Tag Archives: Rant

Downloading Windows (legally)

As Lenovo seems to ship preinstalled Windows versions that contain seriously unsecure adware., the standard advice is to reinstall a clean version of windows, as even uninstalling the adware does not remove all things.

But what if all you have is the preinstalled windows crap on a hidden partition? Download a WIndows 8.1 installation media and reinstall a clean version from scratch. Fortunately, there are good websites describing how to do that. (Googling for “download windows 8.1. installation media” leads to the same pages).

So

  1. Download the mysterious windows.
  2. Download the weird tool to burn an .iso to a DVD (or stick).
  3. Reinstall, and you should be fine. Easy, right?

If only, downloading a legal and official installation image from a Microsoft webserver using a program supplied by Microsoft were that easy. I have a 50,000MBit/s DSL connection: The first attempt to download the 3GB .iso file took 48h (reaching some 80% completion) before it failed with “file path invalid” or something like that. Next attempt on a different compter: After only 12h of downloading time, an enforced windows update started an automatic reboot, and all was gone again. Now, the third attempt is running, trying to get those 3GB for the last few hours. I am curious if it will succeed this time.

Seriously Microsoft, could you please put your installation media on a real webserver? Or do you expect people to bittorrent your software, so you don’t provide any download capacity yourself anymore? This is ridiculous, I am just trying to follow to the steps that you recommend me to take.

Farmsen Endhaltestelle

Lieber HVV.

Ich weiss, in Farmsen ist ein Zugdepot/Wartungsstelle und es bietet sich an, Züge die dort lang fahren einmal gründlich durchchecken zu lassen. Aber muss gefühlt jeder zweite Zug einfach dort ankündigen “Endhaltestelle, alles aussteigen”, obwohl Farmsen lange nicht als Endhaltestelle beim Einsteigen angeschrieben war? Heute ist es mir auf dem Hin- und Rückweg passiert. Für mich ist es nervig und ein paar Minuten Warterei in der Kälte, aber ältere Verwandte die uns besuchen kommen, geraten völlig in Panik wenn Sie in eine U-Bahn nach Volksdorf einsteigen, und dann in Farmsen “Endhaltestelle” angesagt wird ohne dass auch nur darauf hingewiesen wird, wie man in die eigentliche Richtung weiter fährt. Die denken nämlich dasssie falsch eingestiegen sind.

Also, bitte: 1) entweder gleich FARMSEN als Endstopp anzeigen, wenn man in den Zug einsteigt, oder 2) bitte jedesmal mit ankündigen dass man nicht falsch sitzt und wie man in die ursprünglich angezeigte Richtung weiterkommt.

Danke!

Streiks

Gestern Bahntickets gebucht. Heute neue 4-tägige Streiks angekündigt. Warum? Wegen Geld, wegen unwürdiger Arbeitsbedingungen? Nein, weil zwei freaking Gewerkschaften sich nicht einigen können wer für wen verhandeln darf.  “Über die eigentlichen Tarifforderungen – fünf Prozent mehr Lohn und eine Verkürzung der Wochenarbeitszeit – sei bislang gar nicht mit der Bahn verhandelt worden, sagte Weselsky am Montagabend im ZDF.”

Als Bahn würde ich jetzt mit Volldampf an fahrerlosen Zügen forschen. Als Kunde gucke ich mich nach Mietwagen um. Tolle Glanzleistung, Danke!

P.S. Liebe Bahn, wenn ich für 4 Personen eine Familienreservierung buche, ist es keine schlaue Idee 4 Plätze an verschiedenen Tischen im Wagen herauszusuchen, wenn noch ein ganzer Tisch frei ist.

An: Seviceteam.Forderungsmanagement@deutschebahn.com

Liebes Serviceteam Forderungsmanagement Deutsche Bahn,

in Ihrem Schreiben vom 29.9. schicken Sie mir eine Mahnung für die Buchungen, die
ich am 23.9. bei Ihnen getätigt habe (14AFUKFXXX, 14AFUKFXXX, 14N7D4VXXX),
da Sie noch keinen Zahlungseingang feststellen konnten.

