Sunday, July 05, 2009
21:48 by FoxTwo If you stop and take a minute to think about it, there was a shitload of things happening last week. Most obvious, is of course, the death of Michael Jackson, and a lesser known death - Farrah Fawcett.
Man, 2 of my childhood stars, dead. I'm gettin' old.
Don't worry, this entry won't be talking about them. There's enough ruckus in the Internet about those 2.
Instead, it's about my new toys. First of all, HP had a mini-roadshow thing at my company, and had this incredible offer on a 21 inch widescreen monitor at only $199. I fought my inner devils, trying not to spend money, but in the end, I lost. I forked out $199 and got the monitor - HP 2159m Widescreen.
When I got it all set up, I was surprised to realise that it had built-in speakers. I plugged the cable in and tried out the speakers - they ain't too shabby either! Almost as good as the desktop ones I have. The only reason why I'm not using the built-in speakers full-time is due to the lack of bass. Since I play games, explosions and gunfire won't feel as "frantic" with weak bass coming from the monitor.
The second reason is that the stereo separation isn't wide enough - left and right speakers sound like coming directly in front of me from the monitor.
HOWEVER, should my desktop speakers ever die on me (hah!), I'd have no problems plugging the monitor straight to the soundcard, and probably hold off buying new speakers till a pair of good ones come along.
The first thing I had to do when I got going with the new monitor was - to increase my mouse acceleration. I couldn't reach the sides of the screen with the old settings *grin*. Yeah, the new monitor had a resolution of 1920x1080, heaps higher than the old 1280x1024 - 700 pixels more to traverse with the same wrist-flick.
The next thing I noticed with this monitor is that now, my games look blocky on their previous settings of 1280x1024 (which was the max on my older LCD monitor). I finally settled on 1280x720 instead of going higher, because my current graphics card will start to stutter. *sigh*. I should have gotten the ATI 4850 instead. No I will not get a new graphics card, this one still works fine. I just have to set the resolution to 1280x720 and things will be pretty smooth most times.
My second new toy is a 1 Terabyte harddisk. Yes, that's 1,000 Gigabytes. 4 times bigger than a 250GB drive. Yeah I was running out of space all the time on my old 250GB drive. Yes I know, PC Show was just here in June. No I didn't go squeeze with the rest of Singapore. Besides, prices can't be that much lower in PC Show than in Sim Lim, and I don't mind paying $5 more to avoid the crowds.
So, with the new disk, I moved all my data and games out to the new 1TB drive, and re-partitioned the old 250GB drive into 2 equal 125GB partitions - 1 for OS, and 1 for "temp files". You know, those junk you download and for the internet cache.
Yeah, this is basically what I've been doing the past week - just mucking around with new hardware.
21:48 by FoxTwo If you stop and take a minute to think about it, there was a shitload of things happening last week. Most obvious, is of course, the death of Michael Jackson, and a lesser known death - Farrah Fawcett.
Man, 2 of my childhood stars, dead. I'm gettin' old.
Don't worry, this entry won't be talking about them. There's enough ruckus in the Internet about those 2.
Instead, it's about my new toys. First of all, HP had a mini-roadshow thing at my company, and had this incredible offer on a 21 inch widescreen monitor at only $199. I fought my inner devils, trying not to spend money, but in the end, I lost. I forked out $199 and got the monitor - HP 2159m Widescreen.
When I got it all set up, I was surprised to realise that it had built-in speakers. I plugged the cable in and tried out the speakers - they ain't too shabby either! Almost as good as the desktop ones I have. The only reason why I'm not using the built-in speakers full-time is due to the lack of bass. Since I play games, explosions and gunfire won't feel as "frantic" with weak bass coming from the monitor.
The second reason is that the stereo separation isn't wide enough - left and right speakers sound like coming directly in front of me from the monitor.
HOWEVER, should my desktop speakers ever die on me (hah!), I'd have no problems plugging the monitor straight to the soundcard, and probably hold off buying new speakers till a pair of good ones come along.
