New Year, New Toy(s).

It’s been a while since I last posted as it has been a rough old time for me. I won’t be going into details, but suffice to say it’s been eventful.

I had some issues with Virgin Media previously and I was still annoyed, even though they gave me a reasonable deal. I also needed to reduce my outgoings as I am now living on my own. So I decided to end the contract early.

I did not have any internet provider or TV service so I have signed up for Netflix for a month for free and Now TV for three months at £7.99. I like them both, reasonable prices for what you get and it is suitable for me. I opted for EE as an internet provider. I was lucky enough to get a deal at £27 per month and that included an extra 5GB of data on my mobile telephone (also with EE). On top of that a £75 voucher will be coming to me for joining them.

I also decided to sell some stereo equipment and buy some new tech. I managed to sell two MiniDisc stereo separates, two MiniDisc players, an Apple TV, Kindle Fire and various other things. I managed to get a good amount of money for it all, so I picked up a second hand MacBook Pro (2010 model) and an new Apple TV (64GB). Both were great deals, which I was lucky to get.

The Apple TV is amazing and so much faster than the previous versions. The tvOS is ok too, bit confusing at times for me and I think it could be a bit more easier to navigate. It does stream my music better and other media content, so I can’t fault it overall.

 

The MacBook Pro is amazing, although it has a few scrapes and I have had to replace the battery. I did manage to get a reduction for the swollen battery, so that’s another winner.

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I swapped the SSD and RAM from my 2010 MacBook into the MacBook Pro and also picked up a Hard Drive Caddy (below) that I installed a spare 2.5′ 500gb SSHD I had. Now it runs fantastically well and I have loads of space.

 

I’d highly recommend removing the CD/DVD drive and adding a second HD. I’d also recommend getting a Apple TV, especially if you media content that you will stream. It’s cheaper than Virgin Media in the long run. Obviously this is dependant on what you will watch and what use it will get.

Let me know if you have made the same upgrades as I have or if you have/want an Apple TV.

Ciao.

 

 

I’ve got 99 problems and EE is one.

Now this is a story all about how
My life got flipped-turned upside down
And I’d like to take a minute
Just sit right there
I’ll tell you how I complained to EE.

I popped into my local EE store (Cribbs Causeway, Bristol) around a week ago. I asked if I could take out an offer that I saw online and they were more than happy to help. So I sat there and went through all the selling and prices and agreed on an iPad Pro 9.7 inch at £33.30 per month.

The sales guy said he needed to go and get the iPad and came back promptly, showed me the box and I signed up for the contract. He then took the iPad to the back of the store to put it in a bag and then comeback over to me, put it all in a bag and voila I was to go on my way.

However, I am one of those people who check their goods/receipts before leaving the store. This is mainly to save the time going back and not to get screwed over by unscrupulous sales agents. In this case I was glad I did. The sales guy seemed to have switched the iPad to a normal iPad whilst “putting it in a bag”. This is where the fun began.

Four sales agents then got involved, all vying to get my attention and say that I was wrong and I opted for the correct iPad which was sold to me. I was having none of it as I know what I wanted when I popped in and what I signed up for. I showed them the advert online –

They started saying I couldn’t have it as it was an online only offer, which contradicts what I was told 30 minutes earlier. I argued this point and explained that if something is advertised as a deal, they must honour that deal but this was quickly dismissed.

As I had paid for/signed a contract for the item I should have been entitled to it. However, it seems that nowhere on my receipt/new contract does it state ‘iPad Pro’ it only states tablet. Therefore, it seemed I was at a loss and EE had the upper hand due to no recorded telephone call or evidence on the contrary to what four sales agents were saying to me.

I had no choice to immediately cancel the contract that I had just set up over the course of 30-40 minutes and leave the store angry and annoyed at their miss-selling and bullying tactics.

I went home and decided to call EE to register a complaint and see if I could do this over the phone. They were helpful and guided me through the purchase, but wanted to charged me £10.00 more per month. Hold up fella, this is not what I can see online…..

I was then told there was an error online and they could not set me up on the iPad contract. This to me was understandable as errors are made, but the fact remained that I and others were being misled into thinking we could get an iPad Pro for £33.30 per month with no upfront cost.

I asked them to make sure my new contract was cancelled down and to leave things as they were. In all honesty this left a bitter taste in my mouth as I felt misled to the extent I was going to contact the Communications Ombudsman.

I have been very busy over the past week with work and life commitments so it slipped my mind. Until today…..

I registered a complaint with the Ombudsman to review and contact EE. They asked me for my complaint reference from EE, which I never received after lodging a complaint. So I decided to contact EE and discuss further. My call was answered by a lady in Wexford, Ireland called Laura. She seemed helpful enough and checked online for the offer that I required.

Unfortunately, she could not locate the offer so I had to go online and find it for her. I could not locate the offer and it seemed the offer was corrected by EE during the time I had not contacted them. So I sent the screen shot above to her and she put me through to Damien who was also helpful. They both explained, after I had mentioned the Ombudsman, that they could allow the offer at the price it was online (£43.20) and they would credit a further £10.00 per month off the deal to allow me the £33.30 I was originally offered.

