Text tone

I get a lot of texts on my phone, mostly from automated systems. Indeed, I got one at 22:08 this evening saying something crashed, bugger! Nagios, I hate you... Some are less serious though, nagios monitors lots of things but I have tests tracking banking and even the alarm system at the office.

When I finally got an iPhone a while ago, one of the first things I checked is whether I can do custom text tones based on the sender. I could not. I resigned myself to the fact that all texts sound the same.

This evening, at my sister-in-laws, somehow in conversation the idea of text tones came up, and I commented how it was a shame you can't do that. Pauline insisted that you can! I handed over my phone for her to show how to do it, confident in the knowledge that she would look foolish and getting ready to look smug.

She did it. What sourcery is this? Smugness mode cancelled. It seems iOS 5 added text tones and I did not notice. Plonker.

I only managed to recover a small amount of smugness when the text tones did not in fact work for "named" text sources. I.e. texts from a word not a number, like "Bank". Pauline tried, and failed, to make it work. One cannot make a contact with a word as the mobile number.

Well, you can - you go to the text and "Add to contacts". This allows the mobile number to be stored as a word, something you can't type when editing it manually, and bingo - the text tones work for these too.

Well done Pauline!

So long, and thanks for all the fish

At 14:40 today, from RIPE...

"On Friday, 14 September 2012, the RIPE NCC, the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia, distributed the last blocks of IPv4 address space from the available pool."

...

"It is now imperative that all stakeholders deploy IPv6 on their networks to ensure the continuity of their online operations and the future growth of the Internet."

Obviously, having provided IPv6 for over 10 years, AAISP have been ready for this news. Whilst we have plans for conservation of remaining IPv4 addresses, we do plan to continue providing at least a static IPv4 external address to all new customers for some years to come, avoiding any 'Carrier Grade NAT' being needed within our network. New customers already receive an IPv6 assignment and pre-configured IPv6 router as standard.

No flash photography

Well, the new 1DX and my f/1.2 50mm lens work well even at a party, taking pictures in the dark. I have it set to 1/250th second min exposure and 25,600 max ISO and all on auto. This shot was f/1.4 1/250s ISO 8,000. Fast moving people with no flash and still getting a reasonable shot.

The focus did take a moment, understandably, but it did auto-focus even in very low light.

Over all, we got a few good pictures from the party. Adam clearly has no concept of the meaning of "Over the top"... :-)

The GPS worked indoors with no problems, and goe-tagged shots nicely, including which direction I was facing. The WiFi uploaded shots as taken, and so I was able to show people pictures on the iPad right away. Nice when the technology works!

I did not stay to the end, sorry - got a bit of a headache.

Making Greek internet look good

I finally found something worse that Internet in a Greek villa on Rhodes island.

Trying to play WoW on a train (East Coast) on 3G.

Latency varying from 250ms to 4s and often dead spots which can last minutes, especially tunnels.

I managed to the Utgarde Catacomb quests with very little dying, though in one case I had to wait a couple of minutes to find out that I had in fact died and not won the battle.

One advantage was that I could fly all the way in to the catacomb before my mount dropped me because of tunnel breaking communications. The game client itself does not know where flying is not allowed, it is the server that tells it.

Of course, a fixed IP address on my 3G does rather help. Yay! for A&A data SIMs.

Overall I have to say that I am impressed with Blizzard that it is possible to play at all, and if not for the tunnels I am sure questing on 3G on 300ms or so latency would be usable.

Obviously this would all be totally useless for any sort of PvP or raids with other players.

Back to reality

After more than a week of latencies that rarely dropped below 80ms and usually ran to well over a second I am finally home and latencies you can measure in microseconds.

I wonder if all of Ρόδος island is like that - perhaps some odd backhaul. No idea how to find out.

Someone said follow the cable? This was taken on the road between Rhodes and Lindos.

Well done Entanet

In a report on ispreview, Entanet call for rejected ADR claims to cost the consumer something.

