Montreal has a crappy airport

On August 22, 2006 By Rick McIn product complaints, travelLeave a comment

If you are looking for an airport backdrop for a movie set in the 1970s, film your actors walking to Gate 46 in Dorval (Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International) airport. It’s like taking a time machine 30 years into the past.

The ancient tiles, the poor signage, the shoddy Departures monitors. There are no up-to-date food vendors. Go hungry or get a chocolate bar from the machine. It’s crowded. It’s depressing. It’s 1975.

Why don’t the taxpayers of Canada all chip in to build a modern airport for Montreal, Quebec?

… Oh, right. We already bought Mirabel airport in 1975 one of the great White Elephants of all time.

Surprisingly, Montreal is one of the few airports in the world that is prepared to handle the new doubledecker, 853-passenger Superjumbo Airbus A380.

» next travelogue post on this trip – better safe than sorry

switching from hotmail?

On August 11, 2006 By Rick McIn internet, product complaintsLeave a comment

I’ve long wanted to switch away from hotmail, a product of the evil Microsoft empire.

But to switch to Yahoo mail or Gmail smoothly seems impossible without third party software since hotmail (free version) no longer allows you to forward email.

Any advice for me? Ideally I would like an email solution with both desktop and web interfaces.

One last hope is that Microsoft wants me to evolve to their next hotmail – Windows Live Mail, in beta testing since Nov. 2005. It looks to be slow and buggy.

music – Macy Gray – thumbs down

On July 30, 2006 By Rick McIn music, product complaintsLeave a comment

If I MUST see live music, there is no better venue than outdoors on Prince’s Island at the Calgary Folk Music Festival.

The headliner on Friday night in 2006 was Macy Gray.

Gray’s profane show was sloppy. Her vocals slurred and often lost in the mix. I was disappointed. The only highlights were her two funky backup singers.

Moreover, some drunk girl tripped over me. Then cursed me as a poor fan for not standing throughout her show. (Is it impossible to enjoy music while sitting?)

Gray was booed in 2001 after forgetting the words to the American national anthem. I have to assume she is no one I would want to know in real life.

I love Macy Gray’s recorded music. But thumbs down on the live show.

have you been fooled by “link farm” sites?

On July 11, 2006 By Rick McIn bad news, internet, product complaintsLeave a comment

UPDATE – looks like Google might finally be doing something about this problem:

If you had a photography question you might be tempted to type in the URL “photography.com”.

Hey — not a bad looking website. This might be exactly what you are looking for.

Turns out photography.com has no content at all. It is a disguised collection of ad links.

I need a browser which blocks advertising sites like this as it blocks popup ads.

Publishing 2.0 » Google Is Killing the Economics of Content

why I still hate TELUS – update

On July 10, 2006 By Rick McIn blogs, product complaints, product endorsements5 Comments

angry guy Number 1 worst on my list of crappy, semi-monopolistic companies is, not surprisingly, a telephone company.

I had a major dispute with them over a mobile phone contract when I moved unexpectedly to New Zealand.

I understand that no company in Canadian history has had more complaints filed against them, including mine.

In June 2006 I called TELUS on behalf of my parents and had excellent service. I was about to revise my opinion.

Then I used a TELUS pay phone. Yes, public phones still exist. But in the Crowsnest Pass in rural Alberta, it will take you a while to find one.

TELUS charged me C$2.40 for a 1-minute call! (Does that sound like a reasonable price to you?) I was phoning the same area code — 403.

The pay phone was ancient. So old, in fact, that it did not take one dollar or two dollar coins. We scrambled to get enough dimes and quarters together.

Of my 1-minute time allotment, I got only about 20 seconds then was cut off without option to insert more coins.

I tell everyone I know — do not use TELUS. Use Bell, Shaw, Fido — anyone but TELUS.

I will complain, again, about TELUS to the CRTC.

=====

Hey, I got a quality reply from TELUS®: the future is friendly®

I appreciate the friendly tone and the information provided. And it only took a couple of days. Well done, TELUS.

Hello Rick, your email was forwarded to me for response as I manage the Sales & Customer Service associated with payphones at TELUS.

The cost of calling from payphones is governed by tariffs with the CRTC and reflects the costs associated with providing the service. In this case, the cost of processing and collecting coins from payphones is high so the calls have a surcharge of $2.00 attached to them plus the cost of the call itself. I recognize that this is not the most convenient way to make a call and there are a variety of alternatives. For someone that travels, using prepaid phone cards or rechargeable minutes would be far more cost effective. If you would be willing to provide me your address I can forward you a card as reimbursement for the inconveniences you’ve encountered in using our service.

