Stuart Herbert

It’s the end of the fourth week in the new job, and after an overnight stay in Bath and trips to London, Somerset, Sheffield and London again, it’s good to have a bank holiday weekend to look forward to.  And then next week it’s off up to the North East to meet another colleague for the first time and do some coaching.

The time has flown by - I must be having a lot of fun :) 

It’s a shame that this First Great Western train I’m on atm (the 19:15 from Paddington to Swansea) isn’t going as quick.  For once, it’s not the fault of First Great Western or their (in my experience, all too often unprofessional) staff, but after two hours we’re just pulling into Didcot Parkway, and not Cardiff where we should be.  Hopefully we’re past the latest problem to plague this service, and it’ll be a much quicker second half of the journey!

This job is full of pleasures both big and small.  One of the small ones today was to introduce one of my colleagues to the joy that is the Foyles bookshop in London.  If you’ve never been to Foyles, it’s difficult to explain why this wonderful shop is different to all the other bookshops in central London (and, I believe, in the UK as a whole), but every time I get to show someone this mecca of books, the reaction is always a good one.

I managed to escape with just three books: one of the Wu style of Tai Chi, a replacement for my loaned-and-never-to-be-returned copy of the Principles of Effortless Power (another martial arts book), and the new book from Packt on OpenSER.  That last one is going to live in the office, me thinks.

I also managed to escape the Apple store without a new Macbook Pro, but only because they didn’t have a 4GB RAM model to hand for me to take with me there and then (they normally do the upgrade in the shop on demand, but I didn’t have the time to wait the three hours they quoted for it).  As much as I love my current Macbook Pro, I’m finding the short battery life (<2 hours on average) to be a bit tight on the longer journeys I’m now doing.  The later generations can manage double that, which I’d find much more convenient.  Ah well, maybe later in the year as a Christmas treat to myself. 

The worst thing I’ve done so far was totally self-inflicted.  I managed to brick my Nokia N82.  As wonderful as Parallels is for running Windows on the Mac, never ever try running a Nokia firmware upgrade using it.  I tried; the whole virtual machine died partway through the firmware upgrade, and the N82 was toast.  (Wouldn’t it be great if Nokia had A/B firmware slots like digital cameras do?  They could release firmware upgrades much more regularly and not be worried about silly folks like me bricking their phones).  It had to be sent back to Nokia, and I’m missing it greatly.  I hope it comes back soon!  Then I can start loading Ordnance Survey raster data onto it

Oh, we’ve just made it to Swindon.  Maybe I’ll make it home today instead of tomorrow after all …

I smell of train, that horrible recycled stale-air smell you find on British trains these days.  But I don’t care.

The first week in the new job has been great.  I’ve got this big silly grin on my face (even though I’m thoroughly knackered from all the commuting).  There’s a lot of hard work ahead, but it’s exactly the sort of work that I find fun.  I guess there’s something wrong with me

The travelling hasn’t been too bad.  Monday was the worst, when the 18:35 from Bath Spa didn’t turn up at all.  I finally got home just after 21:00, thoroughly shattered.  Lesson learned; I need to be out the door in time for the 16:35 where possible, or for the 17:35 at the latest.  Any later than that, and a hotel for the night is worth serious consideration.

Working on the train out from Cardiff on a morning is a real luxury.  Most managers never get - or take - the time on a morning to review the day ahead.  At the moment, the time’s mostly going on all the new stuff I have to learn, but it’s going to be a real godsend as I’m more involved in the day to day.  Amusingly (to me, anyway) this is the same train I was catching down to Southampton during my secondment to the OS (albeit an hour earlier), so it already feels like I’ve been doing this routine for months.

On the train back, it’s a bit more hit and miss.  Most days, I’ve been able to snag a table seat, or one of those seats at the end opposite the space for the wheelchairs (those spaces are the best; the table seats on these First Great Western commuter trains are quite cramped), but when FGW forget to stick the right number of carriages on the train, it’s standing-room only all the way back to Cardiff.  Thankfully, there are plenty of excellent audiobooks one can buy and listen to when this happens.  Management audiobooks are very popular, but I’m seriously thinking of getting all of the Harry Potter audiobooks for when distraction is the better approach.

