Blog!ARU

Towards the end of last year I found an album on Nokia Music that I really wanted but couldn't find anywhere else. I duly registered for Nokia Music, paid for the album and tried to downloaded the tracks. The tracks wouldn't download to my PC, something to do with a certificate error.

It was then that I found out that I had paid for DRM-riddled Windows Media Audio files at a low-quality bit-rate that could only be played if you have an Internet connection to download the license and a player capable of handling the DRM. I hadn't managed to download or play the music so I wrote to Nokia Music support and asked for a refund under the 7-day Distance Selling Regulations.

Nokia Music wrote back and asked for my inside leg measurement and a bucket load of details about my phone (none of which were relevant to my request). I duly replied and reiterated my request for a refund as they were obliged to offer by law.

They asked for more information about my PC and my phone. I answered some of it and reiterated my request for a refund. They asked a fourth time for even more information, but I ignored the request and just replied with the refund request.

That was the last I heard from Nokia Music.

I planned to take them to the small claims court, but in the end couldn't muster the enthusiasm to go through the hassle just for £8. So, avoid Nokia Music like the plague. They don't warn you before you buy that you are buying DRM-crippled WMA files at 192kbits/s, then when things don't work and you request a refund within 7 days as you're entitled to by rights protected under UK law, they procrastinate and then ignore you. I want to download music at up to 320kbits/s in plain MP3 format so I can play it when and where I want with no restrictions. DRM, Nokia Music and Nokia Music Customer Services suck.

I have a ‘Pay Monthly’ contract with Vodafone, for which they push bits of dead trees through my letter box every month with billing information on them. When I got the phone last May I was offered online billing and I duly attempted to register. I tried several times but was never able to manage it. In the end I contacted customer services who told me that online billing was broken, which was why I couldn't register, that they were working on a newer version and that I should try again later.

Later is February 2010; I was prompted to register again a couple of days ago by an SMS telling me that dead trees weren't going to be ferried to me every month anymore. I tried yesterday to register but kept getting told that I'd entered incorrect account information. I checked and re-checked but couldn't get it to work. I contacted customer services.

They advised me that I wasn't the account holder and that I should get permission first from whoever was before attempting to register. I replied and advised that I am the account holder, that they couriered the phone to my home address when I bought it, that they send the bill to the same address every month and that I pay the bill from my bank account every month.

I got a call from a friendly but barely comprehensible gentleman from Bangalore who advised that he would delete my account and that I should attempt to register again. He subsequently sent me an email asking that I rate his answer online. I've spent an hour today trying that again. The form asks for my phone number and when I submit it I get an SMS with a security code in it. On the next form I enter the security code. On the next form I fill in my date of birth, my account number from my bill and the method by which I pay for my contract. When I do this I'm told yet again that I have entered incorrect account information and that I can't continue. When I follow the link to rate my customer service I get a web page blank except for the error message “Server Unavailable”.

Vodafone have terribly nice customer service staff, but nothing works. Vodafone suck.

Update
News from Bangalore just in: apparently they have the wrong date on file for my birthday, which is odd because every time they do a security check they ask for this and it's always been OK! All I have to do is take my birth certificate to my nearest store 8 miles away…

I'd been using Nokia Maps for about a year, the paid service that is, and it was pretty good, it worked, I could plan routes, it got me from A to B just fine, more or less (apart from that time it took me on a detour to Manchester and I sat in stationary traffic on the M62 for an hour, but let us overlook that little mishap).

Now it's defunct as there's a new Ovi Maps that's free to use. Sounds great. It's not. I'd tried last week to use a saved favourite route, but Ovi Maps would only ever report the error “Route Not Found”.

Today I had to rely on it to go to Kwik Fit in Trowbridge to have two new front tyres fitted. I'd set the location of Kiwk Fit as a temporary favourite, got in the car, picked the favourite and it duly appeared on the map, great. I then chose ”Drive to” and got the error “Route Not Found”. I had to go back into the house and memorise the route from Google Maps.