The first thing I had to do when I got going with the new monitor was - to increase my mouse acceleration. I couldn't reach the sides of the screen with the old settings *grin*. Yeah, the new monitor had a resolution of 1920x1080, heaps higher than the old 1280x1024 - 700 pixels more to traverse with the same wrist-flick.
The next thing I noticed with this monitor is that now, my games look blocky on their previous settings of 1280x1024 (which was the max on my older LCD monitor). I finally settled on 1280x720 instead of going higher, because my current graphics card will start to stutter. *sigh*. I should have gotten the ATI 4850 instead. No I will not get a new graphics card, this one still works fine. I just have to set the resolution to 1280x720 and things will be pretty smooth most times.
My second new toy is a 1 Terabyte harddisk. Yes, that's 1,000 Gigabytes. 4 times bigger than a 250GB drive. Yeah I was running out of space all the time on my old 250GB drive. Yes I know, PC Show was just here in June. No I didn't go squeeze with the rest of Singapore. Besides, prices can't be that much lower in PC Show than in Sim Lim, and I don't mind paying $5 more to avoid the crowds.
So, with the new disk, I moved all my data and games out to the new 1TB drive, and re-partitioned the old 250GB drive into 2 equal 125GB partitions - 1 for OS, and 1 for "temp files". You know, those junk you download and for the internet cache.
Yeah, this is basically what I've been doing the past week - just mucking around with new hardware.
Friday, June 19, 2009
11:40 by FoxTwo
Why amused? Because for all their dirty underhanded tactics, they are still losing ground. Back in 1995 when they first introduced Internet Explorer on Windows 95, the king of browsers back then was Netscape Navigator. Microsoft tried to de-throne it through forced-bundling of IE with the OS, through strong-arm tactics of resellers and hardware manufacturers. Many class action suits have been filed against them. I don't need to go into details since the history can be found on the Internet.
Microsoft also fought a war on the web itself - making ActiveX pages, hoping to attract users since ActiveX was more "interactive" and "engaging" at the time. In today's world, Flash and Java have already unseated ActiveX. There's hardly any non-Microsoft websites using ActiveX nowadays.
Microsoft tried again with "Silverlight", to go head to head with Java and Flash on the Interactive Content arena. Apparently they still lost, since I have hardly heard of anyone, tech guys included, who are won over by it.
So now, we finally have them making a series of web pages that DENY all other browsers except Internet Explorer 8 to view it, in the form of this contest.
Now, I don't want to go into the morality of this move, but personally, I think that Microsoft has made a bad call - you can't simply deny a group of people access to your content just because they do not use what you want them to use. If you want to practice this kind of restrictions, an INTRANET would be the appropriate place, but not out here on the INTERnet. Then again, that's just my opinion.
Somehow this smacks of the Browser Wars of the 90's, brewing again. Except this time I think perhaps Microsoft might actually lose. Back in the 90's, there weren't many choices for browsers. Users had no idea how and where to go to get one. Microsoft conveniently provided them with one. The only reason IE rose to prominence was the convenience of its availability.
Users then started to use the freely provided IE to download a different browser of their choice (be it FireFox, Opera, Safari etc) and stopped using IE. Microsoft recognised that their strong-arm tactics of forcing IE onto desktops was had in fact, backfired.
Back in the 90s we had a slew of web pages "best viewed in Internet Explorer". Those pages would use many IE-specific code and only IE could view those pages correctly. The intention was to "support" IE, and "encourage" people to use IE. Remember what happened next? There was an outcry, and the pages were made compatible with industry-standard code.
This "contest" is just a different way of doing the same thing as was done back in the 90s. Will it work this time around? It may. I personally don't think so. A person might switch to IE for now, to attempt to get the US$10,000. If he failed, he would probably switch back to whatever he was using.
Personally, I have never used IE on a regular basis. It's sitting there on my desktop but I don't click on it. My browser of choice has always been a competitor - Netscape Navigator in the 90s, and FireFox in 2000s. If so inclined, I might just click on IE, just for the sole purpose of trying my luck for the contest. Whether I win or not, I can guarantee you I'd be back on Firefox once this is all over.
