Tattoo?

So, I'm thinking of getting a tattoo. Probably on the back of my neck (just on the top vertebra, or one down), of a double triquetra (something like this except obviously without the pendanty bit), in plain black:

Preferably about 1.5cm each way, so not too big. Except that that design may be a bit complicated for that size, so maybe this instead:

But I'm not sure. I hestitate to do something so permanent, and I feel
that if I'm not 100% sure I shouldn't do it - but I keep deciding not
to, and then coming back to the idea. I don't want to get to 70 or so
and regret having it done, but I don't want to get to that age and
regret *not* having it done, either.

I'd like it to be somewhere where it would be visible or not, depending on my choice - back of my shoulder would also be a good place, but it would never be
seen since I never wear sleeveless tops. I had thought of up the top
of my neck, just below the hairline - I wear my hair quite short now -
but I'm a bit squeamish since that's a bit too close to my spinal
column for comfort. The traditional locations - hip, lower back,
ankle - wouldn't work well for me... I really think you have to have a
very good figure to be able to pull that off :-)

If they weren't so permanent, I wouldn't hesitate - if they lasted for
10 years or so, or lasted indefinitely but you could remove them at
will.

I just can't decide if it I should get it done or not! It's totally out of character for me... but that's kinda why I want to go for it ;-)

Way to go, Norway!

The Consumer Council of Norway is taking on iTunes, and it's great to see someone finally standing up for the consumer. The full article is here, but here is my favourite quote:

iTunes can change the your rights to the music
after you downloaded it. This is a violation of
basic Principles of consumer contract law.
Consumers who wants to play they're music
on a non-iPod player must first remove the copy
protection, this removal for legitimate private use
is however stopped buy iTunes DRM technology
and Terms of Use. iTunes stopping this removal
for legitimate private use like playing the music
on a non-iPod mp3 player is obviously in violation
of the Copyright Act.

I know the law may not be the same in other countries, but it's certainly an encouraging move. And the fact that " The Consumer Council of Norway considers the iTunes terms to be part of an ongoing development where the consumers rights are weakened" is really encouraging - someone with some authority is seeing where this is heading and is trying to stop it.

More Bad Service

I could just create a "Crappy South Africa Companies" blog. I'd have more than enough to post, just based on my experiences alone.

Here are two more examples: Dell, and Standard Bank.

As I blogged previously, I bought a Dell Latitude D510 laptop last June. Within the first 30 days, I'd had the screen replaced due to an uneven vertical brightness gradient. The new screen was better, but the viewing angle is pretty small (the screen has to be at just about eye-level - even on a table it's a bit low). Then last month it stopped charging, so I got a new AC adaptor, which didn't solve the problem so I had the motherboard replaced. It then started gettting pretty hot - enough so that using the touchpad was uncomfortable - so I had the motherboard replaced again. The tech guy had just left, and I discovered that the touchpad wasn't working. I couldn't get hold of him directly, so I emailed Dell again, and they sent him back: he'd forgotten to plug it in. Now I notice that the fan is distinctly noisy when it's running on high speed, and there's a bit of vibration noise when it's running on low speed.

There are 2 issues here: the first is the quality of the laptop & parts, the second is the service. The quality is pretty obviously bad. The service from Dell I've been very happy with - luckily the laptop is still under guarantee. The only complaint I have with Dell's service is that tech support requests submitted via their webpage seem to get lost in the depths of cyberspace (and don't even get me started about their website, which is just horrible). Fortunately I managed to find a tech support email address, which seems to get a response. The service from the company that they outsource their tech support to in Cape Town, however, is not that good. Well - the service itself is fine, but but the quality of the tech support seems somewhat lacking.

And on to Standard Bank. There's a host of things I could complain about here, but mostly they're not specific to Standard Bank so much as the banking industry in SA in general. The latest issue, though, is this: my bank refuses to advise me on how to avoid being defrauded when accepting payments. Yup, they refuse. I'm selling my car soon (anyone want a 1984 Toyota Corolla Automatic? It's even got aircon ...), and since there's been a lot of stuff in the media lately about people being defrauded when selling stuff I thought I'd ask their advice:

I'm not sure what is the safest way for me
to be paid, though - obviously cash is safe,
and personal cheques are somewhat risky.
Bank guaranteed cheques are, I assume,
completely safe? And what about transfers
into my account - can I assume that once
I see the payment in my online account
statement, that it has definitely been paid
and it is safe to give the buyer the car?

They replied (surprisingly promptly, I'll give them that):

We will gladly advise you regarding
your enquiry on accepting payments.

Okay, sounds good so far...

The brest way forward would be to
visit your nearest branch for advise
regarding the pyment options.

