would be coming. I commented to Sean that 11th Feb was a Sunday but then thought oh well perhaps they work on Sundays!. No problem for us. We would make sure we were home.

    The next day we received a call advising that they could not come on Sunday as their contractors did not work on Sundays!! Naturally, I asked if their contractors did not work on Sundays why had they made an appointment to come on a Sunday. This receives some mumbling and no coherent explanation.

    We rescheduled for Saturday (I said morning please). I was told that it would definitely be morning because their contractors only work a half day on Saturdays.

    Saturday came and Unifi is in total chaos. No one came in the allotted time frame. And numerous phone calls demonstrated that Unifi had no idea what was happening. Eventually, around 2 pm the technicians came. Only to tell us that at 11 am they were at our gate but left again because of some order number confusion. What a shambles!!

    The end result is yes we do have faster internet.

    We were promised 100Mbs. We have somewhere between 70-90Mbs download. And 50Mbs plus upload. This we are told is because they only need to provide 75% of the nominal speed. Obviously, no one has told them about delivering to expectations. Why not just say they are going to provide 80Mbs, then we will always be happy because 90% of the time the speed exceeds this. Instead, they promise 100Mbs and we are always disappointed because we never get that speed.

    Read the terms and conditions we are told! OMG!!! These people need some simple lessons in simple psychology and human nature.

    THERE ARE NONE SO DISAPPOINTED AS THOSE WHOSE EXPECTATIONS ARE NOT MET!!

  • My view on “Fake News”

    My view on “Fake News”

    “FAKE NEWS” is a term we have heard a lot about in 2017. But just what does it mean??

    On the face of it, you would think that it means the news story it refers to is not true. But sadly that seems to be far from the case.

    This year (2017) the term “FAKE NEWS” has become synonymous with the new US President. And we need to clearly understand that the Trump’s use of the terms “Fake News” does not have the same definition that you would initially rush to, that the news is untrue.

    If we look at Trump’s use of the term “Fake News”, it quickly becomes clear that when he uses the term “Fake News”, in reference to any news that does not fit to his “belief of the moment”. It doesn’t mean that the news is untrue. It just means it is not what he wants to believe at that particular moment in time. A day, a week or a year later that belief might change, and what was “Fake News” yesterday is no longer “Fake”.

    So when Trump (and now many others who have jumped on the same bandwagon) claims something as “Fake News”, we should not presume that news to be untrue but rather understand that Trump (or whoever) just doesn’t believe it’s true (for whatever distorted or un-informed reason)!!

    Sadly the mainstream media globally seems to have failed to grasp this simple reality. Its time that they fought back and stopped bring world-class journalism into disrepute because the reality does not fit what one man wants to believe.

    Now, of course, the global media are no angels themselves, and they often publish irresponsible and disgracefully misleading “news”. Which may not be entirely “fake” but certainly is being “spun” to meet the agenda of the moment.

    The term “spin” is a great term, which describes to a T what many media organisations do when presenting the news. But Trump has taken “spin” and replaced it with “FAKE”, which is deceitful if nothing else.

    Someone of stature needs to take the US President to task for this nonsense use of the term “FAKE NEWS”.

  • HSBC iOS App on iPhone X has a really bad problem

    HSBC iOS App on iPhone X has a really bad problem

    Having recently bought an iPhone X, I needed to change my HSBC digital security key from my old phone to my new iPhone X. This meant changing 4 digital security keys. All signs where that is would be pretty straightforward moving from the digital ID. And so it proved. All 4 changed and double checked that they all worked. So imagine 2 days later I went to log on to my UK internet banking and my new iPhone X was telling me that the key was not activated on that device.

    Perhaps I had been dreaming and it hadn’t worked.

    So I went back to the old phone and then to Internet banking on my laptop and to my horror found I could no longer login anywhere. HSBC/iPhone X had managed to wipe out not only my digital security key but also all my passwords and everything else.

    OMG – I called HSBC UK customer service which morphed into a 36-minute call (at my cost for the international call). They solved the problem, but I had to reset all security passwords and questions. So troublesome!!

    But it didn’t finish there.

    I thought “I better check my HSBC US login. And not surprisingly I found exactly the same issue. I called the HSBC US customer service line (again at my cost for an international call). The lady I spoke too seemed lost as to what the problem might be. That is until I told her I had just had exactly the same problem with my HSBC UK login and we had had to reset all security. Once she realised this it happened more smoothly. And after another 30 minutes on the phone, it was sorted. But sorted for how long.