I have to give a special mention, and a huge thank you, to everyone for making me feel so welcome.  Most places make an effort for new staff, but this is different, because I don’t think they’re making a special effort.  It feels a lot like my time working at the University of Sheffield - and those were without doubt the happiest years of my professional life so far.

I definitely owe Aled a beer for putting me onto this job in the first place.

I ran into Richard from Box UK on the platform at Cardiff a couple of times this week.  It’s nice to hear that I’m being missed, and I certainly miss the sort of work I wanted to do there, but right now I don’t miss the work I ended up doing there.  Everyone tells me that I’m great at consultancy, but it doesn’t give me the personal satisfaction that working on products, services and systems does.  I guess it’s why I took to Tai Chi; I’m a natural observer, and I love that iterative polishing and improving something release after release after release.  You just don’t get that in consultancy.  Consultancy all to often is like a one-night stand.  As some of you who are married will understand from your own experience, there’s a much more meaningful fulfilment to be had from a deeper commitment.

I bumped up the RAM on the MacBook Pro this evening.  It’s now at the max of 3GB; shame it won’t go to 4GB like the later generation MBPs will.  It’s mostly to speed up Aperture 2, and to make things a bit quicker when I’m running a couple of virtual machines at a time (CentOS and Ubuntu for work).

Tomorrow is toy day.  Got to send the dead Cisco router back for a replacement, and the new phone and GPS navigator should arrive too.  I’ve bought the Garmin Mobile XT product and an unlocked Nokia N82 to run it on.  The N82 is mainly to play with VoIP over Wifi, although it does have a 5 megapixel camera too, which I’m looking forward to.  Bath is a very pretty place after all, and I’m learning the virtue of travelling as light as possible.

Hopefully Sunday I’ll make it out to get some more Merthyr Road photography done.  There’s some old railway tracks in the woods at Treforrest that I wouldn’t mind taking a careful look at.

… and I’m really looking forward to starting the new job on Monday.

Most of Thursday went on a nice walk around Pontypridd, taking photos for my next Merthyr Road article, which I’m calling Bridging The Rivers At Pontypridd.  I also wrote up blog articles for two older photosets from my travels … Winter In Eden, and Back in Brighton.  That brought me almost up to date (but not quite) with my backlog of work.  Spent the evening processing the bridge photos, and went to bed unhappy with the results.

Friday was a lazy day, after tidying up the house that is!  Two more photography blog articles to clear the backlog: The Towers Of Brains Brewery, and Easter In The Malvern Hills.  Took another look at the bridge photos.  Decided to keep the HDR versions after all, but to tone down the colours to make them look much closer to LDR (ie normal) images.  Figured out how to fool Aperture into backing up photos to a network drive - I need to write that up in a blog posting.  Also had fun playing around with the “create a book” tools in Aperture.  I like the idea of taking my Merthyr Road articles, and making them into books that can be ordered online, but I think Aperture’s book features are a bit too limited for that.  More thought required here, me thinks.

Work up this morning with terrible cramp in my left calf.  Haven’t had a cramp attack like that for months!  Taught Kristi some basic Chinese massage so that she could fix up my leg.  Hobbled down to the station, and bought my monthly season ticket to Bath for Monday.  The look on the lady’s face was priceless, and I promised her that when I can finally afford an annual ticket (costing over £3k), I’ll come back and buy it through her, and not down in Cardiff.  Watched Never Back Down at Cineworld in Cardiff with Kristi … it’s shallow and predictable, but with plenty of eye candy on offer for both sexes.  Watch out for the guy who plays Ryan; I think we’ll see a lot more from him in the future.  Enjoyed the first episode of the new Doctor Who series this evening, although I still think that RTD over-uses background music. Here’s hoping he takes a back seat from here; the best episodes of the last season were those he didn’t write.

