Fasthost "Support" - Laughable!

And of course by putting the word "Support" in quotes in my title, I am indeed, as you'd expect, implying that Support is the very last thing they seem to actually provide.

I've been using Fasthosts for my own and my client's hosting for many a long year now. I've paid them a fair few bob over the years, and I've brought them new customers, in my capacity as a self employed web developer, (see www.xledev.co.uk). Up until very recently, this has been a fairly stable and satisfactory symbiotic(ish) relationship, and I've happily sung their praises to anyone who was interested. But it's all gone Pete Tong recently, because I've had troubles, and with these troubles has come the requirement to contact their Support department. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

I won't bang on, because if you search the web you'll find many examples of annoyed people who've fallen foul of Fasthosts in one way or another, but I can give you a couple of amusing examples, and a little advice.

There are two ways you can approach them, by phone or by email. By phone costs you money, and a great deal of time. Eventually you might get through to someone, but in my experience they will sound a very very long way away. They will be quiet, and there will be an annoying delay on the line, and though I totally admire people who have gained any sort of fluency I another language... I can't help but feel they don't really understand half of what you're telling them. When what you're telling them is technically complex, this can be, ah, problematical.

Then there's email. Email is quicker for you to actually create, but it is eye-wateringly long-winded to get anywhere. They never reply quicker than 24 hours, and often take longer. Their first reply is always just that, a reply, no effort having been made to solve anything. They will ask you for some more information. 24 hours will pass. In my experience, the next response will be from someone who has not actually read your email properly, it will be a knee jerk reaction, and it will probably imply that you are at fault. Reply, 24 hours pass. You might break through the drone wall at this point and get through to someone who actually understands what you want... maybe. They may help at this point, or they may ask for more info. You'll notice that a week has nearly passed. Eventually you might get it sorted, and they might gently apologise.

One example recently, was that when developing pages using ASP, their new hosting was not returning error messages, just a general purpose page which told you nothing. I made a page with an error on it, and called it "deliberate-error.asp" in order that they could see what I was on about. After three days of getting this across to them I received a message from them saying that the page I had given them had an error in it, and perhaps I should fix it myself! Doh!

I tried hard to lay off the sarcasm in my reply, because I reckon it may have been lost completely on this 'support' operative who, I imagine, was "not from round here".

I am currently locked out of my account, because when I log on I'm told that a transaction I instigated (I didn't) has failed due to a problem with the payment (it's a free option and is trying to take a payment of exactly £0.00). It says I should either update my payment method (I can't as it won't let me in to do so) or Cancel. When I click Cancel a message comes up saying it's "Unable To Cancel". Checkmate.

The support phone call I made about this suggested I should email in for support, as they didn't understand what I meant. I emailed in four days ago and am yet to get a response worth having.

Advice. Only ring them if it's not your own phone bill and you've nothing worth doing for an hour or so. If you email them, try and tell them absolutely everything about your account, including FTP details and password, cos that will save you at least one 24 hour cycle. Never type too much in the email to support as they clearly stop reading after the first sentence.

Finally, probably, use 1&1 for you hosting.

Fasthosts, as my teenage son would say : "Epic Fail!"

Arriva - Please Keep Your Distance

Last week I was merrily rattling along in my car on the old school run, all was right with the world, I was in quite a good mood (for me). I was doing about 50mph along a straight bit of road in excellent visibility, when from a side road emerged a coach. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing the driver didn't even look in my direction, and he certainly ignored the Give Way sign staring him in the face.

He pulled straight out in front of me, causing me to brake violently. His smoking pile of junk then proceeded to accelerate at snails pace, belching toxic smoke, onward towards his next victim no doubt.

I avoided running right up the back of him by a few feet, and as I pulled back from him I glanced up at the neon display on the rear of this abomination. I was close enough to read through the grime, "62". For verily there is only one bus goes down this particular road, and it is indeed the 62. But there was more... the 62 disappeared and a message came up in its place. I approached closer to read it, ironically. "KEEP YOUR DISTANCE" it said.

My good mood shattered, I was stuck behind this flickering message for quite a long while, long enough for me to mull over some thoughts about this sign.

First and foremost of course, I heartily wished I could comply with this instruction, and keep a distance so great I would never have to see it again.

Secondly, just exactly what is "Your Distance", i.e. my distance, and what if my distance was about a foot... would that be okay? I suspect not.

Thirdly, which sad sack of bones sat down in his or her office at the Arriva HQ and thought to themselves, what on earth can we do now we've got these dot matrix signs for the bus numbers? Shall we flash up interesting info, like the time? (no! then they'd know we're running late!) or maybe a happy message like "Have a nice day" or "Sorry our antiquated piece of crap is holding you up"... No.

No... then inspiration came... "KEEP YOUR DISTANCE"... that's what we'll say to them. Ha ha!

Arriva, do us all a favour and just say "62" on your sign. That's all we really need to know. Thanks for the advise about the distance thing, but really, just a "62" will do.

Kate Rusby - Make the Light

It is now a few years since I last reviewed a Kate Rusby album (see here), during which time, as I understand it, she's become a mum and put out a Christmas album, which I have to admit I've not bothered with. Bah Humbug... Christmas, thank the lord it's over. Anyway.