Natürlich haben Sie keinen Zahlungseingang von mir festgestellt, da ich seit
Jahr und Tag per Lastschrift bei Ihnen bestelle. Auf dem Onlineticket steht:

Betrag 45,75€     Bank XXX
Datum 23.09.2014 IBAN DExxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Der oben genannte Betrag wird von Ihrem Konto eingezogen.
Die Buchung Ihres Online-Tickets erfolgte am 23.09.2014.
DB Fernverkehr AG/DB Regio AG

Würden Sie bitte Ihre Buchhaltung überprüfen und den Zahlungseingang so
veranlassen wie er gebucht worden ist? Ich nehme nicht an, dass ich der einzige
bin der bei der Deutschen Bahn per Lastschrift bucht.
Grüße,
Sebastian Späth

Booking a travel

Using modern technology platforms to book a travel, using the modern web 2.0 should be a no-brainer, right? This is what I thought yesterday when starting to book a simple travel from Zürich to Hamburg an back.

So first, do your citizenship duty and check out the railway system (yes, I am ecologically biased). German Bahn has a “Switzerland special” for 39€ one-way, great… But their web form only allows to select a German station as departing place and a return trip starting in Switzerland. There is no way to book Switzerland-Germany-Switzerland. grr. So off to http://sbb.ch and book there: enter all travel details, select discount cards etc, just to be informed that (unspecified) parts of the trip Zürich-Hamburg can not be booked and therefore no booking at all is possible.
So back to http://bahn.de, skipping all discounts and simply enter Zürich-Hamburg in the regular web mask. It is great that they offer me to enter my Swiss half-fare card or my German half-fare card, but that is an “exclusive or”, I can enter either my Swiss or my german half-fare card for a trip spanning both countries. Fail again! Price: 220€ for the discounted cheap tickets bound to a specific train.

So off to the flights: expedia.de offers a direct 230€ Swiss/Lufthansa flight, so I’ll go for that. (1.1h rather than 8h of traveling time is more attractive). Enter details, skip rental car and insurance options, just to be informed that the flight is now 270€ rather than 230€. Suckers. Off to http://lastminute.de, booking the very same flight for 230€.

Conclusion? Digital markets might be true enablers, but their execution is still lacking. Also in-transparent price design can be something rather frustrating for the consumer.

The next bubble

The next bubble will not be real-estate, or tech startups and we actually aready live in it. It is… The Filter Bubble (book by Eli Pariser).

It means that your search results are personalized and customized according to your habits, friends, and taste. It also means that two persons searching the same term can receive very different results. Google started doing that in 2009, and up to now, I have never really cared a lot about this (as most people will have). However, they introduced ever more services since then that all collect your data. Notably they know your location via your Android phone, and your friends via Google+, as well as their posts and locations. They know your appointments via Google calendar, and your contacts via your address book. They know every search term ever entered, and the links clicked from the result pages.

Today I opened the Google Homepage and the previously bare page was cluttered with advertizements to install their Google Chrome webbrowser, to search Google+ and whatnot. Combined with their current privacy policy update which clarifies that:

Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.

This leads to a very dangerous mix. Why am I sceptical about improved search results? See for instance, Eli Pariser’s TED talk here.

Google gives you search results that you and your friends will like, e.g. the blogs they read, the links they click, etc. This leads to an even higher degree of selective exposure than we usually have. In effect it means a compartmentalization of the Internet in areas where you feel warm, cozy, and comfortable, being shielded from things that differ from your opinion, or are likely to appall you. Is this always a good thing? It facilitates group-think and prevents you from being challenged by different world views.

Do I like relevant search results? Obviously yes! Am I concerned about living in a filter bubble? Yes, very much so…

Coop Supercard ist nicht super

Ganz klar, eine Kreditkarte ist heutzutage unerlässlich falls man zum Beispiel einen Mietwagen kaufen, im nicht-EU Ausland reisen, oder etwas im Internet bezahlen will (Click & Pay und wie sie alle heissen sind nicht wirklich besser).

Also habe ich auch eine, die COOP Supercard. Aber nicht mehr lange. Denn das Geschäftsgebahren des Kartenherausgebers kommt sehr nahe an Abzocke ran, und da reagiere ich allergisch.

Es gibt keine Möglichkeit online seine Käufe einzusehen, d.h. man muss bis zur monatlichen Abrechnung warten um die Posten überprüfen zu können. Nicht wirklich praktisch, aber auch noch kein Killer.

Aber die Rechnungen werden so spät verschickt, dass sie erst 11 Tage(!) nach dem aufgedruckten Rechnungsdatum überhaupt erst bei uns im Briefkasten ankommen. Dazu kommt, dass man eine Zahlungsfrist von nur 20 Tagen hat, und eine automatische Abbuchung bei Kunden der PostFinance nicht möglich ist. Zu den Fristen sagt der Kartenherausgeber AECS:

Zinsen werden erst dann belastet, wenn der vollständige Rechnungsbetrag
nicht innerhalb der vorgesehenen Frist von 20 Tagen beglichen wird. Zinsen
werden über den gesamten Rechnungsbetrag bis zum Zahlungseingang
berechnet.
Bitte beachten Sie, dass es 3-5 Arbeitstage dauern kann, bis eine
Zahlung bei uns eintrifft. Dies ist im schweizerischen Zahlungsverkehr
durchaus üblich.

