These things they're a mystery to me too

[venta]

In a somewhat bathetic ending, the crashing epic saga of my attempts to get my laptop repaired (part 1 and part 2) has drawn to a close.

Saga Part the Third isn't terribly exciting reading - they picked up the notebook when they said they would, fixed it properly, delivered it back in five days.

However, because I'm a grumpy old git, I'll still be writing to complain to them about the service I had. What can I reasonably grumble about, though ?

The time it took them, obviously. They had my laptop for 2 months when they promised 7-10 days. They never once contacted me to update me on what was going on, I had to chase them up every couple of weeks.

One of the reasons given for the delay was the ordering of the new motherboard - yet I think they actually repaired the old one, not replaced it. The other reason was that they were dealing with red tape from their own insurance company: I need to work out a polite way of saying "I don't see why this should be made to be my problem".

When it was first returned to me, it was obvious that no one had bothered to check it, since the volume wheel they'd replaced didn't actually work.

They didn't warn me that they'd completely wipe my hard drive and reinstall Windows - as I said before, I'm not particularly surprised at this, I just feel they should warn people. And, incidentally, to those who suggested that perhaps they'd ghosted on an up-to-date version of Windows: when I first went on line... 53 critical updates.

Hmm. Anything else ? If I'm going to get my green crayon out to write a letter, I might as well have a really good go at them :)

And now, of course, I get to play the exciting game of trying to set all the right options to get XP to behave sensibly, and look nice. And the other game of downloading everything, ever, and setting it all up.

So... While my laptop was away, I changed email addresses, and the mail provider I now use (http://fastmail.fm) provides IMAP. I followed Fastmail's remarkably comprehensive instructions for setting Eudora up, and... well, it kind if works.

But:

I can't seem to send mail from Eudora and have it place itself properly into the IMAP mailbox. I have only one personality (<Dominant>) set up, which is instructed to send mail via Fastmail's SMTP server, and pick it up via IMAP. If I send mail from Eudora, it just ends up in the ordinary "Out" folder, instead of in the <Dominant> Mailbox's "Sent". If I log into Fastmail via their web interface, the mail I sent doesn't show up there either (I wouldn't expect it to, since it hasn't been stored in the right mailbox.)

Also, sending mail seems to send it straight away, not queue it in the Outbox to be sent later, which is not how I'm used to Eudora behaving. I don't know if this is a feature of using IMAP, or just a random quirk/unchecked option somewhere.

I have Eudora set up to poll for new mail every ten minutes when I'm online. However, in order to get it to "see" new mail which has arrived in my IMAP mailbox, I have to manually ask it to resynchronise the mailbox. Again, is this a feature of IMAP, or can I get it to behave more sensibly ? I'd like it to treat my IMAP mailbox as if it were a standard POP mailbox, and just show me any new mail that's arrived in the last ten minutes.

Lastly - and this is most annoying, since I'd expect it to be trivial to fix - my "Sent" folder displays for each mail therein a "Who" field. In all other mailboxes the Who field shows the mail's sender, which is what you want. In "Sent", though, I know who the sender is - me - and I'd like to be shown the recipient instead. (Please only answer this question if you know about Eudora - things like "well, you do it like this" in OE aren't helpful :) I know how to do it in OE.)

And I don't like the iconset in Eudora 6.1 - it's much more garish and ugly than the last version of Eudora I had (6.0, I think). I'm not expecting anyone to do anything about this, though :)

Comments

[pm215]

I think the key thing with this kind of letter is to work out in advance what you're hoping to achieve: do you want an apology, some sort of money back, or just to let off steam?

I need to work out a polite way of saying "I don't see why this should be made to be my problem".

If you're going for option three, of course, that text is fine as it stands, and I rather like it :-)

[triskellian]

No help on the email front, I'm afraid, but a possibly useful fact to hit Evesham over the head with: some software (that required to connect minidisc players to computers) apparently requires a preinstalled version of Windows (no, I have no idea why. It's plainly crazy). If your previous version was preinstalled, and if you had a minidisc player, you would now be unable to use it with your laptop.

(This fact brought to you courtesy of the terrible saga of smiorgan and the many different non-working methods of portable MP3 playing.)

[pm215]

to get it to "see" new mail which has arrived in my IMAP mailbox, I have to manually ask it to resynchronise the mailbox. Again, is this a feature of IMAP

It's not a feature of IMAP. Among other things, IMAP has a mode where you can ask the server to let the client know when new mail arrives. (This is better than POP3 where the client has to periodically poll.)

or can I get it to behave more sensibly ?

That would depend on Eudora. I'd hope that it has a method where you can set it up to periodically poll the server anyway.

[stegzy.livejournal.com]

I used to think that more people should complain, write to Watchdog, Her Maj and the Pope. But I now realise that the reason there is so much shoddy and poor work done and equally crap customer service is that noone takes pride in their work anymore. Indeed, complaining does achieve good results but if the job was done properly the first time there would be nothing but praise. Complaint departments would close down or turn into praise deparments, profits would rise, people would be happy, the world would be at peace and badgers everywhere would be able to sleep in their beds at night. Of course noone wants this (complaint call centres employ thousands)so to combat mass unemployment pride was removed from our thought centres in 1983.

