No longer does Vista boot up. No longer does Vista boot up into safe mode. No longer does Vista recovery actually recover or “repair” Vista. Vista is totally screwed, and there is exactly 1 thing left to do. Reinstall. Since when is this acceptable? Why do people actually put up with this rubbish?

So, from this moment onwards, I don’t care about you and your Vista problems. Don’t even try and sell me the fact that M$ has the market share and the world revolves around them and I shouldn’t write them off. Don’t tell me that we need to embrace Vista as XP is no longer being sold. I don’t care. The only thing I suggest for you sorry souls running Windows Vista is 1: screw Windows all together and get a Mac, or 2: Beg, borrow or steal a copy of Windows XP and stick with that.

There are only 3 operating systems that are stable and actually usable – sucks to be you if you run any other OS.

1. Mac OS X – 10.5.4 – released mid 2008
2. Ubuntu Linux – new version released every few months – 2008
3. Window XP – Released in 2001 – old and reliable, just like your dad’s 1985 Toyota corolla.

Screw you Vista. You have taken away so much of time that I could of spent making money, watching tv, spending time with my better half, drinking, braaing, playing Nintendo Wii… The list goes on.

</end rant>

From someone in Zimbabwe:

Dear Friends,

We have survived the worst week yet — no water since 12th of this month & still no water, power came on briefly on Sunday and then again yesterday morning, after being off for seven days. Associated with power-out is the lack of telephone. Now also total lack of food and money.

We are allowed to draw only 100 billion dollars per day from our bank accounts. This is currently worth less than 20 UK pence or 40 US cents or two South African Rand. It is a criminally cruel policy which is causing extreme suffering and costing huge unnecessary transport costs to get to the bank daily & then stand in the queue for hours.

This daily maximum withdrawal is not enough to buy even a single bread roll which this week cost 140 billion dollars. On Saturday 1kg of potatoes was 110 billion, 1kg of oranges 500 billion, so one cannot buy anything for the daily drawn-sum and then by the next day everything has again increased beyond one’s purse.

Supermarkets are empty. Vegetables available only from street vendors. Our telephone calls are 2.2 billion dollars per unit. We are desperate for relief. On Friday 25th exchange rate was 850 billion dollars to the US. Inflation was 150 quintillion percent (that is 150 plus 18 0’s ). We try to keep each other going but it is extremely difficult. It is incomprehensible that the world will not come to our aid.

The bank employees are helping themselves to client’s money and all municipal and state services have collapsed. There is no justice to be found anywhere.

My farming friends who had their larger farm expropriated now do not have enough grazing for their dairy herd. They were told to reduce their herd, but the shortage of milk is already so critical that most children never see milk. We are told that we are lucky to have enough water to drink!

These farmers are daily threatened by a police chief who wants to move into their remaining small farm. He has brought a contingent of police to squat on the farm to make sure that they do not remove anything from the farm. They are in terror for their lives and those of their workers but trying to hang on. There is no recourse to justice or help from any quarter. Common human decency has left us. These farmers supply me with two litres of milk and six eggs and sometimes vegetables each week. Without this food I would have nothing.

Last week we ran out of bread, having rationed ourselves to one thin slice per day to make it go further. The bread which we brought back from Johannesburg in April lasted us four months.

The sun still shines & birds are chirping in the garden & spring is coming. The warmer weather helps our mood.

Love to all …

Originally from Duncan Riley from Crickey.

The past 2 weeks or so saw the launch of Seduction101.co.za – a site to submit and vote for pick-up lines and seduction tips. I know some details about seduction101 from behind the scenes and posted a few pick-up lines that did pretty well early on as they got to the top rated list pretty easily. (I was actually just testing the service out in the beginning…)

Then, after a prize of an iPod Touch was announced for the top rated pick-up line by the 14th of July, I gave it a real shot by posting to my Twitter and Plurk streams to garner a few votes from my friends and followers.

Then the mess.

The site runs off cookies and no user registration is necessary to vote up or vote down pick-up lines. You can also vote once an hour.

So by clearing your cookies, using multiple browsers and voting up your pick-up lines, and voting down others, you can imagine the mayhem. I chatted to Wezzo on GTalk about the down voting, and MNet New Media (developers of the site) removed the down voting. That’s half a step in the right direction, except for 1 small thing I came across after all of this – the parameters are being passed via the URL.

http://www.seduction101.co.za/wap/Vote.aspx?d=1&t=60

Change the d to 100, or even -100 and select your pick-up line with t, and you have full control of the site. ;-(

That coupled with the cookie clearing and multiple browser hacks as well, means you could sort of do as you please.