I've spent a couple of hours uninstalling, installing, re-installing, deleting folders, changing settings and more as advised in various forums and none of it works. Ovi Maps is crap. Its basic function of being a sat-nav doesn't work and there's no way to add or edit custom routes unlike the old version, so even if the sat-nav did work I couldn't plan journeys and set waypoints to avoid congested roads. I can however check for my nearest Michelin-starred restaurant, so that's handy. I'd happily continue to pay for Nokia Maps, but I don't think it's possible to download the old version any more and it's probably not possible to buy a licence even if I could. Nokia intend the free Ovi Maps to become a ‘killer app’ that will woo punters into buying its phones, and maybe it would be if it worked.

Having been a happy paying customer of Nokia Maps I'm now faced with the ironic prospect of having to buy a sat-nav, good work Nokia!

Update
Ugh, this morning it's all working; the Sat-Nav bit works, saved routes work, the voicey bit is working too. Rather perplexed as I haven't touched the phone since yesterday not even to turn it off. It got me to the Quantocks this afternoon (where I was drinking Earl Grey and eating bananas whilst surrounded by low clouds and back on a purposely different route flawlessly. Oh, well, lets hope it stays that way. Ovi Maps no longer sucks.

Cuteness overload: BBC In pictures: Snow in the North East — the Snowmen in Corbridge photo with the snow-dog, snow-cat, snow-rabbit & snow-mouse.

No snow down here in Somerset apart from an icing-sugar like dusting yesterday, but it is lovely and sunny with wall-to-wall blue sky. Happy New Year.

I'm surprised to find out that it is my birthday today. I'm partly surprised because I thought it was next month but am mostly surprised because my car insurance company has sent me a birthday card to celebrate the fact. I should think nothing more of this and just consider it a jolly nice gesture from a friendly company with a heart, rather than the machinations of the marketing department of a corporate behemoth intent on extracting as much money as they can from me in exchange for the legal right to drive a car. This has, however, left me pondering a couple of things:

• If they've got my date of birth wrong is my insurance actually valid?
• If they have money to spend on sending me a birthday card am I spending too much money on my insurance?
• I'd rather not be reminded that I'll soon have to shell out £300 on car insurance again!

Whilst I've finally got to an age where I'd rather not be reminded about becoming a year older, I shall endeavour to concentrate on the thought that someone somewhere in the bowels of an office block in Croydon devised this scheme with some genuine goodwill at heart. Perhaps my imminent renewal notice will yield some more light on that!

Update
For double the surprise I got another identical card last week

I'm not doing very well at Steak House or Gay Bar?. Out of 20 names I've got 15 wrong!

Via Boing Boing.

Oh, my coat, how kind…

Decided I needed to get some decent exercise today after a busy week at work and having not done much the previous weekend, so I spent a few hours this morning putting the roof-rack on the car, the bike rack on the roof-rack, packing all sorts of gear, swapping my peddles over for the clipless ones and finally getting away just after lunch time. Just as I was leaving Frome the heavens opened and it rained for 90mins all the way to the Quantocks.

As the forecast was for it to clear up I didn't mind, but as I drove up onto the top of the hills I passed through the bottom of the cloud layer where the visibility was poor enough for fog lights. The ‘car park’ sits in a hollow and although there were waves of mist blowing along a few metres up it didn't look too bad where I was, though I was cursing not having brought my helmet or woolly hat as my head would be getting wet when everything else would be dry under waterproofs. I ate my sarnies, got changed and went out for a look around to see how wet I might get if I went up onto the paths on the top. I only got as far as the lip of the hollow of the car park because the wind was so strong it stopped me in my tracks whilst blasting me with rain and spray.

So, I decided that with the 150yd visibility, the lack of a decent map (it's on order), the lack of head-gear, the rain and the strong wind to call it a day. So I sat in the car reading the paper for an hour or so, eating bananas and drinking milky tea. Rather annoyingly after getting changed again and driving down the hill I drove out of the cloud and not only had it stopped raining down there but a bit further away from the Quantocks the sun came out and followed me most of the way home. Bugger.