Newsgator dont want your money....

Wow, just check out the dates in the following posts. I have never seen such a slow response!


Nothing Shows charged at this point. The cost for NewsGator Go! is $29.95 US

Regards,

Ronnie Gilbertson

-----Original Message-----
From: "Naveen Thakur"
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 09:39:46 -0000
To: "'Pre Sales Support Team'"
Subject: RE: (Case 77850) I was trying to buy...

>I'm using a Visa web card. It's never had any problems in the past.
>Could you tell me the amount that is being charged to the credit card
>to purchase Newsgator Go.
>
>Naveen-
>
>

Newsgator dont want your money....

I was trying to buy Newsgator Go! because my trial copy ran out. Their pre-sales support are incredibly uninterested in the fact that their web site is refusing my CC details. Here's the exchange so far...


Naveen,

I checked to ensure that you were not charged accidentally and do not see that you were. What sort of credit card are you using for these transactions.

Ronnie

-----Original Message-----
From: "Naveen Thakur"
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 07:56:26 -0000
To:
Subject: I was trying to buy...

>Newsgator Go. I keep getting the following.
>
>An error occurred during processing. Please try again.
>
>

Leakbustsers Plumbers...

Some time ago, I decided to plan my week off to redecorate the house. I decided to use a 'reputable plumber' to help with some of the work. I decided to use this company http://www.leakbusters.net/. I decided to accept the extra cost for their reputation. I decided to give them weeks of notice (which was ample they said).

Were they any good?
Can't really say because no one turned up.


Alarm Bells...
Started ringing when I first rang up and booked the appointment. Later that day I rang back to change the appointment. 'What appointment?', the chap said. 'It's not on our system'. So I had it re-entered - time, date, address, work, the whole shebang. Hmmmm, I thought best check again tomorrow.
Next day I ring back and ask them to check whether my appointment is now on their system. 'What appointment?'. So I have it all renetered for a third time.
I make a note to ring back a week before the work is due to make sure its still on their system.
'Yes, its on our system', the chap proudly proclaims a week before. 'Dont worry, someone will be there 8am Monday morning as promised...'.
Great! I'm chuffed.
8:30am Monday morning. I'm still waiting. I finally get a phone call along the lines of 'I'm sorry I cant make it at the moment. I've been on call over the weekend and have to finish the job this morning so I cant turn up for a couple of hours...or shall we reschedule till tomorrow?'. I suggest I can wait a couple of hours. 'Errrr....actually can we reschedule for tomorrow?'. OK. I agree and get him to confirm an 8am start.
9:30am. The phone rings. 'Errr...sorry I can't make. I may be able to get there in a couple of hours'. I'm verging on annoyance. It's obvious I'm not being told the truth The excuses sound as though they are being fabricated on the fly.
At this point I decide to cancel. I'll just go to British Gas. Now it really gets interesting.
Given my experience with leakbusters appointment system, I tell the plumber that I will ring head office to cancel the appointment. He very kindly offers to do it for me as he is no more than 5 minutes away and on his way there (Why? I thought you were on a job - my job?).
Anyway, we politely go our seperate ways. But again, alarm bells are ringing. I immediately ring the head office.
Ohhh, they are horrified. 'I can bet he didn't want you to inform us because there's a £15 fine on their wages that goes to charity every time they pull these shenanigans.'
Anyway, I'm told they will ring back in 10 minutes. Over an hour later they ring back and offer to do the job at half price.
To be honest, the job is too small for a half price reduction to matter. Taking into account the premium for using a 'reputable' plumber I decided to refuse the offer and just cancel the whole thing. I told them I'd just use British Gas!
A lot more happened than I care to write about but the moral of the story is something involving the words 'trustworthy', 'plumbers' and 'not'.

Must See Series - Ancient Rome

This series on the BBC is superb. Although the order in which it was shown was a little odd as we jump back from Nero to Caesar, even further back to the peoples favourite, then way forward to Constantine then ending (logically) with the fall of Rome.
While watching this last episode I had the distinct impression its basis was something familiar (historians love theorising about the fall of Rome). Lo and behold, the advisor was Peter Heather whose book 'The Fall of the Roman Empire' I read a few months back.
Obviously during the episode they couldn't show everything in the alloted time slot. But there was a lot more going on in the ancient Roman world that was putting Rome under ever increasing pressure, finally causing it to implode.
For example, Alaric and the Goths were part of a huge ever increasing migration from Eastern Europe that suddenly arrived on the boundaries of the Empire at this time. The cause was the rise of the Huns in the Central Plains that pushed terrified people over into Roman territory.
However, on the Western side the situation was just as bad. Constantine III was declaring himeself co-Emperor and approaching with a large army. Other barbarians in huge numbers were romping around Gaul causing havoc within that part of the Roman Empire.
Back on the Eastern side relations with Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire were sour to say the least.
The only person who might have dealt successfully with all of these simeltaneous ruptures was Stilicho (shown at the beginning being executed outside the Church in which he sought Sanctuary). For 13 years he was at the helm (by rather dubious means) struggling with such issues as well as internal rivals and of course the chicken loving Emperor Honorius.
However, Stilicho was accused of a plot to place his own son on the throne. Amazingly, according to records he doesn't appear to have contested these charges and allowed himself to be executed. There is some debate over whether he did this through guilt or to prevent further ruptures in an Empire he now could see crumbling around him.
That was the meaning behind his deliberate 'Yes, I understand' when told he had been pardoned and would be unharmed by the Emperor.

MathTablet speed test....

I thought I'd try the Prime Number script that comes with MathTablet to see how long it takes to generate the first 1000 prime numbers.
On my Axim 51v it took about 27s.
On the M600 it took about 62s.
Pretty good really.

