Monday 18 June 2007

Three: We love music!

They might love music, but Three certainly do not love customer service.

My other half cancelled her three mobile approximately two years ago. A week ago she got a later stating that she owes them some money (a small sum - probably half a months line rental). Upon trying to complain about the fact that it took two years to ask for this cash - she was put on hold for an hour, with no end in sight.

It wasn't until I phoned up and made some noise including the magic words "OFCom" and "Trading standards" (and incidentally getting the agent on the other end to admit that three had probably made silent calls to our landline during their alleged attempts to contact her), that she finally got some answers.

Bastards.

Saturday 2 June 2007

TestDriven.NET vs Microsoft

Before I start, please let me say that I am a Microsoft Developer and quite often, evangelist. I enjoy working with C# .NET, and find that it is an efficient and economical choice for many projects - not all, obviously.

I also support and strongly recommend Test-Driven-Development and Continuous Integration.

By far and wide the best tool I have found for this is TestDriven.NET. However, Microsoft have some issues with the fact that this plugin can be used with VS2005 Express, and haven't been entirely fair with the developer - they have - rather than explaining what they want him to do - simply released the evil flying monkies. Err. I mean lawyers.

See here for more info (the authors blog). If you don't already use TestDriven.NET, you may want to.

A mystery solved

Yesterday, I had an Upper GI Endoscopy (Gastroscopy).

Despite what you may read and imagine, this doesn't hurt. It isn't the most comfortable thing in the world, but it was an extremely expedient and efficient way to get a diagnosis.

I spent approximately two hours in a nice and clean NHS treatment center (privately run, but available to NHS patients), with friendly helpful staff (stark contrast to the NHS run hospital next door). At the end, the consultant confirmed that I have a small hiatus hernia and non-elusive reflux disorder.

It's just a shame it took >6 weeks to get to see him! At least I can stop worrying now.

The whole experience does make you think that perhaps the hardest job in the world might be "Sword Swallower", though..