Kristi made me watch the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie this evening (boo for Sky+ boxes).  I’m utterly amazed that they managed to get a TV show off the ground on the back of this outing.  I managed to escape after an hour or so, but Kristi carried on as apparently the comedy vampire death at the end makes it all worth while.  Go figure.

Haven’t seen the footie yet (yay for Sky+ boxes; I get to spend Sunday morning vegged out watching Match of the Day), but I did read that Newcastle United won again :)  We must be safe from relegation now, and a good end to the season will improve spirits at the club ready for the next campaign.

I think I’m all set for Monday.  Part of me isn’t looking forward to the commute, but once I’ve settled into a routine and I’m able to work on the train, I’m sure it’ll just become a normal part of the day.  I’m really looking forward to starting the new job.  Working on secondment at the Ordnance Survey for the last few months reminded me just how much fun work can be when you’re working for the right sort of people and you’re encouraged to apply yourself to make a real difference.  In the last year, after years of a fairly stable life, I’ve lost three people to cancer.  Life is transitory, and if you’re just going through the motions every day, what’s the point?  That’s not living, it’s surviving.  That’s why I left my old job, because I want to get back to making a real difference, and I want to work for someone who demands that I do, rather than being afraid of me and looking to hold me back every opportunity going.  I wish everyone at Box UK well, and I hope they all achieve the success that they deserve.  But that chapter of my life is over now (well, almost; it’ll be over when basic paperwork like P45’s turn up), and I’m ready to take the next steps forward.

Well, I have my MAC code from Demon, and it’s good for 30 days.  I’ve been with Demon for many years, and it’s a real shame that I need to take my business away from them, but what can you do?  I don’t believe that Demon care about my custom any more, and the final proof of that was my experience obtaining my MAC code.

When I called Demon to obtain my MAC code, I was asked about why I’m leaving.  I explained my reasons (I’ve gone from a 2mbit service to less than 512kbit service - that’s sub-broadband speed imho), and my disappointment in their technical support.  The chap on the other end of the phone expressed his sympathy; apparently I’m not the first customer to transfer his business for this reason.

But what struck me is that there was no effort to try and retain my business.

If a company cares about my custom, then I expect them to at least try to convince me to stay.  I would expect them to explore the options, just in case something can be done to make me happy once again.  (It doesn’t take all that much to make me happy; all you’ve got to do is keep my trust).

But Demon didn’t even try - although the chap I talked to was very helpful.  Like the call centre staff at BT, he seemed powerless to do anything to make a difference.

Hopefully someone will turn them around, and restore the excellent service that made them one of the very best ISPs before THUS bought them.  But until then, if you’re looking for a broadband service, I can’t recommend Demon at all.  

This is my week of unemployment, before taking up my new job with Gradwell.com.  I was hoping just to chill out and spend the week out and about with my camera, but there just hasn’t been any time for that.  I’m beginning to understand what some of my students mean when they talk about how their retirement is going!

After fun with the call centres on Monday, I dug my old bike out of the shed and headed up the Taff Trail for some much-needed exercise.  I made it all the way up to the Abercynon Feeder bridge, which is pretty good going for my first bike ride in a couple of years!  Then it was cook tea for Kristi before collapsing in a heap.

Yesterday went on my Tai Chi class prep.  I bought a Samson AirLine 77 wireless mic system a while back, so that I could record an audio lesson for my students.  Took the CDs down to the class last night, and hopefully in a couple of weeks I’ll get some good feedback to help me plan a v2. Also learned yesterday that one of my students passed away recently  More on that this evening when I update my Tai Chi blog.

This morning, and it was back to dealing with Demon and BT.  I checked with the bank, and neither organisation had provided the refunds that they had promised.  