At A&A we have serious doubts on the current ADR process, and even OFCOM's latest changes, having had one seriously broken case which involved large costs and compensation even when the arbitrator completely agreed we were not in breach of contract with a business customer (one that we assert was even a communications provider and so not even eligible for ADR in the first place). We got screwed over, basically. It cost me and my family money.

I appreciate that consumers do not want to be put off making valid complaints. They should not be. There are, indeed, many cases where ISPs and telcos make mistakes. Even we make mistakes, though we always aim to rectify them fairly and promptly if we do.

It is nice that we have a system in place (the county courts) that have such a predictable and cheap way to resolve disputes. For a matter of a few tens of pounds (in most cases) a consumer can take a case via the small claims track of the county court with little or no risk, and their costs paid if they win.

ADR is massively more expensive than the courts, and is paid by the ISP. This creates a scenario of quite simple blackmail. Yes, I am happy to say the word blackmail. If you are a consumer and you are in any way unhappy with your telco or ISP, you know that taking them to ADR will cost them a minimum of around £350 and probably way more even if the ISP is right. So you can threaten ADR for any claim under that and it would be not be acting in the best interests of the shareholders for the telco/ISP not to cave in and pay up. It is not fair to put consumer's morals under that pressure.

This is an obvious blackmail scenario, and I fully understand the position of the consumers in this case. Heck, I am sure I would do the same knowing the company that has annoyed me in some way could have much greater costs if I take them to ADR. It allows a consumer and small business to disregard contract conditions, no matter how clear and agreed they were, and screw over companies for the hell of it. It happens. We have had totally unfounded threats of ADR from a customer following the publication of the one ADR case we had. From what I understand, so have other ISPs! I would like to add that we had loads of people offering support and starting off by promising not to take us to ADR when asking us to resolve an issue. By far we have sensible and loyal customers who would not screw us over. The issue is that it only takes a tiny fraction of less scrupulous customers to cause serious problems for any telco.

The fact that those companies have shareholders like myself and my family who feel the cost of being screwed over just the same is often not something people see, understandably.

So I agree with Enta, failed ADR should have a cost, even if not the full cost, so that consumers only take real cases forward. They should not be put off, but even if they have to spend £50 up front, that would screen out the people taking the piss. Of course, as soon as you do this, then why on earth do we need ADR anyway when the county courts do such a good job for such a reasonable price in the first place. What we need is the courts to be less scary for people, not ADR at all.

Adding to my original post...

The issue we had was not so much the existing ADR structure. It has sensible T&Cs. E.g. they are there to find an agreed resolution, so if the claimant proposes a resolution (such as "to be let out of contract with no penalty") and ISP agrees that in full, there is no dispute, and no case, and no costs or awards. Similarly, if the arbitrator honoured the contract terms and legal principles, as they claim, a case where no breach of contract is agreed  by the arbitrator could never lead to an award (even if it meant the telco paying ADR fees to agree that). In our case these existing principles and terms were disregarded completely by the arbitrator (who is reminded that even reading this blog is breach of copyright). We agreed the claimant's resolution, and the arbitrator agreed we were not in breach of contract, yet still we paid lots of money and no recourse.

I cannot see how new rules would not be open to the same abuse without some changes.

The only way I can think that such clear abuses of the rules (the existing rules, or OFCOM's proposed new rules) can be addresses is a means of appeal. I cannot see why ADR should not in fact be fair (one of the things it claims to be) and allow either side to disagree the resolution and take the case to county court if they wish (paying to do so). At present the system is categorically designed to be unfair (offering the two sides different remedies, risks and costs) yet uses words like "fair" in the terms?!?

P.S. I know the world is not fair, a concept told to kids just to cause them annoyance later, but claiming to be fair when you are not does annoy me, and that is something ADR claims.

What sourcery is this?

My iPhone was fine last night when I put it on charge.

This morning the screen is cracked.

How the hell does that happen?

Update: for extra sourcery, the picture I took (right) as shown on the iPhone itself has the crack exactly under the crack (see below). WTF. Is this the crack in the universe from Dr Who?