This album is, unlike her previous work, self-penned. Not being an avid reader of sleeve notes these days (due in no small part to how small the bloomin' writing is on the darn things) I would not have known this if I hadn't read it elsewhere. The songs sound just the same as they usually do. Which is, of course, quite excellent. I could bang on about each individual track, but in fact they all merge together into a wonderful calming glorious whole, leaving you with about 50 minutes of peace and tranquillity in an otherwise noisy and discordant world.

Having been a rock fan all my life, this sort of stuff should not impress me. But it does. Greatly. My previous purchase was some old noisy tosh from Them Crooked Vultures, which should be more my cup of tea given the participating artistes, but it leave me cold. Rusby leaves me warm, which is just what you want in our current icy climate. I think I'm on the change. Nurse! The screens!

Very highly recommended, 9/10, you could buy it here.

Microsoft Small Basic vs Roblox

Can I commend to you a piece of software from Microsoft... how often do you get to say that? It's called Small Basic, and it's a free download.

I've been on the lookout for a programming language to encourage my 12 year old son Josh to get started on turning into a mini-version of me. I guess some dads, frustrated Wayne Rooneys, buy a football and march their kids out into the middle of a wet field. Me, I just want him to grasp the fundamentals of programming, especially as he wants one day to work for Media Molecule and develop Little Big Planet 8 or whatever. I've not had a lot of success up to now, but this Small Basic is excellent, and after me showing him a quick demo program last evening, I couldn't prise him off it to go to bed. A breakthrough.

There are very few icons cluttering up the toolbar, and the whole process is very simple. You type code into one window, with an excellent IntelliSense system in place to help remember syntax, then hit Run and either a text window or a graphic window (or both) opens up and you get to see the results immediately.

It's entirely feasible to write little games like Snake and Breakout with this system, and there are plenty of examples on the Net to look at and learn from. Notably, the language uses a 'Turtle' to draw on the graphics screen, which I think is a Logo language like construct to make graphics a little more fun. It works, he loved it.

The beautiful simplicity (and relevance - the code looks like real Visual Basic) of Simple Basic is in stark contrast to my experience using the scripting language associated with Roblox. Now, you may not have come across Roblox, but it is an on-line game based on a Lego-like world. If you have children and they haven't heard of Roblox either, I would advise you don't tell them. Roblox, IMHO, is heroin for children. It is highly addictive. My lad has been on it for 12 months now, and shows no sign of getting bored with it, despite the fact it looks, to an adult, fairly dull and badly rendered. All I can add is that he had the briefest of dalliances with World of Warcraft recently, which appears interesting and looks marvellous - but did not stick at it more than a couple of months. I couldn't afford the fees for both, so he had to choose, and he chose Roblox in an instant.

One possible saving grace (for me) for Roblox is that it has a scripting language. Great, I thought, I'll get the little blighter into programming with that! But could I get it to work, could I coconuts. I'm a software developer of 30 years experience - and I could not get it working. Obviously some people can... maybe I'm being dense, but as an intro to programming it sucks, and I would advise against it.

Just while I'm ranting against Roblox, can I mention something? Roblox cost money to play, fair enough. But it has a currency that is vital to the kids enjoyment of the game. This currency costs real money too - not a lot, but it adds up over the months. If you were clever enough to write a good script, or you design a good costume or a game level, you can sell it to others in the Roblox community. That seems okay, you could reduce your gaming costs by being a bit clever. But even if you do, Roblox takes a percentage cut on all deals! You're enhancing their system by adding good content, and they still screw you for some cash for doing it. This is for kids remember. Humph.

Ahem.

The page for downloading Small Basic is currently here though I guess that might change. Highly Recommended.

Michael Collins - Carrying The Fire

I've read quite a few books by astronauts recently, and some of them are reviewed elsewhere in this blog. But so far I have to say this is my favourite. It was written in 1974, less than five years after Collins had been to the moon, and it's written so well that you almost forget that you know the outcome of the story as the plot slowly unfurls.

You know he survives, you know the three of them returned in triumph from the moon, but somehow it all seems like a fresh adventure - I think because though this man's eyes it was a different journey to how we imagine. For him it was the culmination of years of work, but was 'just' another flight, albeit a lot 'higher' than usual!

Collins would appear to be a thoroughly nice chap, and his ability to express how he feels about the trip to the moon and what it means for us all is very well written. All in all this book is a joy to read, having something for everyone. He deals with his emotions and physical shortcomings, his relationships with the other crew, and also goes into just enough technical detail of how difficult the flight was to satisfy any reader.
 
As the man who didn't make it to the surface, he's always had a certain amount of sympathy from me. By coincidence I was watching a concert by Al Murray the other night on the tv and Collins was the (unnamed) butt of one of his jokes. But in fact the man had a great time on the mission, and contributed heavily to the success of the mission - and does not seem unduly upset by not having actually stepped on the surface. Indeed, it would appear Buzz Aldrin has suffered worse for having gone but not having been quite the first man on the moon.

Collins is now 80 (in 2010) - as this book was written shortly after the flight I would love to know what he's done with part two of his life, a subject on which he contemplates in this book. A problem for him, he realised, as it's tough not to see life as all downhill after having done something so amazing. I really hope it all worked out well for him.

Recommended, 10/10,

you could buy the paperback version here