I found this particularly amusing rant about Demon’s poor customer service, and whilst I don’t necessarily agree with his refusal to call their support line to get his MAC code, I have to say that his experiences with Demon largely mirror my own.  Now I just need to do some research and decide who to switch my broadband service to.  Sky is tempting, because it’s cheap, but I’m very happy to pay more in order to get a fixed-rate service.  I’m currently looking at the service from ukfsn.org.

BT got a letter of complaint.  I can’t remember the last time I wrote a snail-mail letter.  Anyone else unhappy with BT may find their Consumer Code of Practice to be a useful guide, especially their escalation procedure.  I’ll write more here when they respond.

As with Monday, it’s difficult to overstate the difference in contrast between Demon and BT, with their poor customer service, in the one corner, and other companies who do provide excellent customer service.  On Monday, it was Lloyds TSB showing how to do this, and today it was Hardware.com.  My brand new Cisco router has died  A quick chat with Anthony @ Hardware.com, and it was agreed that I should return it for a replacement.  Whilst it’s a shame the product turned out to be faulty, the way a company puts problems right makes a huge difference!

This afternoon, it’s get the shopping done, and then decide which dish to cook for when Kristi gets home from work.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll make it out to get some photography done!

I’ve spent the last hour on the phone to three different call centres, chasing up a mixture of owed money and missing goods.  Two of the call centres were offshore (presumably in India), whilst the third was here in the UK.  The contrast between them was substantial, and worth looking at if you’re interested in customer service.

1. The first call centre was Demon’s, which is offshore.  Unfortunately, the call quality was terrible, and I was unable to progress my query with the lady at the other end.  Thankfully, Demon’s helpdesk is also available via email, otherwise I’d really be stuck there.
2. The second call centre was BT’s, which is also offshore.  The call quality was fine, but the lady at the other end wasn’t empowered to assist me with my query.  The systems she had access to required her to submit an internal query to another department - a process which quotes 5-7 working days for acting on a query. She did escalate my call to her supervisor at my request, and after some discussion her supervisor agreed to resolve my query today.  This isn’t the first time I’ve heard that from BT about this specific issue, so the jury’s still out about that.
3. The third and final call centre was LloydsTSB’s, which is here in the UK.  Fine call quality, and the phone answered by someone who not only seemed to have all she needed to resolve my two queries, but who also didn’t sound like she was reading from a script every time she answered a question.

I really feel for the folks out in India.  We don’t just seem to offshore the jobs themselves, but also we seem to send bad practices out there too (reading from scripts all of the time), and we don’t seem to give them the tools they need to do their job (poor call quality, no empowerment, and inefficient secondary processes).  I’m very impressed at their professionalism - in general, folks in India are educated to a very high level, and it can’t be easy having to do such a mundane job with poor practices and systems.  I somehow can’t imagine a UK-based call centre managing the same level of professionalism under the same circumstances.

I wonder what the quality of these three experiences this morning says about the management responsible for each of these services?

I do know what it says about the UK’s Direct Debit scheme.  Two of these companies (Demon and BT) owe me money, because they’ve used the Direct Debit scheme to over-bill me.  I’m seriously thinking of cancelling my Direct Debits with both firms, and paying them directly when their bills arrive instead.  Unfortunately, BT is still an effective monopoly, but at least I can cancel my Demon account and take my business elsewhere …

Got home this evening to discover that the fog lights on my Ford Focus have been stolen. There’s no sign of any other damage to my car - it’s worrying how easy it appeared to be to take the fogs out

I’ve reported the theft to the local Community Watch scheme, but so far this evening I’ve had no luck reporting it to the Police. The Community Liaison team are part-time (as in, not every day of the week), and when I called the number of my local station, the switchboard transferred me through to an extension that no-one answered.

This is my first experience of reporting something to the Police. It seems unlikely they’ll ever catch the thiefs or recover my stolen fog lights, but it would be nice to be able to actually report that a crime has happened Here’s hoping my experience isn’t as bad as Aled’s was.

