Category Archives: Priceless

Wasting Portage big time or: What the customer REALLY wanted…

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Probably everyone who has been trough some semi-serious kind of programming 101 course has probably been presented with this:

Your lecturer probably told you that this is a common problem amongst software developers. However, as I just learned, it seems to be a diseaseproblem with the entire IT industry.

So what happened? I was visited by a Dell technician because my laptop backlight was broken. He replaced the spare part pretty quickly which made me pretty happy. However, we noticed that some screws needed replacements and some (small) bumpers were missing. My Laptop has two kinds of bumpers, two big, longish ones and several smaller, roundish one. So he was kind enough to order new screws and (small) bumpers with the Dell hotline who promised to send the parts promptly. And when I pulled the envelope from my post box the other day I was a happy camper… until I realized there were six(!) more left in the box. So I took them all and if you lay them out, it looks pretty impressive:

But the technician ordered just 1 set of screws and 6 small bumpers. So how could that add up to 7 air-damped envelopes?? Right, as you probably just guessed (out of your mathematically trained gut), each bumper came in its own envelope. So if you lay out the contents, it doesn’t look soo impressive anymore:

And did you realize something else? I am now sitting here with seven large bumpers, of which I can make use of none (well, I will probably replace the old ones that are still there, but that wasn’t the actual problem at all, and I still would have five spare…)

Closing remarks

  • I am still very satisfied with Dell, but I found this just too remarkable not to blog.
  • Yes, I am aware of the fact that it’s cheaper to pay for portage multiple times instead of paying someone to make one delivery of all parts belonging to a shipment. But this is really an extreme. Plus it’s extremely funny that those expenses basically were payed unnecessary.

Update: I just talked to the hotline and they will send me a complete service kit (in one shipment) by the day after tomorrow. Yay!

Fixing the net

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Greetings from Espoo, Finland, close to Helsinki (Hello Andreas!). We arrived yesterday evening and so far all things are nice. EVTEK welcomed us warmly, and we had a grat first day, including a sightseeing tour to downtown Helsinki. I also survived the lunch (thanks for the warning, #5 from my last entry).

The only situation that the wifi situation sucks pretty much. EVTEK only permits proxied HTTP and the hotel where we are located just switched off the router behind the wireless APs for some reason. Why is it that you always need to fix the network uplink to get proper internet?

PS: Yes I know it’s possible to tunnel, but I want to use the VoIP functionality of my E51, for which only few tunneling mechanisms exist.

Priceless: "Extra Blatt"-Aufmacher

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Auch heute steckte wie jede Woche die aktuelle Ausgabe des Extra-Blatts in meinem Briefkasten. Normalerweise wandert es direkt (oder nach Entnahme diverser Angebotsblättchen) in den Mülleimer, doch heute machte mich eine Überschrift aufmerksam:

“Kampftrinken” bis der Arzt kommt

Alkoholvergiftungen nehmen dramatisch zu – Vorsicht auch an Karneval

Auch??

Was die Tagesschau von Vista hält

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Heute förderte mein Newsreader einen Artikel zu Tage, der unter die zu diesem Zweck eröffnete Kategorie “Priceless” fällt. Darin beschäftigt sich tagesschau.de unter dem Titel Microsofts Fenster mit Aussicht ausführlich mit Windows Vista. Nicht nur Microsoft, auch Mac-Jünger und mein Lieblingsthema “Linux auf dem Desktop” kriegen ihr Fett weg. Wer keine Zeit hat um den ganzen Artikel zu lesen, kann hier aber auch ein kurzes Best-of lesen:

Ein Betriebssystem an sich ist einfach nicht mehr aufregend und sexy (Apple-Jünger sehen das sicher anders, Beschwerde-Mails bitte an die übliche Adresse).

Freuen werden sich die Redmonder und ihre Kollegen aus Unterschleißheim auch über dieses Urteil:

…mit der Oberfläche “Aero” hat Vista optisch Anschluss an das inoffizielle Vorbild Mac OS gefunden.

Der Artikel schließt mit dem Fazit:

Abwarten ist also angesagt. Zum Beispiel bei der Installation von Windows Vista. Und danach vielleicht bei einer guten Partie Schach. Das ist nämlich eines der neuen Spiele in Vista – und damit wirklich mal eine Innovation nach Jahrzehnten Solitär und Minesweeper.