What a croc - escalation....

Here's is the reply I got from ebookmall when I pointed out I couldn't download the book I just paid for:

Hi,
Thanks very much for your order.

I'm sorry but I've never even seen this error, and we don't have any
information about it. It could have been just a temporary error somewhere in
Microsoft's system. My best suggestion would be to give the download another
try. You can do that from your account at the View Orders page:
http://ebookmall.com/view-orders/

If it still gives an error, write back and let me know.

Thanks,
Carrie R.
eBookMall Help Desk
help-desk@ebookmall.com
http://www.ebookmall.com/

-------------------------------------------
Your question/comment was:

Clicking 'Get Book' leads to an
HTTP 500 Internal Server Error
with the URL
http://www.ebookmall.com/cr-processing/OFS-mr-js.asp

So I can't download the book I just paid for.

-------------------------------------------

I found this extremely amusing! So I've replied:

Hi,
Still doesn't work and error is the same as before.
Could you explain to me what Microsoft's system has to do with this? I'm pretty sure I bought the book from eBookMall.

Thanks,
Naveen

TenGo keyboard...

This really is a cute piece of kit. If you haven't tried it already then go to their web site and download the trial version. Essentially its a very fast way to enter text. It also works when entering URL's or names, but you have to persevere to figure out the quickest way to do it. Suffice to say the trash can and 'text entered' (on the top left) are the tools you'll need.
However, TenGo doesn't work smoothly on all platforms. On the M600, after install, it cannot be selected from the SIP. I eventually found that I had to disable (then enable) SpbDiary plugin for Today screen to get the thing to appear!!

MathTablet and M600

Be sure to install the QVGA Skin for Xcas if you decide to use it. The VGA will lead to oversize buttons most of which can't be seen. This reminds me of the problem I had with Griffin Studio and my Axim. You have to edit the VGA skin files otherwise all views are too big to fit

What a croc...

So I've bought a book from ebookmall.com to see if I can figure out how the MS Reader thing works. Actually, I bought the book to read it but I'm being forced to go in circles by the stupid Activation process combined with the 'Get EBook' button on ebookmall that leads to an HTTP 500 Internal Server Error.
Geeze!
Moral - avoid MS Reader and ebookmall.com

MS Reader for Pocket PC....

What a croc.
Couldnt activate the bugger on my M600 (Kept complaining that my device had a version older than Mobile 2002!). A number of people have had this problem circa late 2005 and I'm still having it mid 2006.
Finally used this solution :
http://discuss.pocketnow.com/showthread.php?s=9122e196542271b07445ae0375b077ae&t=19178

MathTablet and XCas

First attempt has resulted in a crash on the M600 requiring a soft reset! The integration between MathTablet and XCas is ugly to say the least. I shall persist however.
OK, its working now, initial run appeared to show its slow but its not really fair to compare MathTablet on M600 with SpaceTime on Axim x51v!!
It appears to have calculated int(xInx) correctly which is a big plus!
And its done int(1/x*sqrt(1-x)) correctly and rather quickly.
I also prefer the keyboard with cursor arrows - essential on the piddly little M600 screen.
I'm now a convert!
Once I've tested graphing - which I doubt is better than SpaceTime - I'll report further.

MathsTablet

Won the Pocket PC Magazine award for best scientific calculator. It doesn't perform symbolic integration out of the box but can be used with Xcas plugin to achieve the same effect. I may give this a try and see how it feels, but SpaceTime is a pretty good looking piece of software with excellent graphing capablities.

SpaceTime Mobile....

...seems to handle simple stuff well enough.
But didnt seem to like Int(x*Inx) or Int(1/x(1-x)^(1/2)). Perhaps it needs more work. Still good compared to what else is available on Pocket PC.

Pocket PC Mathematics...

http://www.spacetimemobile.com
Their range of calculators looks impressive and offers symbolic manipulation. Definately worth trialing. I've gone through the tutorial on my Axim 51v and am highly impressed. In fact the more I mess around the more its speed and ease of use is impressive.

Pocket PC News Readers...

OK, I tried PocketRSS, Egress, NewsBreak, Spb Insight. I really want a cached reader so I can read as much as possible while on the tube. I also want to be able to read and synch news on both my mobile devices (SPV M600, Axim x51v) as well as my home and work PC.
NewsBreak fell out of the equation right away as it only gives headlines and doesn't cache the full article. Egress looked promising but suffered an annoying error screen every time I went to use the menu. PocketRSS looks hideous and was rather slow in downloading. SpbInsight WAS my favourite. Although at times it felt like a beta it does have a decent feature set and looks really good. It definitely had the best layout and clarity. However, at the last minute I stumbled across NewsGator Go!
Now in the past I've been a fan of Bradsoft (all two of their products before NewsGator took them over). So I was quite thrilled when I realised how easy it was to sink both FeedDemon, and Go! with the NewsGator web based server. It even keeps track of which items are marked read on the web server, so synching automatically carries that information to all devices. However, the Go! reader is simplistic. You can't add feeds and a number of other features are missing compared to the other candidates (Although adding feeds on a mobile device is a pain). I expect future versions will add more 'stuff' but as of now sharing feeds with all my devices really is a winner.

Back...

By huge demand I've decided to resurrect this blog.
I thought I'd start by discussing why motivation is lacking in some people but then I coulfn't really be bothered.

History of probability...

The first book on the subject was published by Christiaan Huygens in 1657. An English translation of the original Latin was published in 1714 and can be found here. Huygens argues that the expected value of a bet should be equated with it's fair value.

Flickr Photos...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hema_thakur