If I were so inclined.
But I'm not :)
The best summary I can think of, is the video below. It shows what users perceive the Internet as, today. It's no longer "Firefox", or "Internet Explorer" or "Safari". The software used by the user today is, I guess, no longer important.
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11:40 by FoxTwo
Is Microsoft Finally Losing The Browser Wars?
Image via Wikipedia
Why amused? Because for all their dirty underhanded tactics, they are still losing ground. Back in 1995 when they first introduced Internet Explorer on Windows 95, the king of browsers back then was Netscape Navigator. Microsoft tried to de-throne it through forced-bundling of IE with the OS, through strong-arm tactics of resellers and hardware manufacturers. Many class action suits have been filed against them. I don't need to go into details since the history can be found on the Internet.
Microsoft also fought a war on the web itself - making ActiveX pages, hoping to attract users since ActiveX was more "interactive" and "engaging" at the time. In today's world, Flash and Java have already unseated ActiveX. There's hardly any non-Microsoft websites using ActiveX nowadays.
Microsoft tried again with "Silverlight", to go head to head with Java and Flash on the Interactive Content arena. Apparently they still lost, since I have hardly heard of anyone, tech guys included, who are won over by it.
So now, we finally have them making a series of web pages that DENY all other browsers except Internet Explorer 8 to view it, in the form of this contest.
Now, I don't want to go into the morality of this move, but personally, I think that Microsoft has made a bad call - you can't simply deny a group of people access to your content just because they do not use what you want them to use. If you want to practice this kind of restrictions, an INTRANET would be the appropriate place, but not out here on the INTERnet. Then again, that's just my opinion.
Somehow this smacks of the Browser Wars of the 90's, brewing again. Except this time I think perhaps Microsoft might actually lose. Back in the 90's, there weren't many choices for browsers. Users had no idea how and where to go to get one. Microsoft conveniently provided them with one. The only reason IE rose to prominence was the convenience of its availability.
Users then started to use the freely provided IE to download a different browser of their choice (be it FireFox, Opera, Safari etc) and stopped using IE. Microsoft recognised that their strong-arm tactics of forcing IE onto desktops was had in fact, backfired.
Back in the 90s we had a slew of web pages "best viewed in Internet Explorer". Those pages would use many IE-specific code and only IE could view those pages correctly. The intention was to "support" IE, and "encourage" people to use IE. Remember what happened next? There was an outcry, and the pages were made compatible with industry-standard code.
This "contest" is just a different way of doing the same thing as was done back in the 90s. Will it work this time around? It may. I personally don't think so. A person might switch to IE for now, to attempt to get the US$10,000. If he failed, he would probably switch back to whatever he was using.
Personally, I have never used IE on a regular basis. It's sitting there on my desktop but I don't click on it. My browser of choice has always been a competitor - Netscape Navigator in the 90s, and FireFox in 2000s. If so inclined, I might just click on IE, just for the sole purpose of trying my luck for the contest. Whether I win or not, I can guarantee you I'd be back on Firefox once this is all over.
If I were so inclined.
But I'm not :)
The best summary I can think of, is the video below. It shows what users perceive the Internet as, today. It's no longer "Firefox", or "Internet Explorer" or "Safari". The software used by the user today is, I guess, no longer important.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
16:11 by FoxTwo How did this post originate? Well there was a plurk thread here and then people were curious why I was so adamant about not supporting the particular bank mentioned.
These are 2 long stories, so be prepared if you are kaypoh enough to want to know more.
Years ago, I was using Standard Chartered for personal credit as well as credit card facilities. They have a weird billing cycle - 22nd of each month. At the time, I was working at a company where the payday was 25th of every month. Due to the efficiency of Standard Chartered's banking systems, I was slapped with a late charge for payment by the time I make a transfer payment via Internet banking, and for the payment to clear by around 27th or 28th of the month.