And, I’ll admit it. I did all of that. But, by doing that, I also caught okes cheating just as much as I did – Al, Saiyuuki, Sorceror and Nathan (not 100% of Nathan, but anyone on the top rated list at the moment are cheaters).

I had good intentions of trying to win legitimately (blogging about the competition, Twitter, Plurk and I even wanted to start a Facebook group), but after seeing other cheaters go at it, I stooped to their level and joined in. :-(.

I’m disqualifying myself, but in doing so I want to offer my help. MNet, you can fix this competition and here are my suggestions.

The Long Way

• Users have to register to submit tips
• You have to login to the site to be able to vote

The above method will take a while to code, test and get up and running. It will also spoil some of the hard work that has gone into getting the current pick-up lines submitted etc. But, their is another way of solving this…

The Easy Way

Change the rules of winning the prize!

• a random pick-up line wins an iPod Touch on the 14th of July
• You are able to submit multiple pick-up lines, but it only constitutes 1 vote in the draw

I’d just like to apologise to the guys running the site – MNet and Wezzo in particular – for my cheating. I have to admit, it was somewhat fun being able to manipulate a competition in such a way and cause some of the other cheaters to think I am some sort of god, but, it will go down in my books as one of the stupidest things I’ve done, and I’m apologising for that.

It was a great concept, but totally flawed from the beginning and I hope we can sort it out as soon as possible!

MWeb as a whole are a totally useless and overpriced Internet Service Provider, but their business division takes the cake. Read on why…

My “Brother-in-law’s” job is his phone and email. I’m talking 300 emails a day type of email. Blackberry email is also probably the only way he can stay in touch with his clients as they are mostly international, and their spoken English is very bad compared to their written English.

I setup his new Blackberry Pearl on Sunday just before he headed overseas. Anyway, because of the traveling and not having being able to use his Blackberry, his mailbox limit was reached and mails started bouncing. He called me to help find out what the problem was, so I called MWeb’s business on 0860 100 154 to get help increasing his limit. The technical guy was only helpful enough to tell me he had a 200MB limit and that he would put me through to the sales division who would be able to increase the limit to 1GB.

Suffice to say, I waited on the phone for about 30 minutes and no one answered. I called their sales division directly on 08600 32000, waited around 15 minutes and still no one answered. I gave up and asked our technical guy in my office for a direct MWeb business number. (Our company also has had major issues with MWeb, but that’s another story)

I then got hold of their reception on 021 596 8300. The lady put me through to a “team leader” in the business division, who, after scrounging around on her desk for 2 minutes to find something, told me that only “Vanessa” could help me. (021 596 7163). Vanessa’s number went straight into voicemail, so I gave up on that avenue. I called reception again, pleading for some help, and they then put me though to Gillian, who also told me that she couldn’t help me and that I must call Vanessa. I told her Vanessa wasn’t answering her phone. She then said she would get Clinton to call me back the second he gets off the phone. She logged my name, number and query, and I told her this is urgent as my clients emails are bouncing! This call ended at 11am on Tuesday.

It is now 48 hours later. I am still awaiting with baited breath for “Clinton” to give me a call.

My dad watched last weeks show and wanted to know more information regarding some water pump that they installed at Robbie Fleck’s home as part of their Handy Man series on the show. My dad told me to go and check out topbilling.com for more information, as the show instructed. When I spotted the Joomla favicon in the address bar, I knew we were in trouble.

Big problems on the topbilling.com

Firstly there is no Top Billing brand identity. The logo is handmade, and the site design is using a basic Joomla template (RocketTheme?).
Content on the site is down to a bare minimum. There is very little information on the TV show or magazine, and other than the information being completely out of context and irrelevant, the Magazine page has a lovely paragraph of Lorem ipsum dolor text. (I also just noticed that the TV Show page is dated the 28 August. Lovely.).
How about contact details? Nope, nothing but a nicely placed back link.
Want some info on the lovely Jeannie D? Forget it.

But wait, there’s more rubbish! They running a forum on the site, with one of the Admin’s posting this gem:

Welcome to the New Website

There is lots of potential for your interaction here !

All you need to do is register an account – thats your password to interactions like:

-Making comments against presenter search candidates
-Participating in this forum
-Submitting your OWN article – how about that? You could use this space to promote your business or whatever you like. Use your discretion and good taste though.
-We may even let you communicate with other users – we will see how that goes.We want to do that in contained manner so that this site is always a pleasure for you and not another space where you are constantly interrupted.

