Life in the Bus Lane

Another fairly poor month. Tonights ride has been cancelled partly due to the weather, and partly due to the fact I’ve got a cold and my shoulders and neck ache lots.

As with last month, must try harder.

Despite only having 6 players ready for the first leg we still managed to win, once the missing players had caught up we were 19 pins ahead after the one leg. We lost the second, but won the next few to go to 4-1. We then got our highest leg of the night so far with a 51, but still lost and the game went to 4-2. An even higher leg of 54 was too much for the BARDS, and we won 5-2.

Housing Admin took the full 8 points, BARDS took 2.

Another close match tonight. It slowly wended it’s way to 4-4, although we were a good 20 pins behind by that point. Larks showed 60 which proved to be too much for us as we could only manage 45.

Larks took the full 8 points, Housing took 4.

However over the two matches, we took 12 points to their 11, so we’re reasonably happy.

…until I went back to using a plain old 512K ADSL connection. It makes mine feel positively speedy by comparison. All part of the joys of babysitting.

In other news, Canon today announced a new digital SLR, the 30D, and a couple of lenses. The 30D is basically a 20D with most of the issues like a lack of spot metering fixed, however it still uses the same 8.2MP sensor which is no bad thing really. However going by some of the forums I read, as a result of this everyone will switch to Nikon, and Canon will be out of business by the end of the week. Just the usual web forum uninformed bollocks really, however it makes for quite amusing reading.

After the good weather we had yesterday, today was something of an anticlimax so I stayed in and did nothing.

I spent a pleasent couple of hours this afternoon just pottering around on the Stiffee to see how the new forks and brakes coped. The best thing I can say about the forks is that I didn’t notice they were there. They did everything they were supposed to perfectly. The brakes were fine as well although I cooked the back brake on a long descent from the downs.

I need to fine tune the travel setting on the forks a bit, 110mm took a bit of getting used to, and I might need some slightly less bonkers bars to lower the front end a tad more.

Yet again a night ride was interrupted by failed lights. However it wasn’t me this time, it was Janine, although she was actually using my spare lights so I suppose is partially my fault.

We did the usual run out to Avoncliff and back with a couple of quick sprints on the way back into town to liven things up a bit. Due to a minor misunderstanding as to the finish line for the first sprint, Ian beat me by a tyres width, however I left him for dust, or more accurately water spray, on the other sprint. A fairly nice if rather soggy 20 miles in the end.

It’s a good job I ordered my new forks when I did, as they’ve just put the price up by £50.

Tonight was probably one of the best games we’ve played for a long time. We opened with a leg of 48 which Larks proceeded to lose on a tie. We then lost the next two legs before winning the 4th with a leg 53. We then showed a leg of 60 which was our best leg of the season so far, unsurprisingly we won that one, but then faced a leg of 58 and lost to level the game to 3-3. We showed a fairly poor 45 but for the second time Larks lost on a tie. Larks then showed a leg of 44 which we resoundingly beat with a final leg of 57.

Housing Admin took a well deserved 8 points, Larks took 3.

It’s probably worth documenting this somewhere, if only to demonstrate the appalling service provided by Fujitsu Siemens and Service Source in the UK.

Back at the end of September 2005 I bought a nice shiny new Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro V2045 courtesy of my brother’s company Systemagic, and all was well. However on 4^th Jan it died, so I dropped it back to my brother who booked it in for a warranty repair which, we were told, would be a five day turnaround. The laptop was duly collected on the 5^th and delivered to Service Source who deal with warranty repair work for Fujitsu Siemens in the UK.

A couple of weeks later we chased up the repair to be told that they needed to replace the CPU and memory. This had been fitted and the laptop was undergoing final testing and should be back in a day or two. This was a bit over the 5 working days we’d been told, but such is life.

On the 20^th Jan we chased it up again only to be told that the CPU and memory hadn’t actually fixed the problem and that they needed to replace the motherboard. The parts now had to be ordered in and should arrive on the 23^rd.

By the 1^st February, it had been four weeks since my laptop died, and the replacement parts were still showing as due to arrive on the 23^rd Jan. Something was amiss.

