Click PLAY or watch an excellent David Pogue rant on YouTube.
Category: product complaints
love / hate rent-a-car
Part of the rationale of me not owning a vehicle is:
I can always rent-a-car.
Recently I’ve started relying on the insurance provided by my credit card. Risky, I think.
I got the TD Gold Select Visa Card mainly for this feature:
Use your eligible TD Visa Card to charge the full cost of a car rental and the Auto Rental Collision/Loss Damage Insurance program will cover you at no additional cost. This insurance coverage means you do not need to purchase the collision/loss damage insurance coverage offered by the car rental company. You’ll be protected against loss arising from damage to the rental car on most rentals in North America and many foreign countries. Some restrictions apply.
One problem is that I must pay any costs up front, then make a claim to VISA for reimbursement.
Risky. So far I’ve never had to do it.
Recently I woke up to find my rent-a-car looking like this:
I changed the tire myself, putting on the skinny temporary. Maximum 80km/hr, it says.
When I got back to Avis I learned that there will be no cost to me if the tire is patched. But that I am responsible to buy a new tire if it cannot be patched.
I’ll learn that decision by watching my credit card statement.
hmm
Microsoft back to business as usual – bad ads
Just when things were looking up for Microsoft, some dolt approved a series of ads promoting their average-at-best browser, Internet Explorer 8.
“If you have a strong stomach”, click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
What a pathetic attempt to be hip.
Out of 100 people who see this ad, how many would find it either amusing or interesting?
Microsoft Fail.
Air Canada and Aeroplan still suck
I tried to request credit for two flights I made recently on Air Canada.
It’s difficult to find the right place on the Aeroplan website. But eventually I did.
Aeroplan > Request Mileage Credit
But when I filled in the much too detailed data required, I got only an error page:
The data is right. Aeroplan and Air Canada suck.
Thanks to Peter Long for pointing out that I had the wrong airport. Montreal Dorval has changed names to Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport. (2004)
They truly do what they can to ensure so called valuable customers do not get credit for mileage.
Why not automatically credit every flight?
Air Miles programs will be dead to me after I use up the 70,000 points I have left on this crappy airline. I’ll do everything I can to avoid AC.
related – Aeroplan® expiring me
==== UPDATE:
After submitting, did I get credit for the miles?
Your request for mileage credit has been received. The missing Aeroplan Miles will be validated and, if accepted, the miles will be posted to your account within six weeks. No confirmation e-mail or letter will be sent.
Screw you very much, Aeroplan. Six weeks?
What? You will have an employee confirm this request?
Aeroplan deserves to go out of business.
Now I have to phone them – GAWD AWFUL – because my miles might expire July 25th, before the 6wks, if I don’t.
byebye FIDO …
Cancelled my phone today.
FIDO is likely the best carrier in Canada. But I still didn’t like anything about them.
My handset was crappy. And confusing.
Like all phone companies, the advertised price / month (no contract) was about half the actual price / month. Even if I did not use the phone at all.
They charge $3.50 / minute for calls to the USA.
I would call that gouging. Wouldn’t you?
When I called to cancel FIDO, the poor salesgirl did everything she could to “downsell” me to something cheaper. I pity the employees of phone companies.
My goal is to live semi-retired without any phone. Perhaps I’ll start texting from my iTouch as a free alternative. (I’ve only sent 1 text in my life, so far.)
If I do get another phone in future, it will be an iPhone.
=== UPDATE:
Mythbusters star Adam Savage got an $11,000 bill from AT&T, and he’s not happy about it. This afternoon, the star Tweeted:
… AT&T is attempting to charge me 11k for a few hours of web surfing in Canada. …
He then added:
… Normally those suffering the extortionate roaming fees charged by the carriers suffer in silence, or go through the endless phone systems to try and reach a more modest sum. …
This time a TelCo messed with the wrong customer. Adam Savage hates AT&T is now the second most discussed topic on Twitter, second only to Michael Jackson.
SIRIUS|XM app for the iPhone
Everyone I know who subscribes to SIRIUS|XM satelite radio in the U.S.A. loves the service.
It’s a brilliant idea.
Mostly, however, the new technology and the messy merger of the original two companies has been bungled.
SIRIUS paid over $500 million to lure shock jock Howard Stern to the new service. I don’t even like Stern. That money was wasted, in my opinion.
My guess is that some new technology will come along in the next few years and take away all their customers.
Too long delayed was an app for smart phones to deliver the service to wherever you happen to be at the time. No longer would you be tethered to your receiver. It’s finally here.
Click PLAY or watch a demo of the new app on YouTube.
This video was published by SIRIUS.
The reviews are far less enthusiastic:
Many of the reasons folks sign up for Sirius XM are missing from its iPhone and iPod touch application. For starters, Howard Stern, MLB and NFL aren’t available on the Sirius XM iPhone application.
Color me not interested. All that waiting for an iPhone, iPod Sirius XM app and you get hit with a big letdown. …
Sirius XM neuters its iPhone app: Howard Stern, MLB, NFL out
Another less than enthusiastic reviewer:
… A first run through the app reveals the ability to stream 120 channels of satellite radio over Wi-Fi, 3G or Edge. That’s where the thrill begins and ends. If you already have Premium Service access for Sirius XM, then there’s nothing to lose with this one trick pony. Other than the time you’ll squander trying to buy music from iTunes through the app one song at a time. The process is more painful than a root canal and dumber than a box of hammers.
I suggest you steer clear of paying a subscription fee to hear Sirius XM via iPhone until the company gets passionate about providing a true satellite radio juggernaut for iPhone that will put Pandora and Flycast to shame. …
I might try it, anyway.
I did enjoy my week in a rent-a-car with Sirius radio.
Twitter is officially dead
TIME magazine – 3 years late – finally posted a feature article on it:
The one thing you can say for certain about Twitter is that it makes a terrible first impression. You hear about this new service that lets you send 140-character updates to your “followers,” and you think, Why does the world need this, exactly? It’s not as if we were all sitting around four years ago scratching our heads and saying, “If only there were a technology that would allow me to send a message to my 50 friends, alerting them in real time about my choice of breakfast cereal.” …
read more – TIME
When mainstream Oprah and TIME pay attention to something, the cool early adopters must move on to the next big thing.
I use Twitter. See some value in it.
But ultimately it’s a fad. Destined to take a downturn any minute. Evan and Biz should sell NOW.
(via Mashable)
bad book – Wonder Boys
I read and enjoyed The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. It won the the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001.
So … expected to enjoy another of his books, Wonder Boys (1995).
The writing is skillful, of course. The plot original. The characters quirky.
But ultimately I could not finish the book It had nothing to teach me. I hate books about disfunctional losers and their stupid lives.
Yeesh.
I never saw the film version (2000) starring Michael Douglas. But some say, despite being a box office dog, that it was better than the book.
Google News still sucks
Google News is one of the greatest innovations ever on the internet. There are other News aggregaters, but I never visit any of them.
But it’s hardly improved at all since being introduced.
MG Siegler on TechCrunch gives examples of the many problems.
I’m sorry, but for as good as Google is at organizing the world’s data, Google News absolutely sucks.
read more … Google News Gets An Update. Still Sucks.
He feels the service will not improve without more human editing.
Many call Google Search a parasitical business model, including Jim Spanfeller, President and CEO of Forbes.com.
There are other critics. Some publishers of the 25,000 news sources included in Google News want Google to start paying something for the content.
Rick McCharles 