    And then, I tried to log in to the HSBC HK mobile banking app. This does not work either. This is not yet fixed………..

    So HSBC iPhone X users BEWARE!!!

  • Disgraceful Australia whimped out!

    Disgraceful Australia whimped out!

    Disgraceful. Australia whimped out and abstained! They should have stood front and center and sent Trump a clear message that Australia cannot be bullied or pushed around. And that Trump’s aggressive approach to Middle East peace has set the process back 50 years.

  • Jack Whitehall: Travels with My Father

    Jack Whitehall: Travels with My Father

    “Travels with my Father” is, without doubt, one of the funniest travelogues I’ve ever seen. Especially the first 2 episodes of season 1.

    You are bound to recognise at least one person you’ve known in real life.

    I laughed so hard I cried! Enjoy!

  • TRUMP! A Sociopathic Nightmare; or a Farsighted Genius

    TRUMP! A Sociopathic Nightmare; or a Farsighted Genius

    Trump’s latest foray into the world of foreign affairs has left me gasping at the selfishness and pointlessness of his actions.

    This man is now a serious threat to world peace and stability. He may prove us all wrong and his latest move to acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel might be part of some new strategy to bring about peace in the Middle East where all others have failed. Let’s truly hope that it is. However prima facie it looks to have zero positive outcomes, but rather taking the Middle East peace process 10 steps backward and hurtling the world into further terrorism and global unrest (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-42298782). It seems to me it is more likely the desperate move of a man who’s prediction of a massive terrorist threat to the US has so far failed to materialise, and where his sociopathic ego demands that he be proven correct by further taunting the epicentre of the terrorist world to deliver to his so far “fake” predictions.

    He has spent the best part of 2017 taunting the regime in North Korea, with the only outcome being that he seems to have driven the North Koreans to accelerate their nuclear missile capabilities. Having failed to turn the Korean peninsula into a nuclear conflagration, where fortunately wiser heads have prevailed, it now appears he has decided to turn his relentless efforts at warmongering to the Middle East.

    Firstly by stirring aggression between Saudi Arabia and Iran; and not satisfied with that, he now wants to escalate discontent and further destabilise a region that requires no encouragement to explode into violence.

    While his election as US President seemed to be a uniquely isolated event where the more fortunate of us could sit back and say “poor stupid Americans, look what your idiocy and greed has brought you”, it now seems that those of us that did not even have a say in electing him are being sucked into a potential global conflagration was no one wins and everyone loses. All just to feed this sociopath’s ego.

    To paraphrase words originally attributed to Henry II, “will no one rid us of this meddlesome man”!

  • The Ultimate Fake News

    The Ultimate Fake News

    Here is a true example of “FAKE NEWS”.

    https://youtu.be/ohztW7EKhOA

    So badly is this story mangled, and so deceptively presented, this video clip would have you believe that it was Robert Mueller himself, and not the FBI agent who was instantly fired, that sent anti trump whatsapp messages. And the voice is computer synthesised so that the speaker’s voice cannot be identified.

    It used to be “only believe what you see and not what you read”. Now it seems we can no longer rely on what we read, hear or see.

  • The future of fashion? Or just sad fashion sense

    The future of fashion? Or just sad fashion sense

    Bear shoes! White and pink socks! Pink sports shorts! Orange windbreaker! White cap with angel wings……you tell me.

    Is this the future of fashion??

  • An airline that seemingly no longer cares! (Part 2)

    An airline that seemingly no longer cares! (Part 2)

    More Malaysia Airlines Chaos…

    Chronology of another MH disaster

    5th Nov 2017
    Booked on MH767 SGN to KUL. Scheduled departure time 18:55.

    15:07
    Email received advising flight will now depart @ 19:20

    16:00
    Check-In. Advised by check-in staff that flight is on schedule – no delay?? WTF? The flight is suddenly back on time??

    17:56
    Another email received advising flight will now depart @ 20:00

    18:30
    Airport departure board still says flight on time. WTF?? I ask the lounge staff. “Is the flight delayed or not?”. Multiple phone calls …. it appears no one knows.

    Conversation with Malaysia Airlines HCMC staff. “We don’t know” “We haven’t been told”! WTF?? I got an email 30 mins earlier providing a new departure time, but Malaysia Airlines staff have no idea.

    18:50
    The announcement finally made the new departure time is now 20:00.

