Annoyances – Ryan Prins' Blog

Vonage Doesn’t Block Phone Numbers

There is this telemarketer that keeps calling me (1-888-447-4169) over and over again. I am on the do not call list for both my phones since 2003 and I have called this number 3 times to have my number removed from the list. All three times I was assured that “yes” we will remove your account, but it might take 5 days (or something) to remove you from our system. Well, I know it’s been way longer than 5 days and after 177 calls starting on October 16, 2006, I’ve had enough.

I reported the number to the Do Not Call List, so we’ll see what comes of that, but if any of you have an idea on what else I can do to get these folks off of my back, please let me know. I’d be more than happy to hear your ideas.

WaMu Unavailable

I’ve tried a couple of times today to pay my bills on line at wamu.com, but every time I try, I am getting an error and I can’t. It is beyond frustrating. I can understand if the site is down outside of business hours (or peak hours), but I would imagine (and I only speculate here) that when the sun is up the most people are making transactions on line. I have a rent check to mail and association dues to pay and I need this service to be up. I’ll check back again tonight, but I shouldn’t have to. It should have worked the first time.

Sidebar Help is Not Helping Me

This afternoon I’m on xbox.com trying to find a way to get more points onto my Xbox Live account. I can find a bunch of information on how to do it from the Xbox Dashboard on my 360, but I can’t find a way to do it on line. At least, I can’t find a way to get my credit card information added on line. But, what almost bothered me even more was their help functionality in their billing application. It is terrible.

They use the same paradigm as Office does. They open a sidebar and resize your main window to display your help. I hate this. I think for a desktop application it can be OK, but I prefer a totally separate window that is on top of my current one. I know the benefit of the sidebar approach, but I really hate my browser being resized. What’s worse is that when it is resized the sidebar help text doesn’t even fit in the newly opened sidebar. Frustrating.

In the end, I’m just going to head home and do this there. I’m really surprised that it has to be so difficult to take my money away from me.

Shorter Mobile URLs

Does it make sense for a URL for a web page designed for a mobile device to be something like:

http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/subscriber/mwe/fldr.aspx/258127/xxxxxx

When it could be something like:

http://mobile.newsgator.com/258127/xxxxxx

It would at least be a little shorter to type in on my SP5 that way.

All I Want Is My Paperwork

Well, I have finally submitted my federal taxes as well as my state taxes for Minnesota. It was really painless to use e-file. This is the second year that I have done my taxes this way. E-file is one use of technology that I think really makes something easier. But, now that both of my filings have been accepted, I want to print off the PDF copies of my paperwork. I have the copies from last year and you should always keep a paper copy for your records. However, when I tried to get the PDF, which is embedded in the webpage *shakes fist*, my web browser frose. Yup, I got Firefox to freeze. So, I decided to use Internet Explorer to see if that would work. I only did this knowing that it had better embedded PDF support. The almighty IE should work, right?

Well… I was wrong. I crashed both of them on my PC. So, onto my Mac to save the day. Yup, my Powerbook has the paperwork on it since my PC can’t handle it. I used to be annoyed at the way OS X handled PDFs. I guess, for today, it saved me the hassle of finding yet another alternative to getting the paperwork for my tax filings. Now I can rest knowing that I have copies. I guess the only next best thing is knowing that I wouldn’t need them in the future.

Learn a Little, Would Ya?

As many of you know I have a pretty cush job on campus. I have had this job for about a year now and have really enjoyed it. But, it has only been until recently that some aspects of it have been getting on my nerves. No, it’s not the patrons as you may think. They are the patrons and as much is expected of them. They ask questions, you give them answers to the best of your ability.

Where I have a hard time at my job is to watch simple questions go unanswered or wrong information be given to questions that are frequently asked of the lab assistants. Now, this really doesn’t apply for the lab assistants that have been there for a while, but there is one who just gets on my nerves a lot (I’d imagine others too).

It is not that he can’t answer the questions, they are really easy, but what drives me crazy is that he won’t spend the time to learn the answer to the question. You think you’d pick up on it after it answered for you. You think you’d remember it for next time. But, no. This just drives me wild. It even happened today, twice! I had to correct him in front of the patrons just so that they wouldn’t get all peeved when they realize all of the work he made them do. I don’t even know if he’d get it right next time. Now, he was trained on all of this, but training means nothing until you have to use it. Oh wait, isn’t that what training is for, to train you for your job? Gah!

Man, it just drives me crazy. Bah, I could write tons on this, but I just don’t feel it is appropriate or would help any.

Gosh, I haven’t written like this for a while and damn it feels good to vent, if only a little bit.

Trillian, You’re A Bully

Trillian. Many of us use it, or have used it in the past. It is that IM client by Cerulean Studios that looks sexy and works pretty well too. I say pretty well because I have one big gripe with it. It always thinks that it is right and that bothers me. Continue reading “Trillian, You’re A Bully”