After speaking to them numerous times about just moving the date forward a couple of days so I won't be penalised with a late charge, one particular officer told me that the best way was to go down PERSONALLY to the counter EVERY MONTH to make payments. Alternatively I could call in every month to have them waive the late charge.
Where is the logic of that? The whole point of us having Internet banking is so that we can pay bills and do our finances without having to rush to be stuck in a queue for hours!
Even going up the chain to the supervisor and department head made no difference. Everyone was apologetic but said the date had to stay at 22nd due to system limitations, and they would bill me a late charge by 25th automatically if payment is not received by then.
Eventually when Standard Chartered refused to budge, I canceled all accounts with them and swore never to use them again. Yes, since then I have never entertained a single call about a Standard Chartered promotion.
This one is more recent, as recent as May 2009. This one is indeed a long story.
Many years ago, I had a personal credit account with Keppel-Tat Lee Bank. They got bought eventually by OCBC, and thus my account just got "absorbed" by OCBC. Hence, I am clarifying I did not choose them on my own.
This account was to be my "emergency funds" account, for times when I needed extra cash really bad. For years this was a "dormant account" and I paid the annual fee of $60 without complaints to keep it alive.
This "emergency" really did come, around May 2008. A family situation called for funds, which I took from this credit line, being the sole purpose of its existence. When the crisis was over, I made full payment, over the counter, at Raffles Place branch, on 29th Aug 2008.
Now, as usual, I expected that when I pay in full, the account will be $0 owing to the bank. Hence I never bothered to check the monthly "statements" since it's always been $0 for the past like 6 or 7 years when I have never used it.
So, I was surprised to receive a call from OCBC in December 2008, about owing them over $130 in this account still. After I had explained that I paid in full, eventually the customer service officer said that she would waive all the penalties and fees, if I made a payment of $10.93 by 5pm that very same day via AXS, to settle the "original amount owing". I did that. A couple of days later I called the OCBC hotline to reconfirm the account was showing $0 owing to the bank.
Again, since the account was $0, I never bothered to check the statements from OCBC.
A rude shock awaited me in Feb or early March 2009. Another call came from OCBC, telling me I still owed them $175! Again, after explanations, the officer said he would waive all other charges if I made a payment of $70. I did that.
By this time, I was a little fed up, and called the OCBC Hotline again and asked why they kept charging me for money I never borrowed. I was told the account was a "daily interest" one, and that as long as there was a "leftover amount" in the account, the minimum amount of $5 finance charge would be levied. Hence my $175 was due to a $5 "fee" being laid on a couple of cents leftover from December's $10.93 interest, before payment. And since I never checked the statements, they levied late charges, and interest charges on the late charges, and so on and it snowballed to $175.
So I decided enough was enough, and I canceled the account on March 30, a Monday. Before I did that, I called the hotline up again at 11.29am, and reconfirmed once and for all, the account was showing $0 outstanding owing to the bank. I was assured that it was.
I headed to Ang Mo Kio Hub branch during lunch, and got into queue. When it was my turn, it was 12.18pm. The counter girl who processed my cancellation request told me I still had $1.07 outstanding, owed to the bank. At this point I was already more than slightly miffed. I told her that just 45 mins ago, they told me it was $0. Where did the $1.07 come from?
The girl disappeared into the offices behind for about 10 minutes, and appeared later and told me she would proceed to close the account, and that the $1.07 would be waived. Yes they should, because if they told me to pay it, I'd refuse to.
Anyway, I thought that once I had cancelled the account, that was the end of that.
Sometime in April, again I got a call from OCBC. This time, it was the "Retentions Department" that was calling me, attempting to dissuade me from canceling. In other words, according to their system, my account was still ACTIVE.
I told them of my frustrations at not being able to pay up in full and zero the account, they said they would investigate and call me back.
This happened 2 or 3 more times from April to May 2009.