    However, I have now had 2 emails advising the flight is delayed. The first delay was to 19:20. The second email advised the delayed flight time is 20:00.

    What complete incompetence!!

    Is this a professional airline or what??? Virtually every Malaysia Airlines flight now has multiple delays. Airport staff has no idea whats going on. And passengers are just treated like “cattle” and told nothing.

    We were advised 10 days in advance that our flight KUL to SGN was “rescheduled”. It eventuates it was not rescheduled at all. The flight had been canceled and we had been moved to the next scheduled flight later that day. So much for a “rescheduled” flight!!

    It now seems every MH flight is now the subject of incompetence, incoherence, or we are just plain misled. Rapidly tiring of this nonsense.

    Part 1: An airline that seemingly no longer cares!

  • The Great Apple Con: iOS 11 and iPhone 8

    The Great Apple Con: iOS 11 and iPhone 8

    After hanging out for 6 months with cracked screens, I had decided to replace my 2 iPhones (6 & 6s) with an iPhone 8 and an iPhone X.

    In the meantime, I made the mistake of upgrading my iPhone 6 to iOS 11. Now apps can take literally SECONDS to open. Certainly way longer than with iOS 10 where apps open instantly. And to be honest iOS 11 doesn’t have that much functionally that makes it functionally very different from iOS10. The visual GUI is fancy and gentle on the eye… but definitely not worth the speed loss.

    iPhone 6 users beware before upgrading!!!!

    To be fair, apparently, the iPhone 6s works fine with iOS 11. No app opening issues.

    That’s just a small gripe!! My main gripe stems from some very shonky sales practices in the Apple HK store when I went to buy my long awaited and anticipated iPhone 8.

    I was in HK for 24 hours of business meetings one of which was in IFC, so I thought I would take the opportunity of a break between meetings to grab a Starbucks and look for an iPhone 8 as the Apple store and Starbucks are virtually next door to each other. Pretty much knowing what I wanted by way of an iPhone 8 I stopped there first.

    I was sent to stand in a corner whilst they found someone to attend to me. To be honest it was only a few minutes wait, definitely not long enough for irritation levels to rise.

    “What would you like” I was asked. “iPhone 8, 64Gb memory, space grey.” “Apple Care?” “No thanks”. Too easy.

    HKD6000.00 give or take an HKD or 2. Great I thought. The purchase as usual with Apple was slick and smooth. Then I was asked if I wanted help with the setup. I said no thanks. The sales guy then said, “There is a ‘no returns’ policy with iPhone 8s, so I suggest you go upstairs and at least open it up with our support staff”. “Weird.” I thought. But went up the stairs and took the guys advice. The girl with apple support said, “do you want to set it up?” I said “nope, I can do that myself. But the sales guy suggested I come open it up with you as there is a ‘no returns’ policy” The girl said fine. We opened it up and switched in on and went through the initial set up with all seemed to work fine. So we packed it back into the box and I thought no more of it…

    …until that was I caught up with some friends the next day and bragged about my new iPhone purchase. They then proceeded to tell me about scratches on the cases, dust in camera lenses, dust in the screens. Suddenly the penny dropped – “No returns policy, recommend you open it in the store” it all fell into place. And raised my blood pressure levels a few notches at the thought that Apple had knowingly sold me a potentially faulty product but not bothered to tell me of the possible faults so I could see if they were present on the iPhone I had bought. And all while sneakily advising me (the poor unsuspecting customer) of a no returns policy and the specific flaws that they new could well exist. And covering their backsides by encouraging me to open the box while still in the store.

    What kind of company sells customers a product that they know is not up to there standards and doesn’t tell the customer of the possible flaws or even check the product for the flaws before it leaves the store?

    This is shocking behaviour and practice from a company that apparently prides itself as the leading phone technology provider with huge pride in its design and quality control processes.

    That it clearly appears that Apple has had a major QC disaster but have decided to cover it up, compromise their own high standards and sell a potentially flawed product to unsuspecting customers, is hugely surprising and shocking. And as a religious Apple customer of many years standing, I now find myself no longer able to rely on receiving the quality of product that I had once bought unquestioningly. Never again will I be able to buy an Apple product in the certainty that rigorous product QC is in place.

    Perhaps it is now time to move on to a different manufacturer. At what cost, Apple, have you allowed your to standards to sink so low? And your honesty and integrity to become so questionable?

    Still in shock!!