Try this forum – you can discuss anything here!

Thanks
Selwyn Wacks

Complete and utter rubbish

Top Billing’s web presence is a joke. For all the glitz, glamour and jet-setting presenters on the show, their marketing team has completely left out one of the most crucial aspects that could enhance their brand. The www is not some kids toy. Show some respect.

Oh, and I still have absolutely no way of finding some sort of info regarding that water pump for my dad. Anyone know someone at SABC that might help?

Dell Inspiron 640m and 9400

Dear Jason,

I am writing to you to inform you that as a result of a technical error we have inadvertently advertised the Dell Inspiron 640m and 9400 on our web store at R0. This is incorrect. The goods should have been priced at R6,990 and R10,990 respectively. As a result we are unable to fulfill your recent order for these goods. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused. If you have already paid for any associated goods, software or delivery charges forming part of your order for the Dell Inspiron 640m and/or 9400 please furnish us with your banking details and you will be reimbursed within the next few days.

We are in the process of correcting these technical issues. We hope to have this store up and running by early next week.

Please do not hesitate to contact me or your account manager if you have any questions.

Yours sincerely

Gavin Slevin
Brand Manager – Mobile Products

Heres a screenshot of my original order.

Im sure Mike Stopforth and the likes are going to have harsher words to say than me about Dell, and their non-delivery, especially after he promised he’d donate all 6 laptops he ordered to Baragwanath. :-)

I’d compare this experience to playing the Lotto. I had a ticket to a free laptop, but didn’t strike it lucky. :-(

So around 1 month later, Vista RC1 was released, and after reading Paul Thurrot’s excellent site about Vista and RC1, I decided to download the beast (at a hefty 3.2GB, which by the way, on our 4mb ADSL line took roughly 2.5 hours!). I then installed it on my home machine, and boy has Vista improved from Beta to RC1. All my drivers were automatically installed, Aero was working beautifully, and Vista really looked like a perfect upgrade to Windows XP.

Well, that was until I actually started to need it to work, and not just sit there and look pretty. The only driver that didn’t install was my soundcard, which I must say was at least 6 years old. I bought a new Genius 5.1 Channel PCI Sound Card, which didn’t install on Vista either. I even contacted Genius support, who told me there currently were no Vista drivers. :-( Strike 1.

Last night, my girlfriend needed to print some documents, and low and behold, my HP deskjet 3745 printer, which is just over a year old, also didn’t install! Again I contacted HP support, and they too didn’t have Vista drivers, but said that they were working on them. Strike 2.

The final nail in this beast’s coffin, was the way it handled the printing. My girlfriend had tried to install the printer herself, and had just choosen the printer out of their list of supported printers, but the problem was that it was hooked up to the LPT1 port, and not USB. You try deleting a printer, when it has a document waiting to print. It just doesn’t work pal. I have tried to cancel, re-cancel, pause, restart, remove, absolutely everything to both the “waiting” document, and the printer. It just has a caption next to it saying “busy deleting“. After a couple of restarts, it still is busy. Strike 3.

Vista will be an awesome operating system, but the lesson learnt here is, don’t install a Beta OS no matter what. Not all devices are supported yet, some installation files won’t run, as well as support is at a bare minimum. So my home machine is going under the knife, once again, to be put out of its misery, and the legend of XP will make it’s appearance on my screen once again.

I know the Linux and Mac okes are laughing right now, saying “dude, just get a real OS“, but folks, its simple decision for me. Money is where Microsoft lies. Or is it Microsoft is where the money lies?

So after reading a couple of reviews on the new Performancing Partners, (most notably Problogger.net), I logged in to my account, hit the partners program, and the ugliest word stared me in the face…

I love Paypal and the simplicity of paying and receiving money online, as well as the endless opportunities it offers on the web. The big but in this is Paypal is not accepted in South Africa, thanks to SARS. We can setup a Paypal account to use it to pay others or transfer money into other Paypal accounts, but we cannot have anyone pay us.

The reason SARS won’t allow Paypal, is the fact that they want their share of the pie, for when you get paid. If you are using Paypal, they cannot track money coming into our country, and therefore cannot get paid.

This is just another reason to add to our online problems (along with Telkom’s ridiculous bandwidth pricing etc).

Think about this scenario. I’ve decided that I want to sell funky designed T-shirts online. Something along the lines of Threadless.com. I design a simple website with pictures of my T-shirts. I have a hosting account setup, which is lank cheap – R20pm (or even find free hosting at worst), and that’s afforable right?