I hope this answers your question but please feel free to contact me directly if you have any further questions or concerns. I can be reached at 1-800-XXX-XXXX or by email at xxxxxx@telus.com. Thank you for taking the time to forward your concerns and I apologize for any inconvenience you encountered.

Dave Fowler

Sales Director
TELUS Public Access

update on “net neutrality”

On July 9, 2006 By Rick McIn bad news, internet, product complaintsLeave a comment

If you are bored with the whole confusing issue, you may get fired-up by this opinion piece by Molly Wood.

The Buzz Report: Net neutrality: bring it on – CNET.com

The war for trillions of our dollars is getting ugly.

My warning bells really started dinging when I saw the unbelievably manipulative, disingenuous Don’tRegulate.org and HandsOff.org. These sites are, for lack of a better description, fake grassroots Web sites that are actually funded by AT&T, Cingular, Alcatel, and then a motley collection of conservative think tanks or fellow “grassroots” organizations such as NetCompetition.org, which is in turn funded almost exclusively by telcos and cable companies.

The telecommunication and cable companies are still the “bad guys”. For now. By owning the last mile of service to your door, they have a lot of leverage.

Hopefully I can one day sign on with a satellite provider to get away from them. Or move to a country that legislates Net Neutrality.

product warning – waterpik

On June 1, 2006 By Rick McIn product complaintsLeave a comment

angry guy Brian got this email back from the manufacturer when he inquired as to replacement parts.

The Waterpik® oral irrigator model WP-20 was discontinued in 1999. Parts are no longer available to support this product and specifications are not listed. We recommend replacing the machine.

Needless to say he will not be buying anything from Waterpik®.

We should buy from companies that repair and supply replacement parts for a number of years after the product stops production.

online scams in Nigeria

On May 28, 2006 By Rick McIn bad news, internet, product complaintsLeave a comment

You may have got an email from Akin.

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Akin is, like many things in cyberspace, an alias. In real life he’s 14. He wears Adidas sneakers, a Rolex Submariner watch, and a kilo of gold around his neck.

Akin, who lives in Lagos, is one of a new generation of entrepreneurs that has emerged in this city of 15 million, Nigeria’s largest. His mother makes $30 a month as a cleaner, his father about the same hustling at bus stations. But Akin has made it big working long days at Internet cafes and is now the main provider for his family and legions of relatives.

… Akin buys things online – laptops, BlackBerries, cameras, flat-screen TVs – using stolen credit cards and aliases. He has the loot shipped via FedEx or DHL to safe houses in Europe, where it is received by friends, then shipped on to Lagos to be sold on the black market. (He figures Americans are too smart to sell a camera on eBay to a buyer with an address in Nigeria.)

Akin’s main office is an Internet cafe in the Ikeja section of Lagos. He spends up to ten hours a day there, seven days a week, huddled over one of 50 computers, working his scams.

Read the whole article …
FORTUNE: Online scams create “Yahoo! millionaires” – May 29, 2006

support the Canadian music creators coalition

On May 13, 2006 By Rick McIn music, product complaints, product endorsementsLeave a comment

The evolving dynamic of “illegal” file sharing on the internet is a very complicated issue.

Coalition of artists fights music industry over file sharing

One thing is clear, however — the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) in panic mode is handling the issue badly. Not as badly as in the USA, but badly.

The voice of reason is the Canadian music creators coalition.

A few of the CMCC Members:

Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sum 41, Stars, Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace), Dave Bidini (Rheostatics), Billy Talent, John K. Samson (Weakerthans), Broken Social Scene, Sloan, Andrew Cash, Bob Wiseman (cofounder of Blue Rodeo), Sam Roberts, Greg Keelor (Blue Rodeo), Bob Ezrin, Feist, Arlen Thompson (Wolf Parade), Randy Bachman, Metric, The New Pornographers, Bill Henderson (Chilliwack), Ronnie King (The Stampeders), Lionel Dean Jarvis (Music Director/Bassist for Nelly Furtado), Ashwin Sood, Lighthouse, Luke Doucet, Blair Packham, Chris Tate, Craig Sheppard (Johnny Favourite Swing Orchestra), Chris Hogan, Golden Seals, Aaron Soloman, Dennis Ellsworth (The Little Pilgrims), Likewater, Neil Layton, The Johnny V Trio, Oneeyedjacks, Moneyshot.

I urge everyone to buy music from these artists. They are the ones looking out for the best interests of music fans, not the labels represented by CRIA.