The 6^th of February saw another bout of phone calls and email messages to Fujitsu, it turned out that they were still awaiting the motherboard, but the job had been escalated and the repair center had been told to fix it by the end of the day. However during a subsequent phone call towards the end of the day to check up on progress we were told there was nothing Fujitsu could do, we just had to wait for the replacement parts. However a glimmer of hope appeared when my brother contacted his old account manager at Fujitsu who provided some useful phone numbers.

The next day it transpired that it was Fujitsu policy to replace a faulty laptop if the parts were unavailable for ten days. Great we said, it’s been over a month now, where’s my replacement laptop? Fujitsu then stated that they wouldn’t replace the laptop, we had to keep waiting for the parts that were now due to arrive that week. The original delivery date of Jan 23^rd was a random guess and was never guaranteed to be accurate. They did assure us that it would be fixed by the end of the week though, even if they had to cannibalise a new laptop in order to repair mine.

The 8^th of Feb saw a minor miracle. The parts had finally arrived, the motherboard had been fitted, it was in final quality control testing, and would ship out that day. Except of course that it didn’t. It turned out the next day that there were additional problems with the machine, and they still had to do some work on it, however it would ship that day instead.

Finally it was February 10^th, and my laptop finally returned, fully repaired, just over five weeks after it failed. I got home, plugged it in and started playing around. It seemed a bit more sluggish than usual so I checked a few things and discovered that it only had 256MB RAM in, and not the 512MB that it was supplied with. I checked the service documentation which stated that they’d replaced the CPU, two 256MB memory modules, the motherboard, and the LCD panel, which looked promising. However it then stated that the laptop had 256MB of RAM, and had been tested to confirm that it actually did have 256MB RAM. To say I was unimpressed would be an understatement. Alex promptly phoned and emailed his contact at Fujitsu with no joy, presumably because everyone had gone home early on the Friday.

Monday afternoon arrived and we got a call back from someone at Service Source who insists that they couldn’t possibly return a machine with the wrong amount of memory as their technicians were so good, and we should take the laptop apart and check. True to her word, after eventually working out where the second memory module was hidden, and theN how to get access to it, I discovered that one of the memory modules hadn’t been fitted properly. If their technicians are so good, how did they manage to fit the memory incorrectly, and then fail to notice this when they did the post-repair testing? So much for quality control.

So far Fujitsu have failed to apologise for the diabolical service, but Systemagic have offered me a very good deal on a memory upgrade to make up for the inconvenience despite it not being their fault, and having providing excellent service in chasing Fujitsu repeatedly for more information.

I certainly won’t be buying a Fujitsu Siemens laptop again which is probably no great loss to Fujistu Siemens, howeverI’ve advised the appropriate people at work not to buy any either, and given we buy quite a lot of laptops at work it’s a fair amount of business that Fujitsu Siemens have now ruled themselves out of. It’ll also make me very wary of buying any Fujitsu Siemens servers or desktop machines. I’ve nothing against the hardware, it’s actually quite a nice laptop, but it’s no good buying a laptop that will take over a month to be repaired in the event that anything goes wrong, and where it’s almost impossible to get any information as to the progress of the repair.

It’s grey and miserable out today and looks like it’ll stay that way for a while, however I found a half-eaten packet of chocolate digestives in my desk drawer, so it’s not all bad.

The Stiffee now has the Deore XT brakes fitted. They were originally bought with the intention of fitting them to the planned new hardtail. That plan became the Stiffee, and now some four and a bit years later, the brakes finally get fitted. That must set some sort of record for slackness.

The weather is crap, so I’m spending the rest of the day in the warmth of the front room.

The Stiffee now has it’s shiny new RockShox Revelation 426 Air U-Turn forks on it. A quick test ride confirmed that they work, but the rugby this afternoon precluded a longer test.Tomorrow I might swap the brakes over and stick the nicer XTs on the Stiffee, and might even get the road bike out and clean it up if I’m feeling energetic.

Well my laptop is back, it seems to work, but they’ve stolen half of the memory from it. It’s now struggling along with 256MB instead of the 512MB it used to have. We are awaiting a call back from Fujitsu.

