No wonder my insurance company wants to raise my premiums by another £25 a month, even after being a customer for 3 years and having no claims! Lame, real lame.

First, a few days ago, I’m driving along minding my own business, I come to a tight road, and some muppet in the opposite direction decides to floor it, hits my wing mirror, knocking it into my car and cracking the wing mirror glass (thankfully nothing happened to the plastic thing keeping the glass in place or the car door!)
I stopped immediately but by the time I turned around, he was long gone. I just hope his car was damaged as well. It’s no biggie though, the glass works fine, and a replacement is pretty cheap.

Today morning, I was out for a meal quite, far away, around 12am, parked my car in a side road. Have my meal, come out (around 1am) and find the back small window smashed, rear window rolled down and someone has had a proper go at finding something worth taking. Luckily, I left nothing too important in there so nothing was missing and double locking the doors mean you can’t open it without the key.
Called the police, who decided there was no point coming around since they hadn’t left any blood or anything at the scene. Got home, stuck a bin bag over the broken window and went to bed, but didn’t get much sleep. Woke up at 8am, called insurance, who sent someone over around 10:30am and replaced the window (in 10 mins!). Course, it cost me a bit, had to pay the £50 excess (booooo).
Got a call back from the cops who were interested in knowing if there was any chance the would-be-thief left prints behind. Chances are he probably did, the cops seemed happy with that and said they’d send someone around to check for prints (yay ). Hope the thief gets owned.

This morning, while getting the car ready for the repair man, I notice the rubber thing at the bottom of the car is half off Wasn’t much I could do expect stick it back the best I could, prolly needs to be taken to a garage and let them do it properly.

Sigh, never had this much trouble with my car before. No one’s ever touched my car, I remember leaving my window open for 3 days by mistake (!) and nothing was touched. Despite the occasional problems around here, this area seems pretty safe.

Also yesterday, on the advice of bma, I sent an email rant to michael_dell[@]dell.com. Today, I got a phone call from their Customer Relations Department wanting to know the solution to the problem.

I told them I’d accept a 1280×800 screen if they gave me a partial refund for the extra £20 I paid for the higher res screen since the chances of getting a non-grainy WXGA+ screen were downright low, if not impossible. Apparently, they can’t authorize a partial refund (booooo) and offered me a 1GB USB stick as a goodwill gesture. I don’t need a USB drive, I instead asked for more ram or a bigger HD. They still insisted they couldn’t, so I accepted their USB drive.

So now they will build a new laptop with the same specs, apart from the LCD, which should arrive in 7-15 days and then collect the old laptop.

If there is a problem with the new laptop, I think I’ll be keeping both the new and old one until I get a full refund. I’m just too fed up now to believe that Dell can get something right.

It’s a real shame that the screen is grainy on this LCD, the viewing angles are actually really good and I haven’t noticed any serious light bleed. Dell needs to have a word with these manufacturers about how they coat the screen with gloss, but until then, it will be the last time I buy a laptop from Dell.

The native resolution of the LCD shipped with the laptop was 1440×900, and naturally, I’d expect them to replace the screen with an LCD with the same res. Once the laptop was delivered to them (minus the hard drive ), I rang them up and asked for the part number they’d replace it with. I googled the part number, and it turns out that it’s a 1280×800 screen :o So I ring them again and tell them that’s the wrong part, and they assure me they’ll fit it with a 1440×900 screen.

Today the laptop arrives, I boot into the BIOS, check the video settings, and find the native res. is 1280×800. Feeling pretty pissed off and booting into Windows, I notice major backlight bleed on the XP boot process background, half the screen looks grey instead of black, and the shitty viewing angles. Feeling even more pissed off now, I give Dell support a ring and demand Dell replaces the screen or gives me a refund for the extra amount I paid for the higher res. screen.

The tech at the other end insists it’s a problem with the video drivers, so I reinstall the drivers. Not luck there, so he tells me to go to Display Settings and claims I can select the 2nd monitor and choose the native res. there. Feeling pretty fed up now, I tell him I’m not buying it and they’d better replace the screen or refund me the extra I paid.

Finally, he agrees that a mistake has been made and will send out a tech. to my house with a new screen, replace it and check the res. is correct.

I seriously wander what kind of techs they use that can’t be fucking bothered to check the res. the laptop shipped with, and replace it with a correct res. LCD. Srsly.

For anyone wandering, the LCD Model is CTP141F.

UK campaigners NO2ID this morning enlisted the help of bloggers across the world to spread a leaked government document describing how the British government intends to go about “coercing” its citizens onto a National Identity Register. The ‘ID card’ is revealed as little more than a cover to create a official dossier and trackable ID for every UK resident – creating what NO2ID calls ‘the database state’.

NO2ID’s national coordinator, Phil Booth, exhorted bloggers, freedom lovers and anyone who gives a damn about personal privacy to mirror the annotated document on their site.

“The charade is over. While ministers try to bamboozle the British public with fairytales about fingerprints, officials are plotting how to dupe and bully the population into surrendering control of their own identities.”

“Biometric ID cards are a sham; a magician’s flourish to cover the biggest identity fraud there has ever been.”

IMO, we are already in a police state and its gonna get worse with these ID cards. Read the doc and decide for yourself if you can trust the Government.

The HMRC has apologised about its seventh such loss of data and has told the Information Commissioner.

Since I couldn’t find a stamp image…..

BBC Link