Umm... wtf?! Why? What can a branch employee tell me in person that you can't tell me via email? And what happending to you gladly advising me? (And do I spot a Freudian slip, or just bad typing?)

We are not in a position to confirm to you which one would best suit you , as the sale of any goods is between the buyer and the seller.

Again, wtf?! I'm not asking which would suit me best, just how to avoid being defrauded! And again, what happending to you gladly advising me?

Very helpful indeed ... guess I'm on my own on this one.

On the other hand, just to prove that I don't spend all my time complaining, I've been pretty impressed with Microsoft SA. They happily posted the C# Express CD to me so that I didn't have to go through the painful (and likely impossible) task of downloading 400Mb, and are doing the same thing for Web Dev Express for a colleague of mine. Now that's good customer service.

SA telecomms sucks unbelievably badly

Okay, that's a really bad title, but dealing with these people makes me so irritated I lose the ability to ... umm... phrase things nicely (I know there's a word for that, but I can't think of it now. Which just proves my point).

I'm on a vodacom prepaid/contract "worst of both worlds" thing (I think I've mentioned this before), so I can't load databundles on my vodacom sim. So since mtn's prepaid bundles are half the price of vodacom's out of bundle rate, I thought I'd try them out.

So I bought a cheap sim, bought R30 worth of airtime, loaded a R10 bundle - worked great. Except that you can only have 1 bundle every 30 days, which is insane. So the rest of my R30 got spent on out-of-bundle rates.

So I bought another cheap sim, tried to buy R100 worth of airtime to get a 100MB bundle. There is no R100 voucher. So I made up a R100 by buying R15, R30, and a R60 voucher. Loaded them, tried to load a bundle.

Only to get told that I don't have enough money for a bundle, and I need to load R100 worth of airtime. Huh? I thought maybe my airtime that I'd just loaded hadn't been registered yet, so I checked my balance - I have R15 that expires on something like the 2nd of Feb, and R90. This I don't really understand.

I'm guessing that since a data bundle lasts for 30 days, but R15 of my airtime expires before those 30 days are up, I can't buy a bundle. It seems ridiculous, but I can't think of any other explanation. I can't get an answer from mtn either - I phone 173, eventually got to the prepaid gprs option, pressed 5, and got disconnected. Tried again, only to sit there for 15 minutes while being told that my call would be answered just as soon as an operator was available! (At least they didn't say that my call was important to them - that always just pisses me off even more).

So now I am seriously pissed off with mtn - I have R100 airtime, I want a 100MB data bundle. Simple as that - why does everything involving telecomms in this country have to be so damn complicated? And always end up screwing the customer?

Update:
I posted this issue on the mybroadband forum, and posted a complaint on hellopeter. First thing the next morning I got a phone call from someone at MTN SP, who wanted the cell number of the relevant sim card and said that someone from MTN would get back to me - which they did, the next day. They said that in future I should buy two R60 vouchers - which is totally ridiculous, since what am I supposed to do with extra R20, especially since you can only load one bundle every 30 days! - and that R15 vouchers are only meant for voice and sms's, since they expire in 30 days - not that it says this anywhere on their site (that I could find), nor on the voucher, nor in the little handbook that comes with the sim card.

In the meantime, one of the MTN guys who hangs out in the forum got it sorted for me. He said that it's just that their IVR system can't handle a combination of vouchers that expire and vouchers that don't, and he got my 100Mb bundle loaded for me. So that's great - but how many other poor suckers don't have anyone to sort these kinds of issues out for them?

Nashua Mobile - A Seriously Confused Company

Now it's well known that the telecommunications industry in SA is totally useless. Telkom, MTN, Vodacom, Cell C.... the complaints about the telecoms service providers are endless. But the higher level service providers are just as bad, if not worse.

I have a 2-year contract with Nashua Mobile. I got a contract because the cost per call is cheaper on contract, you get a free cellphone, and ... umm.... I'm not quite sure, tbh. But be that as it may, I have a 2 year contract, which ends late July. But I'm going to London early March, so my contract won't be much use to me. I can give it to my mom, but I'd rather not pay for something that I'm not going to use. So I emailed Nashua Mobile to find out what the penalty would be if I cancelled my contract early. Remember that this is the company that is seriously confused about encryption.

First off, they email me back asking for my cellphone number. Which was in the very first line of the email I sent them.

But it gets worse. I pay R99 per month for my contract. If I cancelled at the end of March, I would have 4 months left and thus would still have R396 to pay them. I would think that the early cancellation penalty would be, maybe, considering how dumb the industry is in this country, as much as I have left on my contract. Guess how much they want to charge me? R975.

It's totally insane. I emailed them to ask them to check the figures, and got the reply that the extra is to cover the cost of the handset that I received on the contract. At this point I just gave up - how do you even begin to explain how totally absurd that is?