Take note, during all this time, my account was still "active" and hence, being slapped with a $5 on the $1.07 they were supposed to "waive" but never did, and $40 for "late charges" on the non-payment of the $1.07 +$5+interest. Remember to double this amount, for the months of April and May which they spent trying to persuade me to stay.
At one of the final few conversation with the Retentions Officer, she happened to mumble that she would "waive" the outstanding charges on my account if I decided to stay with them, to which I interjected - "See? I closed it in March, your counter girl said you will waive the $1.07, and yet now you tell me I have amounts outstanding?"
Again, she would "investigate and call back".
At the final conversation around beginning of May with yet another Retentions Officer, she assured me the account was finally showing $0 owed, and persuaded me to retain my account. After much persuasion, I finally relented, with a condition - if I checked the following month's bill and if it said I owe them any amount, I would NOT be paying for it. She agreed, gave me her name and office number and invited me to contact her should this happen.
Again, I thought that was the end of the whole incident. Little did I know one more surprise was to await me 2 weeks later.
I got yet another call from OCBC, and this time the officer told me "Sir, I am sorry to inform you that your application for personal credit has been rejected".
I was laughing. Rejected? For keeping my account active?
I sure as hell didn't "apply" for it. They spent 2 months persuading me to stay! Eventually when I said YES, they REJECTED me! It's really hilarious, since this achieved the same goal I had on 30 March when I went to close the account in the first place!
I told the officer it was ok, and I was glad they did. That definitely ended my frustrating saga with OCBC bank, which dragged on for MONTHS.
If I didn't know better, they were acting like kids.. I cannot be the one to reject them, they must get in the last word and reject me.
Guess what, OCBC? I don't really care, as long as you don't get any more of my money through your subterfuge charges.
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16:11 by FoxTwo How did this post originate? Well there was a plurk thread here and then people were curious why I was so adamant about not supporting the particular bank mentioned.
These are 2 long stories, so be prepared if you are kaypoh enough to want to know more.
Bad Experience 1 - Standard Chartered Bank
Years ago, I was using Standard Chartered for personal credit as well as credit card facilities. They have a weird billing cycle - 22nd of each month. At the time, I was working at a company where the payday was 25th of every month. Due to the efficiency of Standard Chartered's banking systems, I was slapped with a late charge for payment by the time I make a transfer payment via Internet banking, and for the payment to clear by around 27th or 28th of the month.
After speaking to them numerous times about just moving the date forward a couple of days so I won't be penalised with a late charge, one particular officer told me that the best way was to go down PERSONALLY to the counter EVERY MONTH to make payments. Alternatively I could call in every month to have them waive the late charge.
Where is the logic of that? The whole point of us having Internet banking is so that we can pay bills and do our finances without having to rush to be stuck in a queue for hours!
Even going up the chain to the supervisor and department head made no difference. Everyone was apologetic but said the date had to stay at 22nd due to system limitations, and they would bill me a late charge by 25th automatically if payment is not received by then.
Eventually when Standard Chartered refused to budge, I canceled all accounts with them and swore never to use them again. Yes, since then I have never entertained a single call about a Standard Chartered promotion.
Bad Experience 2 - OCBC Bank
This one is more recent, as recent as May 2009. This one is indeed a long story.
Many years ago, I had a personal credit account with Keppel-Tat Lee Bank. They got bought eventually by OCBC, and thus my account just got "absorbed" by OCBC. Hence, I am clarifying I did not choose them on my own.
This account was to be my "emergency funds" account, for times when I needed extra cash really bad. For years this was a "dormant account" and I paid the annual fee of $60 without complaints to keep it alive.
This "emergency" really did come, around May 2008. A family situation called for funds, which I took from this credit line, being the sole purpose of its existence. When the crisis was over, I made full payment, over the counter, at Raffles Place branch, on 29th Aug 2008.
Now, as usual, I expected that when I pay in full, the account will be $0 owing to the bank. Hence I never bothered to check the monthly "statements" since it's always been $0 for the past like 6 or 7 years when I have never used it.
