The other day I got an interesting phone call from ‘Microsoft Support’. Actually, this was a scam or fake Microsoft call and it seems like a few people I know have received similar calls too, so I thought a quick post might help others out there.
‘General’ Archives
How To Add Featured Image Support To A WordPress Theme
If you look beside this post, you will see an icon or image of the WordPress badge. This was added to the post so it displays as a ‘Featured Image’ or Post Thumbnail and it can be set so it clicks through to the blog post.
Adding Featured Image support to a WordPress Theme is a pretty simple process and aside from the styling, requires only a bit of cut and paste.
London And UK Riots 2011 – My Opinion
Living in London, UK, and very close to the scene of the start of the riots, I have been very aware of the events unfolding around us recently, so I am taking a small diversion from the usual content to share my thoughts on the matter.
Skype 5 on Mac OS X
A little while ago I upgraded my Skype app from version 2.8 to the new, spangly version 5 with it’s single user interface window. However, I use screen sharing a lot, particularly when helping clients with getting to grips with administering websites and the new version of Skype has been less than friendly, so I have just downgraded…
How To Cancel Automatic PayPal Payments or Subscriptions
Paypal offers a recurring payments system for sellers or merchants. This allows the seller to set up an automatic, recurring payment or subscription which renews payments once they reach their expiry date.
Native Instruments Product Registration
One of my interests is in making music. The kind of stuff I make meant I was very keen on the Native Instruments Absynth software synth for sound design.
I managed to buy second-hand from an eBay user who had de-registered the software. This should have made it a really quick process to allow me to become the new registered owner.
Well I bought the licences for Absynth - and now I’m waiting on NI to email me with acknowledgement of transfer….
Native Instruments – your registration support is painfully slow. The thing that really sucks is that I have legitimately purchased a product and I’ve been waiting 2 days for you to provide the support that goes with paying for goods. I am not condoning piracy but I’m sure that if I had downloaded a torrent I would have been up and running straight away. This apathy is putting me off buying any more products from you – great though they are. It only takes a moment to fire off an email and given the number of units you sell, you must surely have more than one guy working in the registration department…
It is unacceptable that you do not respond to your customers in a timely fashion. Without customers who are prepared to pay for your goods, you have no business, so start showing us some of the stereotypical German efficiency please!
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Update
It took 3 separate emails and 5 days to get my registration ‘issue’ resolved. Absynth really is a fantastic soft synth but I’m not going to bother with Native Instruments anymore…
Orange Broadband – Serving Up Slowly
This post is a rant…
Just cancelled my Orange HomeMax broadband package, which was supposed to be 8MB. I was only getting an average speed of 3.5MB (I can hear you all laughing as you read this…) so got a second phone line and Virgin 10MB broadband. In a head to head test on the networks, the pictures below speak for themselves.
Orange Broadband Speed Test
Virgin (Telewest) Broadband Speed Test
In a direct test, Virgin are more than twice the speed compared to Orange, and since having the 10MB broadband from Virgin I have never seen my speed drop below 9.5MB.
Orange overlooked that they were charging for a service that they didn’t deliver and insisted on me paying £49 for terminating the contract before the end of term.
At least Dick Turpin wore a mask.
Incidentally, if you want to leave Orange, I was told that the accepted conditions where the early termination fee would not apply were this; you have to phone them twice a week for 30 days! Yup – at least 8 times a month before they accept there might be a valid issue. Good luck to anyone in a similar situation as me.
The Pattern Behind Self-Deception
Here’s an interesting video from ted.com on how and why we are wired to see ‘things’ in the world around us.
A New Website and a New Name
Designermagic has a new name and a new website. From June 2010, you are looking at Haiz Design.
Quite simply, I just want to make things more direct!
The new website address is www.haizdesign.com and I look forward to receiving your feedback on the changes.
Latest News
Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately. I’m currently also working on a new site for Designermagic. Hope to get the finished site online within the next week and then it will be back to business as usual.
