The new Microsoft Vista product has several regional Microsoft websites talking up the “WOW” factor. The Australian site (http://windowsvista.com.au) website has its own “WOW” factor with a broken link that relates directly to Microsoft Vista licensing. It is a disgrace that the flagship product releases website has a broken link, even more so that it has been for over 2 weeks now. I have now sent feedback items to Microsoft Australia twice to address this issue, and wait eagerly for the issue to be resolved. They should fix it, after all its more money for them, though potentially not as much as purchasing a boxed upgrade product. Perhaps that is their game and are deliberately withholding the information in the hope I will go out and buy the upgrade packs. Given I have purchased Microsoft Vista Ultimate that is unlikely to occur.
Archive for February, 2007
Today I have again been screwed by Shitty City Rail. I have had to ride on 2 of the Craptaculars today. A Craptacular train are those without air conditioning that are still in operation within the Shitty City Rail services. These trains are ridiculous and are borderline dangerous as the heat build up is immense due to the pathetically small windows not allowing air to flow efficiently throughout the train.
A perfect example of this was the first Craptacular I had the displeasure of riding at 7:03am this morning, and within four stops the heat buildup had everyone fanning themselves with whatever they had available. Outside it would have been no more that 20 degrees celsius, which is by no means warm. The train was also covered in tags, a pointless passtime, however had clearly not had a proper clean in months.
The second Craptacular that I boarded at Redfern was truly a third world cattle class train. I swear that I saw the guards with shoe horns and cattle prods cramming patrons on to the Craptacular. I went to the last car in hope that it was not packed to the rafters. Unfortunately I was wrong and found that it was. In fact I looked around the car and saw faces of Indian and African descent. All the patrons were talking in languages other than English. I then looked around for the elderly gentleman holding a chicken, thankfully I did not see that.
So there I was surrounded and the heat was ridiculous within travelling to Central, which is one stop away. Thankfully a large number of patrons disembarked there. I was though still unable to sit as the train was still full, by the time the train had travelled 2 more stops the train was sufficiently empty that the airflow from the Craptaculars open windows normalised the trains temperature.
These third world trains are a disgrace and should be removed from service ASAP!
Another joke is the Mortdale Station upgrade. The platform and facilities have been upgraded and look great. Another planned upgrade was elevators for elderly and disabled patrons of Shitty City Rail. Whilst the elevators are physically present they are still not in operation. The elevators have been there for several months and technicians looking at them daily. At one stage the entire station had no power whilst they connected them to the power, that was in October. However, they are still non-functional. Though I am not an elevator technician I have to ask how hard can it be to debug an elevator that goes up and down a single level.
Tags: city rail, cityfail, cityrail, cityrail fails, customer service, customer service fail, fail, fails, innovation, investment, new south wales, nsw, nsw public transport, nsw public transport fail, public transport, public transport fails, rail, screwed, service, shittyrail, sydney public transport, timetable, train, trains
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Today I had the displeasure of riding another Shitty City Rail train. On this occassion the train was initially 6-minutes late arriving at Milsons Point station. That I can live with as long as it is not the norm, however when coupled with the next dumb event it becomes a complete failing.
Once the train finally arrived at 11:16am I hopped onto the last carriage, as I normally do. I had a nice view of the Queen Mary II as I rode the train over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I then expected the rest of trip to go flawlessly, how wrong could I be.
I planned to get off the train at Redfern as I had to change line to the St. George Illawarra line. When the train pulled up I was horrified to see that the entire last carriage was not adjacent the platform. This is disgraceful train driving and terribly dangerous.
Thankfully I looked before disembarking the carriage, many little kids would not. Also, thankfully I can walk quickly and managed to walk the entire carriage length and out the next carriage. Any elderly patron would not have stood a chance in hell of disembarking in time. This is an absolute disgrace and the driver requires remedial training.
While I am on this thread I must also express my disgust that there are still carriages that are not air conditioned in service. The trains get very stuffy when at or near capacity. The tiny windows can not guarantee the required air flow to compensate. It is borderline dangerous especially to those in the community that can not tolerate heat. I would have thought that these disgraces would have been retrofitted with air conditioning, after all Australia is a first world country with NSW running third world trains.
These events coupled with my previous blog Proof it is really ShittyRail show clearly why the community dislike and distrust the current City Rail “service”. Shame City Rail Shame.
Tags: city rail, cityfail, cityrail, cityrail fails, customer service, customer service fail, fail, fails, innovation, investment, new south wales, nsw, nsw public transport, nsw public transport fail, public transport, public transport fails, rail, screwed, service, shittyrail, sydney public transport, timetable, train, trains
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SCHWOIT Directory will be turning to the paid directory model effective the 1st March 2007. The rates will be:
- Regular Links – $US 2.00
- Featured Links – $US 10.00
These rates are still cost effective.
Any pending links will still be processed as they are currently.
Today I have begun the process of catching up on some directory submissions. I have though found that 90%+ are being rejected due to lazy submissions. A lazy submission is where the submitter assumes that a category called “Finance Blogs” is where anything remotely related to finance goes, or submit everything to “Other Sports” despite there being appropriate categories for the sport. Another trait is to submit to categories that are simply containers. The practices of lazy submitters is lame and leads to many a directory owner wasting time rejecting or correcting bad submissions. Directories have structures for a reason and the onus is on the submitter to take the time to find the most appropriate category.
It is clear that many of the submitters are those earning a paltry fee for submissions and as a result do not care too much on their success rates. Further, it is clear that many struggle with basic English and as a result will grab onto a common word, or will assume that because it worked on 1 directory it applies to all. They clearly have no idea and I encourage anyone engaging these submission services to review. Their motto is “near enough is good enough and the directory owner will move it”.
Finally, on my three directories the lazy submitters motto does not apply. I have no sympathy for those links that have been removed tonight, it is simply wasting my time.