My blog used to run on b2evolution, but no more. Unfortunately, b2evo’s admin interface doesn’t work inside Safari, so it was time to either upgrade (with no guarantee of succes with Safari) or to switch.

A few hours later, and I’ve switched my blog over to run off Wordpress instead. To fake the multi-blog feature of b2evo (which was b2evo’s killer feature), my blog’s homepage now runs a custom PHP script, which runs off the RSS2 feeds from the main topics. (The PHP script was a surprisingly interesting exercise, which I’ll cover on my new PHP blog).

Hopefully all the old links and feeds should still work too, but if you find any problems, let me know.

Like many before me, I’ve swapped my Dell Inspiron laptop with a nice shiny MacBook Pro. For the money, they’re the best Intel-based laptops around - and I must say that the reviews you may have read online do not do them justice.

The next step is to switch all my photography and music apps over from Windows. Music was easy enough - Logic Express will do me just fine. I wish I’d picked up a copy of the Rhythm Jam Pack at the time, but I can pop into Cardiff next week and put that right.

Photography … that’s a bit more of a challenge. I’ve started playing with the Lightroom beta, and whilst I can see the attraction, there’s a couple of tricks I rely on in Photoshop that I haven’t figured out how to reproduce in Lightroom yet. I don’t want to buy Photoshop until CS3 is out, so for now I might be better off buying a copy of Photoshop Elements, and upgrading to CS3 if I feel the need next year.

The other thing I need to do over the Christmas holidays is either upgrade or replace b2evo, the blogging engine I’ve been using this past year. Unfortunately, Safari doesn’t get on with the admin interface, and Firefox continues to be too much of a memory hog for me to want to stick with it as my main browser.

Just in case anyone is reading this and getting worried that I’ll be completely turning my back on Linux … that isn’t going to happen. Linux on the desktop has always been my preferred development platform, and that isn’t going to change. All I’m doing is switching my preferred creative platform from Windows XP to Mac OS X.

I’ve been lucky enough to make two trips this year to Portmouth’s Historic Dockyard, and you can be sure that my camera was with me on both trips

We English have a long and glorious naval tradition, what with being an island nation and all (especially when it comes to stuffing it to our European neighbours), and major parts of that history is preserved and displayed at the Historic Dockyard. Without a doubt, the three main attractions are the Mary Rose, HMS Victory, and HMS Warrior, with the harbour tour boat a close fourth (especially if you like modern naval warships). There’s far more than you can see in a single day, and its a real treat for all the family.

After the Historic Dockyard has closed for the evening, it’s just a short way past the Spinnaker Tower to the many places to eat at Gunwarf Quays (ah, this is what Cardiff Bay should have been). I haven’t been up the Spinnaker Tower myself yet, but its quite a view just looking at it from the ground - or from the harbour tour boat!

All in all, this place is a serious tourist attraction and magnet; so I was very surprised to find that there wasn’t a group on Flickr for the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. I’ve set one up, and uploaded my better photos from the first two trips. Hopefully the group’ll soon attract more members, and serve as both a great preview and a great reminder of what a fun day out the Historic Dockyard is.

If you do decide to visit the Historic Dockyard with your camera, there’s a few things to keep in mind. Amateur photography is allowed, but professional photography is by prior arrangement only. Photography isn’t allowed in all areas (especially onboard HMS Victory); check the signs around you or ask one of the many helpful guides for advice before clicking away. Many of the more interesting parts of the ships (and the entire Mary Rose ship hall) are very dark. You’ll probably want a tripod, and/or a beanbag, even if you have VR/OS lenses or anti-shake cameras. Don’t count on being able to rest your camera on the fittings or the decks in order to get a stable shot; chances are you’ll find yourself blocking the way of other tourists whilst doing so, and end up being asked to move along by one of the guides. Finally, it may be a Historic Dockyard, but it’s also a Naval Dockyard, so don’t be surprised to find that there’s just too much grey going on if you’re not enjoying blue skies!

(Okay, that’s enough with the advert - now go look at the photos on Flickr )