So I accepted this and await my goods to be delivered by Monday 24th July 2017. I have a 14 day cooling off period if I do change my mind, although I doubt I will. All in all this has been a very frustrating debacle that I expect many others have gone through. Maybe EE should take heed of their errors and put things in place to make sure this doesn’t happen again as I am sure they would rather not get hit by the Ombudsman fees.

Lets hope there are no more issues with EE, especially after the problems I had with Vodafone.

Comments welcome.

 

 

 

 

A long time ago in a blog far far away….

My last post was just over a year ago and so much has changed. I am not sure why I stopped posting, maybe it was laziness, because I was boring, or something else.

So I thought i’d post something today.

I am sat here in my lounge rocking some epic Muppet PJs and a Breaking Bad tee. My Apple Watch (it was free, so who am I to complain) is telling me to stand, but my aching legs are telling me otherwise. Which is down to my attempt in keeping fit, which has been pretty good to be fair. I have a bicycle and have been going on rides as much as I can, so much so I am really getting into biking again. I have also started running, yes running, what on earth possessed me?

This bloody Apple Watch, thats what. Constant reminders to stand, move, exercise has made me consider my weight and take a look in the mirror. What I saw was a chubby, ageing father who drank, ate and smoked too much. So I took it upon myself to shed some fat, quit smoking, reduce the drinking and eating and most importantly exercise. A new me was born. I now exercise a few times a week by running or riding and walking. This has had a surprising effect on my physical and mental state. I am no longer lethargic, angry or disinterested and want to get up and get out and enjoy life.

It also allows me to do things with my son that we both enjoy and feel good for doing. Plus the bike riding is free!

I say free, but it does mean you have to buy a bike. I’m not one for dipping my toe into the bicycle waters, I jumped straight in. I bought a Apollo FS26 SE from my mate, it was great but heavy and hard work to ride (dual suspension), so I picked up a 2015 Saracen Kili mountain bike and sold the Apollo. This is the best thing I could have done, as the Kili is lighter and quicker. I can upgrade components too with ease, which means shopping on Chain Reaction Cycles. New tyres, inner tubes and wheels and as of today, a bike upgrade to a 2016 CUBE AIM SL 29er.

This means I will have two bikes, one MTB and one I will convert to a road bike. Although, I will consider selling one when I have siphoned off the components I require as buying the second bike is cheaper than buying the parts separately. I will post the pictures at some point if anyone is interested.

Anyway that is enough for now as I need a coffee, but have no milk. My son is playing on his iPod and asking me for breakfast, but I have no milk. Moral of that story, make sure you have milk. Ergo, I better get some milk.

Ciao

I want….

I don’t ask for much in life, however I would love a Cross Star Wars Pen. 

Apple MacPro 1.1 – Part 4.

Ok, so I haven’t posted on this subject for a few weeks.  Its crazy busy!

Anyway, Part 4!

Now we are talking Solid State Drives (SSD for short), which has taken me ages to find the best one for me.  I have looked all over the internet and found one going cheap on the PC World site. If I am honest, I wasn’t sure what i was looking for. I was looking for cheap SSDs with the same read and write speed however, after many discussions with friends, I decided to go for a high read and low write speed. Why??? Because the time it takes to write wasn’t an issue for me, I just wanted a drive to speed up my machine and do things at my pace. So this is it –

PNY Optima 2.5″ Internal SSD – 120 GB

Boasting low power consumption alongside high performance storage, the 120gb PNY Optima 2.5″ Internal SSD is the ideal upgrade for my MacPro.

Not only does the Optima SSD allow me to easily store data, it also helps to speed up my MacPro so I can achieve even more. It’s flash-based storage has no moving parts, which means there’s less wear and tear on the drive, no matter how much I use it. It should let the MacPro start up in less than 60 seconds (I am yet to confirm this).

OVERVIEW

Type	SSD
Capacity	120 GB
Interface	SATA III
Form factor / Drive size	2.5″
Read / Write speed	– Read: 400 MB/s – Write: 160 MB/s

FEATURES

Other features	– 128-bit AES-compliant – 1 million hours MTBF

GENERAL

System requirements	– Serial ATA Fully compliant with Serial ATA International Organization: Serial ATA Revision 3.0. Fully compliant with ATA/ATAPI-8 Standard Native Command Queuing (NCQ) – Windows XP 32-bit/64-bit, Windows Vista 32-bit/64-bit, Windows 7 32-bit/64-bit, Linux, Mac OS X – Power requirements : Standard SATA Power Connector
Dimensions	100 x 70 x 10 mm (H x W x D)
Weight	77 g
Manufacturer’s guarantee	3 years

 

As you can see not the best write speed but considering my budget of £40.00 I did well. I also had to pick myself up a IcyBox due to the SSD size and the MacPro sleds!

£15.00 on Amazon from Maplin. So £55.00 all in, job done.

Playing devils advocate, I expect I could have found a better deal but that is something which will always happen. Im just glad the SSD is in, TimeMachine did its job by updating the OS back to the new dive and all within 10mins!

In regards to benchmarking, I used Geekbench and scored 5033 on a Multi-Core score. By the looks of it thats not half bad!

So thats the most recent change I have made, comments welcome!

Ciao