Step 2. Now I need to be able for people to buy my T-shirts online! I’m an American, so I pop into my Paypal account, create a shopping cart, pop that into my small website and now it’s gone all e-commerce! Cool I say! Paypal takes 2.5% to 3.5% of every transaction, as well as 30c. The big factor in this is, if I don’t sell 1 T-shirt, I won’t have to pay a cent. No risks = no loss.

Now imagine this scenario in South Africa. There is no free online credit card processing shop that I can use. So I have to fork over at least R100pm for this functionality. What started as a small hobby, now means if I don’t sell, I’m losing money every month! That American guy is smiling because although he isn’t selling, at least his hobby isn’t costing him anything, and if his site all of a sudden takes off in 6 months time, he hasn’t wasted more than R600 on credit card processing.

The moral of this story is that not being able to stick a simple Paypal button on our websites, means dozens of budding entrepreneurs in SA are being put off the whole e-commerce thing, and will try to apply their trade elsewhere. Some will pay the bucks to start online businesses, but others just don’t have the capital to start, but they do have somre really awesome ideas.

I love this country, and everything it has to offer, but sometimes I really feel we are moving backwards, rather than forwards when it comes to the internet and e-commerce. Just for interests sake, the co-founder of Paypal, Elon Musk is South African. Imagine Paypal was a South African company. How much would SARS be making off them? A globally accepted form of payment processing is raking in billions of dollars annually, of which SA is seeing zero. It really is a shame.

Update: Check out the list of countrie’s Paypal supports. SA is in the Send Money to Anyone in the Growing PayPal Network group.

Jason: “Hello, Jason speaking.”
Brabys telesalesman: “Hi, This is [can't remember his name] speaking. Are your details correct on Brabys?”

Jason: “Excuse me? Brabys you say?”
B Ts: “Yes sir. Are your details still correct that are on our system? You subscribed to our internet marketing program a couple of years back, and I’d like to find out if the details are still correct.”

Jason: “It doesn’t matter to me if our details are correct or incorrect. We no longer do business with you guys.”

Long pause…….

Jason: “A couple of years back we placed a couple of advertisments with you and we found that we were getting more calls from people trying to sell us things than were interested in our business, and therefore will never use Brabys again.”

B Ts: “Thats a real shame.”

Long pause……

B Ts: “I also hate working here…. This place really sucks. Anyway, enjoy the rest of your day. Goodbye.”

Click.

Seems that Brabys employees and I share the same thought. We both hate Brabys.

One of my biggest irratations of late, are emails that I receive that people haven’t taken more than 3 seconds to type and click send. It sometimes feel that the person that sent the email, is being extremely rude, but in actual fact, just doesn’t care much about the tone of their emails. It comes down to knowledge. If a person knew better, than more often than not, do better.

So for anyone that uses email, these tips are for you. For those that already know better, if you have any email ettiquette tips, please add them to the comments.

• 1. Address someone specific. When sending an email to a company department, or a grouped email address, use “Hi So-and-so”. More often than not, the person emails asking for help, but there are many people who recieve the email, and invarably no-one responds.
• 2. Write an email like you would a letter. Start with an opening paragraph, write all the content in the body, and end off with a closing paragraph. Paraphrase your email aswell. It makes it easier to read. Obviously if you sending a one line email, then no need, but common courtesy is always nice.
• 3. Use decent signatures. Have your name, job position and contact details in your signature. Also, 2 colours and 2 font size changes max! Thats it. No funny quotes, jokes, wierd pictures, 5 colour names, 3 different fonts etc. If its a personal email, no problem, rainbow style your email, but with business email, keep it professional.
• 4. Make use of the From address field. In your email’s account settings, fill your full name and surname in. It makes it easier for people to recognise where the email is coming from immediately, without having to sift through the entire email to read your name in your signature.
• 5. Use the subject field for the email’s subject! Use a descriptive subject in the least amount of words possible. Do not ask or answer questions in the subject field and especially, NEVER leave the subject blank.
• 6. Make proper use of the Importance field. (The “!” button) The importance of a document should only be set to high, if the email should be brought to the recipients attention immediately. Jokes or simple requests or emails that only need to be opened when the recipient has a free moment, should never be flagged.
• 7. Never delete email. You never know when you are going to need the information or prove that you sent or recieved an email. Make use of mail folders, email sorting and archiving, so your email client doesn’t get clogged, but the simple rule is… never delete.

I hope you’ve learn’t a thing or two from these tips. So why not practice them and send me an email! jason[at]jasonbagley[dot]com :-)