Customer Services... Hell!!

Some of you may have noticed that I didn't get around to posting a blog last week, to be honest I have at least two entries part written, but for the majority of last week I spent every spare second on the phone to one customer services department or another and therefore had no time left to blog, or almost anything else for that matter!!

Part 1: Customer Services, Orange

As you may remember I have a Blackberry Bold, which I was very excited to receive a few months ago (http://tinyurl.com/68w5g8). However, for all the good looks of this device it has in fact turned out to be somewhat unreliable. The phone regularly crashes and takes several long minutes to reboot, displaying only a white screen and an egg timer, which does nothing for me except raise my blood pressure. It struggles to find reception even when there is good signal coverage, which means it is really only usable in a big city such as Manchester, where it stays within a high strength mobile network cell at all times. Having said that, the device was also virtually useless in London as it couldn't cope with picking up and loosing the signal everytime I went in and out of the Underground and as a result I missed two important calls. Last weekend I was in the Lakes, where admittedly the signal is very poor, but to my dismay the Blackberry had drained itself of battery power in just a couple of hours, my guess is that this was probably due to it's constant searching for a network that wasn't there!

So finally I decided it was time to find out what was causing these issues, I did a bit of searching on Google and came up with this: http://tinyurl.com/6dgn89. Yikes!! It seemed that I wasn't the only one experiencing these issues, but annoyingly here I am a month on from the date that this article was written and yet Orange still hadn't contacted me...

I called Orange customer services and politely explained the problem, they provided me with a link to the Blackberry website to download and install new software to my device, stating that all of the issues referred to in the press had now been resolved. I tried the URL provided, but the message which came up read, “I'm sorry, this page had been removed”. I called Orange again, waited 20 mins on the line, was transferred through 2 departments and was then hung up on. Next I wrote an email, to which I received a call back the following morning whilst I was at work, I was transferred into a queue for 10 mins and then asked if I was still happy to hold... I exploded!

Anyway the Orange representative I spoke to seemed to think that the Blackberry website was still the best bet, this guy claimed that there were no issues with the handsets as far as Orange were concerned??!! I lost my temper and told him he would have to call me back after 5pm when I had finished work. 7.30 pm still no call back, I called Orange customer services again, this time I found a very helpful lady who, called me back on my home phone, ran a diagnostic test on my handset and promptly confirmed it was faulty, shipping a new handset to me the following morning.

The handset arrived, the courier was on time and charming, all good so far, but apparently the courier only brings the device itself so I keep the existing sim, memory stick, battery and back plate. Obviously this is hassle as I now have to sink my device with the data backed up on my home PC and as a result my emails won't work and I have no address book for the remainder of the day, but hey no big deal we are making progress at least!!

So, on Saturday morning I sink the device with the backup, that all works fine except that I now lose Blackberry Maps from the menu!!! Argggggghhh. I search the internet and find this: http://tinyurl.com/6dgac5, it says that Orange are not including Blackberry Maps on the device, Grrrrrrrr! The maps better be included, they were there before I did the sink with my backup... I call Orange customer services again, this time the frustration in my voice must have been very clear, I only had to wait on hold for 5 mins and was only transferred once, but the representative in the technical support department did manage to get the maps back onto the device. Unfortunately, the only way this could be achieved was to wipe my email and Facebook config!!?? So, after I finished the call with Orange I then had to set these up manually, but eventually I had a device that resembled my old one, hopefully minus the issues!

That evening I set off to the cinema in Didsbury, 3 or 4 miles from my home and guess what... the stooopid thing couldn't find a signal!!!! We came home and it wouldn't sink with the broadband and then crashed, taking 8 mins to reboot!!

Today the device has behaved much better, although the back plate doesn't seem to fit the new device properly, however I have decided to give the Blackberry Bold a week or two and see if things have improved, before I do anything more... mainly, however because I can't cope with the thought of calling customer services again!!!

Why is it that we have to get so cross and angry with customer services agents before our problems are taken seriously, 'Sigh'

Part 2 of Customer Services Hell!! Coming Soon...

How To Make An Eee PC 901 Sleeve, Cover or Case

Some months ago some 'orrible little S.O.D.'s slashed open the soft top roof of my beloved convertible MX5!!! Anyway with time the anger and the pain has subsided and Cybil (the car) now has a fabulous new hood. So what is the relevance of this I hear you cry...

...well in addition to Cybil's swanky new hood I also had in my hands the remnants of her old one and for some time I had been contemplating chucking it out, but somehow I didn't quite have the heart. Around this time I also started to loose patience with the felt/fabric sleeve that ASUS send out as standard with the Eee PC. Somehow this case manages to attract every single bit of dirt and to be honest It was less than stylish even when it was new, but now a few months on it is filthy and just plain VILE!!

So, I decided to make a new case for my beautiful Eee PC, from the old vinyl car roof!!! Whooo a worthy cause for this emotionally charged piece of scrap material. Plus the fabric is strong, durable and waterproof – perfect protection!

I started by checking out a few ''how-to-make” sites for ideas and maybe even a pattern or template, things like www.instructables.com and http://blog.magazine.com are normally a great source for inspiration and help. However, on this occasion I couldn't really find anything that fitted the bill, I wanted something that was smart, stylish, funky and practical. In the end I decided to base the design on the one Blacberry supplied with my Blackberry Bold phone (but bigger of course!). When I first saw the case for my phone I wasn't too sure, it looked a bit dull to me, but to be honest it fits the device well and looks smart even with constant use. For the Eee however I felt I would want the sleeve to have a flap (like an envelope) in order to fully enclose the computer, therefore protecting it completely.

I began by making a template out of newspaper, being careful to leave a generous seam allowance, which would give me a little flexibility, just in case I had misjudged the sizes in any way. I made templates for both sides of the sleeve, the piece for the back included the flap.

Next I laid the template on my material and cut out the pieces, it was then that I realised that the inside of the flap would also be seen so I added a third piece of material and stitched them inside faces together. This means that when the flap of my case is open the inside of the flap shows the same vinyl finish as the outside.

I decided to do the rest of the stitching red, to make a feature of it, but a little word of warning as this certainly made things harder because every mistake, wobbly line or corner is very obvious. However after a couple of attempts and quite a bit of unpicking I was satisfied with the results.

My Eee PC fits very snugly in the pocket of the new case, so I now need to secure the flap. I decided upon a funky square red button and cut a horizontal button hole. I edged the button hole with running stitch to make it look good aesthetically and double stitched the ends of the slit to stop it splitting further as a result of continual use. I didn't need to zig-zag stitch the edges of the button hole in the traditional way as this fabric doesn't run or fray.

I then stitched the button to the case in the right position for the button hole and finally I finished of the edges by gently warming them with a lighter. The fabric from the car hood is plasticised and so this melts the edges slightly giving a neat professional looking finish.

My completed Eee PC case or sleeve!

I hope you like it!! Let me know if you have any cool home-made bags or cases for your gadgets, or even if you have found some good ones for sale. I would probably have bought something if I had found something even remotely suitable!!

Looking forward to hearing from you all...