Rechnungsdatum + 11 Tage + 3-5 Arbeitstage Überweisung lässt mir effektiv zwischen 2-6 Tage Zeit die Überweisung in Gang zu setzen. Was ich nicht wirklich immer schaffe, denn unter der Woche komme ich zu so etwas kaum. D.h. es stehen regelmässig ca. 2CHF Überziehungszinsen auf meiner Rechnung.

Die Angabe der Zinsen ist allerdings so intransparent, dass nicht klar ist für welchen Zeitraum oder welche Summe die Zinsen gelten, diesen Monat standen Almut auf einmal 20CHF Überziehungsgebühren zusätzlich zu den Zinsen auf der Rechnung. ES REICHT!

Es ist unglaublich die Rechnung erst 11 Tage nach dem aufgedruckten Rechnungsdatum zu haben und am 20. Tag sofort mit den Überziehungszinsen bestraft zu werden! Es ist schlecht, dass die Rechnung nicht transparent zeigt, für welchen Zeitraum und welche Summe sie Überziehungszinsen verlangt. Und es ist nicht zeitgemäss dem Kunden den Onlineeinblick in seine Einkäufe (oder Rückzahlungen) zu verwehren. Ein Anruf beim Kundenservice half nichts, also kündigen Almut und ich meine SuperCard jetzt. Ciao.

P.S: Dazu wurden die Bonus-Kickbackzahlungen auf 0.33% gesenkt (alle anderen haben 0.5%).

Euroabzockerei

Es ist nicht mehr lustig was Firmen in der Schweiz verlangen. Ich kann verstehen, wenn schweizer Produkte teuerer sind, aber wenn ausländische Versandhäuser oder Produzenten unterschiedliche Preise von bis zu 140% MEHR für das gleiche Produkt nehmen (kürzlich bei Pampers und Nivea Crémes getestet), dann ist das nicht mehr zu vertreten.

Das identische Produkt (selbe Bestellnummer) kostet bei Conrad in Deutschland 76.95€ (=88 CHF) und bei Conrad in der Schweiz 139,95 CHF.

Das heisst, das gleiche Produkt ist locker mal 52 CHF oder 60% teurer.

Das übliche Argument ist dann höhere Lagerhaltungs-, Transport-, und Personalkosten, sowie ortsübliche Preise ("Because we can!") bzw. andersherum, ist D günstiger weil der deutsche Kunde sehr preissensitiv wäre.

Ich verstehe das schweizer Produkt wegen höherer Kosten teurer sein können/müssen. Aber wenn es das selbe ausländische Produkt ist, dann ist ein Unterschied von 60% nicht erklärlich. Im Preise inklusive sind in D 19% Mehrwertsteuer und in der Schweiz nur 8%, d.h. Conrad verdient sowieso mehr in CH. Noch dazu kommt dass ich in der Schweiz noch 6€ zusätzlich für die ja ach so höreren Versandkosten bezahle.

Versandkosten:

CH: 8,95 CHF + Verpackungspauschale 3,95 CHF = 12.90CHF  (=11.28€)
D: € 5,95

Macht total: Preis ohne Mehrwertsteuer und inklusive Versandkosten: 80.74CHF in Deutschland und 142.48CHF in der Schweiz. Nicht mit mir, Conrad. Ich bestelle nach Deutschland und importiere das selber.

My first impression of GNOME 3

GNOME3 has been released, Ubuntu has a repository for it, so I dutifully upgraded to the latest version. To be honest, I was curious at getting to see the big changes that have led to massive amounts of both praise and rants. I have to say, that I am kind of like it, but am still pretty disappointed.

I installed gnome3-session, which led to a desktop that looked approximately like Windows 3.1 in its appeal. Only after I found out that gnome-standard-themes are also required but apparently not pulled in by default, did things start to actually make sense. One Ubuntu peculiarity is that gnome3-session apparently pulls in gnome 2.32, but gnome-session pull 3.0, don’t ask me why. At least they block each other.