So, I was surprised to receive a call from OCBC in December 2008, about owing them over $130 in this account still. After I had explained that I paid in full, eventually the customer service officer said that she would waive all the penalties and fees, if I made a payment of $10.93 by 5pm that very same day via AXS, to settle the "original amount owing". I did that. A couple of days later I called the OCBC hotline to reconfirm the account was showing $0 owing to the bank.
Again, since the account was $0, I never bothered to check the statements from OCBC.
A rude shock awaited me in Feb or early March 2009. Another call came from OCBC, telling me I still owed them $175! Again, after explanations, the officer said he would waive all other charges if I made a payment of $70. I did that.
By this time, I was a little fed up, and called the OCBC Hotline again and asked why they kept charging me for money I never borrowed. I was told the account was a "daily interest" one, and that as long as there was a "leftover amount" in the account, the minimum amount of $5 finance charge would be levied. Hence my $175 was due to a $5 "fee" being laid on a couple of cents leftover from December's $10.93 interest, before payment. And since I never checked the statements, they levied late charges, and interest charges on the late charges, and so on and it snowballed to $175.
So I decided enough was enough, and I canceled the account on March 30, a Monday. Before I did that, I called the hotline up again at 11.29am, and reconfirmed once and for all, the account was showing $0 outstanding owing to the bank. I was assured that it was.
I headed to Ang Mo Kio Hub branch during lunch, and got into queue. When it was my turn, it was 12.18pm. The counter girl who processed my cancellation request told me I still had $1.07 outstanding, owed to the bank. At this point I was already more than slightly miffed. I told her that just 45 mins ago, they told me it was $0. Where did the $1.07 come from?
The girl disappeared into the offices behind for about 10 minutes, and appeared later and told me she would proceed to close the account, and that the $1.07 would be waived. Yes they should, because if they told me to pay it, I'd refuse to.
Anyway, I thought that once I had cancelled the account, that was the end of that.
Sometime in April, again I got a call from OCBC. This time, it was the "Retentions Department" that was calling me, attempting to dissuade me from canceling. In other words, according to their system, my account was still ACTIVE.
I told them of my frustrations at not being able to pay up in full and zero the account, they said they would investigate and call me back.
This happened 2 or 3 more times from April to May 2009.
Take note, during all this time, my account was still "active" and hence, being slapped with a $5 on the $1.07 they were supposed to "waive" but never did, and $40 for "late charges" on the non-payment of the $1.07 +$5+interest. Remember to double this amount, for the months of April and May which they spent trying to persuade me to stay.
At one of the final few conversation with the Retentions Officer, she happened to mumble that she would "waive" the outstanding charges on my account if I decided to stay with them, to which I interjected - "See? I closed it in March, your counter girl said you will waive the $1.07, and yet now you tell me I have amounts outstanding?"
Again, she would "investigate and call back".
At the final conversation around beginning of May with yet another Retentions Officer, she assured me the account was finally showing $0 owed, and persuaded me to retain my account. After much persuasion, I finally relented, with a condition - if I checked the following month's bill and if it said I owe them any amount, I would NOT be paying for it. She agreed, gave me her name and office number and invited me to contact her should this happen.
Again, I thought that was the end of the whole incident. Little did I know one more surprise was to await me 2 weeks later.
I got yet another call from OCBC, and this time the officer told me "Sir, I am sorry to inform you that your application for personal credit has been rejected".
I was laughing. Rejected? For keeping my account active?
I sure as hell didn't "apply" for it. They spent 2 months persuading me to stay! Eventually when I said YES, they REJECTED me! It's really hilarious, since this achieved the same goal I had on 30 March when I went to close the account in the first place!
I told the officer it was ok, and I was glad they did. That definitely ended my frustrating saga with OCBC bank, which dragged on for MONTHS.
If I didn't know better, they were acting like kids.. I cannot be the one to reject them, they must get in the last word and reject me.
Guess what, OCBC? I don't really care, as long as you don't get any more of my money through your subterfuge charges.