Apparently my laptop has returned from the dead. Admittedly no-one has actually opened the box yet, so it could have turned into a petunia^[1], but all being well it’ll be back online this evening.

[1] The whale wouldn’t fit into the box.

Randomness seemed to be the norm tonight. We took the first leg but lost the second. However that was as bad as it got and we cruised to a 5-1 win, and also took the Bill Giles Memorial Cup 10-5. Somehow I ended up as top score.

Housing Admin took 8 points, Half and Half took just 1.

Apparently after replacing the motherboard yesteday there were still some problems with my laptop, so I didn’t get sent out yesterday. However, allowing for the chinese whispers effect of message passing, it’s apparently been sent out today and should arrive tomorrow.

Apparently a new motherboard has been fitted to my laptop, it’s with final quality control testing, and may well be shipped out tonight and arrive here tomorrow. Mind you, they told us the same thing three weeks ago.

In non-laptop related news, the new forks for the Stiffee have arrived, but a couple of other bits were missing from the order so I’ve had to chase that up. At the going rate I’ll fit the forks this weekend because the weather looks potentially unsuitable for riding.

Apparently the 23^rd Jan date was a complete fabrication, their supply system makes random guesses as to when parts will arrive. We’ve now been assured that it’s all the fault of the Germans, the parts are due in this week, and that my laptop is at the top of the pile to be repaired when the parts actually arrive. In addition, if the parts don’t arrive this week they’ll cannibalise a new laptop to fix mine, and presumably others as well.

The cynic in me believes this is just a ploy to shut us up for a few days, but we’ll just have to wait and see. It does mean that it could be at least another week before my laptop returns.

Apparently it is Fujitsu Siemens policy to replace a laptop if the required replacement parts are not available within 10 days. Great we thought, they’ve been waiting for parts for my laptop for well over two weeks so they’ll be sending me a replacement machine today.

Er, no. They still claim the parts are due in this week, despite us having been told repeatedly that they are showing as due to arrive sometime last month, and therefore won’t replace the laptop.

I continue to be amazed by the staggering levels of incompetence within Fujitsu Siemens UK.

According to Fujitsu my laptop is still awaiting a replacment motherboard. Presumably this is the same motherboard that is due to arrive two weeks ago. Another day of phone calls provided some hope early this morning when a supervisor at Fujitsu escalated the problem and told the warranty company to sort it out today, but that was quickly quashed mid afternoon when someone else at Fujitsu announced that there was nothing they could do and we just had to wait and ring back in a few days time. They can’t seem to comprehend that taking five weeks (so far) to repair a laptop isn’t good enough, and that it’s probably going to cost them quite a lot of lost business in the future.

However, following discussion between my suppliers and their former account manager, there might be light at the end of the tunnel, although knowing my luck it’ll just be an oncoming train. Hopefully I’ll know more tomorrow.

I have at least fixed my main computer though. It was a dead/dying graphics card which has now been replaced with a shiny new red one.

My laptop has now been dead for a month, and my main PC has started playing up as well. Hopefully that’s only a dodgy graphics card which won’t be too expensive to fix rather than being one of those annoying errors which takes ages to find and ends up being caused by nothing in particular.

A quick trip to the LBS this morning furnished the Langster with some previously-enjoyed Salsa Bell Lap bars, and I also picked up some new Conti Duraskins for the Lemond in readyness for it’s spring reappearance.

I’m now sat at work changing IP addresses in the Labs, but hopefully I’ll escape in time to watch the rugby this afternoon then head out for food and beer to celebrate Ali’s birthday.

It’s damn cold out there. Last night was bad enough, but tonight was far worse. Despite an extra layer of clothing, I’ve lost all feeling in my toes, and had to scrape chunks of ice out of my beard when I got home. I don’t think I’ll be riding again until it’s a few degrees warmer out there.

In other news I’m still somewhat unsurprisingly laptopless, Simon is now dole scum, and Matt had to deal with the passing away of Katie today.

It’s four weeks and one hour since my laptop died. Presumably they are still waiting for a motherboard to walk itself from Germany to the UK.

Update: The replacement motherboard is showing as due to arrive on January 23^rd. Hmmmm.