Well thats my theory. Probably complete bobbins like.....

I'm now using Thunderbird for my emails. Very impressed with its fluididty and lack of bells and whistles.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I have only one personality (<Dominant>)

Haha, I beat wimble. <raise eyebrow>

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

All true except for this bit: profits would rise.

It's cheaper to do a shoddy job and fix it if the punter complains than it is to put the extra effort into every job (even the ones where the punter wouldn't bother complaining).

[venta.livejournal.com]

This might seem like a silly question - what does "preinstalled" mean ? My laptop originally arrived with Windows already installed on it. But this time, it arrived back with a clean version of Windows installed on it too - what's the difference ?

How can an mp3 player tell whether this is the second time an operating system has been installed ?

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes! Suits me Sir!

(That'll teach you. Or me.)

(Or it won't.)

[triskellian]

I have no idea. All I know is that one of smiorgan's several attempts to equip himself with a portable player of MP3s was buying a minidisc player, the software for which refused to install on his machine, and blamed his not-preinstalled OS.

(God, that's a convoluted sentence. Sorry ;-)

[diffrentcolours]

I was going to obfnarr that one, but I was beaten to it (fnarr).

[philipstorry.livejournal.com]

(I'm at lunch and bored, so I'll bite on this query...)

"Preinstalled" would mean, um, installed previously. Your copy of Windows that arrived with the machine would qualify. Microsoft refers to a "preinstalled" copy as an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) copy. It could also concievably mean corporate copies which all use the same license key, and are simply copied/imaged onto identical machines by the hundreds. Similar end result (on first boot, Windows is already there installed) but slightly different licensing.

The difference is just a licensing one. Well, it was until Windows XP, which has some fun Product Activation which ties teh hardware to the license key.

Speaking of license keys, they're stored in the registry. And the OEM ones tend to have "OEM" in them somewhere (well, they did last time I had a look - back in the Windows 2000 days) - so that's a bit of a giveaway. You could find out if the copy of Windows had changed by just reading the correct registry key and comparing it with a copy of the key you took when you installed.

Whilst this doesn't tell you if this is the "Nth" install, it does tell you if someone re-installed with a different copy of Windows - which would be the point of such copy protection.

For extra belts and braces, they could report this back to some kind of central server - storing the license number of this copy of the software along with a hash of your Windows license key. If you move to a different version of Windows, BANG! - The software stops working. So you would absolutely have to re-install the correct version with the correct license key.

Whilst this approach wouild arguably work, it is equally arguable that it's a big pile of toss that no company with a care for its customers would even consider. People do upgrade their operating systems, after all...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Thanks for that. The idea that it's purely a licensing issue makes sense.

In this case, then, had I had such a pernickety mp3/minidisc player, I would have been in trouble.

The first time my laptop was returned I had to do that funky XP activation thing, and it failed because the product key had changed. I had to press even more buttons in their crazy phone system to get given a new product key.

You're right, though, it does seem a little unreasonable to demand that someone never ungrades their OS.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

a little unreasonable to demand that someone never ungrades their OS

Especially if the software making this demand is only there to make smiorgian's minidisc player work - anyone using it must have paid for a minidisc player somewhere along the line.

[(Anonymous)]

Make sure you talk/write to the organ-grinder and not one of the monkeys (get a name!)

Eudora? Who she. Sounds like eponym. Greek heroine? Can't find her in ref books on my desk and have spent too long looking for Dutch sheep on net to start Googling.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Eudora is the name of the program I use to read my email - like you use Outlook, I think.

And if you're out of time for googling, what are you doing reading LJ at work, eh ?

<cracks whip>

[venta.livejournal.com]

Or more usefully:

"When looking for a name for the new POP (Post Office Protocol) mail program, the Qualcomm developers thought of the title of a children's short story "Why I Live at the P.O.", and named the program after the author of the story, Eudora Welty."

So there you go.

[venta.livejournal.com]

And further to that:

"Hesiod's Theogony is also our source for the names of the Nereids. This poem, which is devoted to describing the birth of the Greek gods and goddesses, features a beautiful passage that lists these sea-nymphs:

'Proto, Eukrante, Amphitrite, and Sao,
Eudora...'"

So yes. Greek.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

So yes. Greek.

And meaning "like Dora, only good".

[philipstorry.livejournal.com]

They should not have cocked up like that - they should have made a note of your machine's existing details, to make it a smooth transition. The laptop likely has the bloody product key on a sticker on it - it's probable that they just rammed in a generic one, which would require different activation details.

Grr. Sorry - this sort of slapdash work makes IT administrators like me angry!

(Oh, and I'm drunk. Which probably does't help.)

I'd say that they cocked up. Silly damned fools. *grumbles*

Definitely something to ask about in that letter... ;-)

[philipstorry.livejournal.com]

Well, quite.

However, I'd bet that I know what happened. Having invested a lot of money in their own proprietary audio encoding system for MiniDisc (ATRAC, if I recall correctly) the company was probably reluctant to let just anyone use it to encode music.

So they applied some draconian protection, thinking that this was better.

It almost makes sense from that perspective.

If you completely forget the customer, and focus only on your own intellactual property problems, that is... :-(