Speaking of themes, after I was presented with the most ugly window border I had ever seen (due to the lack of gnome-standard-themes), I tried to find settings related to themes. There are NONE, as far as I could find out. The only one is to change the desktop background, but there is no "theme switcher" (I have now learned that theme switching is not yet implemented and you have to manually copy and overwrite the theme file). There is no "window border" setting, letting me choose how window borders can look and there is not even a color scheme setting that lets me choose to use a pinkish desktop if I wanted to. I know, all this is probably possible by fudging with javascript and css files, but I was a bit puzzled by that. I am sure tools will come over time that make this easier in the future, but for now you better like the standard theme and colors (the theme is nice, even if the titlebar is using a bit too much vertical space for my taste).

On the issue of settings. Whenever I click on a mail address, it invokes the evolution first time wizard now. Heck, I don’t use evolution, I write my mails either in Thunderbird or in emacs thanks. There used to be a setting called "preferred applications". That one seems gone now. Not even the gnome-tweaks tool has it. Does anyone know where I can set things so that it sends mail not using evolution?

The desktop looks pretty, and mostly things haven’t changed that much: Notification icons look similar, workspaces are stacked vertically rather than horizontally now (and grow as required). What was previously "panels with autohiding turned on" is now essentially the Gnome shell.

What annoys the heck out of me, is that there is no way to find out how things work or how they can be changed, which is not so intuitive. Take the "Accessibility setting" icon for example: I like the fact that accessibility is given prominent space and has been thought about. But I am mostly not challenged, and I would like to remove the icon to save space. Left-click, mmh, "accessibility settings", nothing there… Right-click? Nothing happening. How the heck do I get rid of unwanted notification icons? Google… The solution: Download a "gnome shell extension", consisting of a .js and a .json file, that sets some weird variable to ”, to make the icon disappear. You must be kidding right? Second, I want my weather indicator back. More google… Besides some hand-drawn scetches on live.gnome.org there I find nothing. Is it already there and I am too stupid to find it? Is it in the works? has it been deemed uneeeded? Neither google nor yahoo helped me find out.

Previously I had my 5 most needed apps in the panel which I could start immediately. Now I have to go to the hot-corner to make the panel appear, find the app and go there to start it. It’s more moving and more waiting. I can live with that but it’s not much of an improvement for me. The work spaces display is quite nice, I liked that. Also, the windows placement, offering easily full screen and split-screen window sizes make sense, and I am going to use them a lot.

I have not found out yet if keyboard shortcuts are configurable, the current ones need a lot of F-keys (to get the window overview, etc). Unfortunatley, I use Apple-Keyboards, and to reach F-keys you have to press ‘fn’ in addition to the Fx key. This makes it a bit inconvenient to use them often, so I would prefer some other keyboard shortcut. By the way, the GNOME cheat sheet is helpful in getting to know those shortcuts. I wonder why they did not add a help icon that loads that web page so that people starting GNOME3 for the first time are not lost and get some hand-holding. Had I known about that page earlier, it would have shortened my learning curve for sure.

Gdm displays a list of users on login, and although I always login with the same users, sometimes a different user is selected. I know that at some version in gnome2, I could select which users should be shown in the selection (or which one should be pre-selected), but this is apparently gone. To be hones, it was like this in the last versions of Gnome2 already, I believe. Not sure.

One thing that is absolutely horrible, is that I am an avid emacs user. Emacs most important area is the "minibuffer", the lowest line in the window. However, that happens to be exactly the space where "notifications" are now shown. Notifications are not translucent enough to actually see what happens beneath them (say, if I want to type the path of a filename I want to open). They also don’t go away by themselves without me clicking on them, which is very inconvenient when I am just typing in emacs.
Once, I click it away, it seems that immediately the next one pops up, preventing me from ever getting my file opened:
"You are now offline" followed by "Battery discharging" followed by the hilarious ‘Application problem: "Application problem" is ready’ (which made me laugh loudly).
Next, some empathy messages popped up there: my contact ‘lwn.net’ announced (displayed with a picture of my coworker who I am sure has never heard of LWN) that Fedora 15beta has been released. That picture of my coworker talking about Fedora had me nearly freak out.

One widget that I am not very fond of, is the ON/OFF slider. It has been copied from Apple’s UI, I believe and it makes sense on capacitive touch screens, but on a desktop that I operate with a mouse, I find it awkward to have a widget that I have to click-grab move around and release again. Also when it is in one position and is only labeled "Off", does it mean that is it Off right now, or that I have to drag it to the off direction to actually turn it off? This was not always clear to me. I would have preferred a checkbox, which is essentially what this is. On a non-touchscreen, it just doesn’t make sense to me.

Last but not least, whenever the "Authentication needed" dialog pops up, the password entry dialog is not focused initially, it requires a mouse click to do so. I believe this was different previously, and I actually preferred it that way.