Sod's law and poor observational comedians say that the second you step out of your house a parcel will be delivered. Nine times out of 10 this seems to be the case. The problem is getting worse as the number of packages we have delivered from online shopping increases.
The biggest problem is that online stores typically look for the cheapest delivery option and often end up using a courier company. Now, it may seem that anyone can stick a parcel in the back of a van and drive it to its destination, but it's what happens when you're out that counts.
Your typical courier company will tend to do one of three things. First, it might leave your parcel, which could contain expensive things, out in the open for anyone to steal. Secondly, it could leave it with a random neighbour that you've spoken to and then forget to tell you this has happened. Thirdly, and most commonly, it'll take your parcel away to a depot and ask you to phone to rearrange delivery.
This would be fine, but the courier company won't deliver on a Saturday and if it's during the week it could be any time on the day of delivery. More usually, it'll be anytime on the day after you've arranged delivery, so that you have to go through the whole process again.
You can ask it to redeliver somewhere else, but that's beyond the scope of its thinking and it will just return the parcel to the sender. Sometimes the courier company will let you come and pick the parcel up, provided you don't mind driving miles and miles to the middle of an industrial estate.
All-in-all, it's a pretty poor experience. So, why don't more online stores use Royal Mail? Say what you like about the Post Office, if you miss a delivery you can pick the parcel up in person from a nearby sorting office, pay 50p to have the parcel delivered to your nearest post office or have it redelivered on a day that suits you. Either way you look at it, it's a more flexible and less-annoying way to get stuff that you've bought delivered.
Friday, 5 June 2009
Maintaining a healthy text life
Last night I discovered that none of the text messages I'd sent in the last week had actually reached their destination. I'll spare you the details of how I found out but let's just say that I was in the doghouse for a while there.
It turns out that my Short Message Service Centre (SMSC) settings had been wiped. It also turns out that my Amoi Skypephone S2 (aka the Amoi 8512) tends to randomly delete things if I put it in my pocket without locking it. Including really important settings.
If you lose your settings and, like me, don't want to chance a factory reset, here's a list of the SMSC settings for all the UK mobile phone providers. Please note that I found these here and can only vouch for the 3 mobile number.
Depending on your phone, you'll find your SMSC settings either in your main phone configuration screens or, more likely, in your text message settings. Incidentally, if your phone's default SMSC number starts with 0 rather than with +44, changing it to the latter prefix is important if you want to send texts while outside the UK.
It turns out that my Short Message Service Centre (SMSC) settings had been wiped. It also turns out that my Amoi Skypephone S2 (aka the Amoi 8512) tends to randomly delete things if I put it in my pocket without locking it. Including really important settings.
If you lose your settings and, like me, don't want to chance a factory reset, here's a list of the SMSC settings for all the UK mobile phone providers. Please note that I found these here and can only vouch for the 3 mobile number.
| 3 Mobile | +447782000800 |
| O2 contract | +447802000332 |
| O2 PAYG | +447802092035 |
| O2 PAYG | +447802000334 |
| Orange | +447973100973 |
| Orange | +447973100974 |
| Tesco Mobile | +447802092035 |
| T-Mobile | +447958879879 |
| Virgin Mobile | +447958879890 |
| Vodafone | +447785016005 |
Depending on your phone, you'll find your SMSC settings either in your main phone configuration screens or, more likely, in your text message settings. Incidentally, if your phone's default SMSC number starts with 0 rather than with +44, changing it to the latter prefix is important if you want to send texts while outside the UK.
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
T-Mobile Broadband on Ubuntu 9.04
I've been running Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) as my main operating system for a few weeks now. Linux distributions are often criticised for their lack of compatibility with common hardware devices, so I'll be trying out various bits of kit that come across my desk to test Ubuntu's support for them.
First in line is a T-Mobile mobile broadband dongle - a Huawei E170 to be precise. I've previously blogged about mobile broadband under Linux, using a Huawei E160 provided by Virgin Mobile with Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron). This time, getting online was even easier.
As soon as we plugged in our dongle, a wizard popped up to guide us through the setup process. We clicked Forward to continue. As illustrated in the screenshot below, we were presented with what appears to be a complete list of UK mobile broadband providers and services. All we had to do was select ours, T-Mobile, and confirm our selection on the next screen.
A notification briefly popped up to tell us that our new network configuration had been successful. If your mobile broadband connection isn't enabled by default, just click on the networking icon on the taskbar at the upper right of the desktop - it looks like two black screens, one in front of the other. (No, we're not sure what that's supposed to illustrate either.) Select the radio button marked T-Mobile (see below for screenshot). You should now be online.
Incidentally, if you have another net connection (such as a wired Ethernet link) set as your default, your system will still favour that one unless it's disconnected, even if you've enabled your mobile broadband connection.
We didn't need to manually enter any information about our provider, but for anyone setting up their connection by hand, here's the relevant information for T-Mobile broadband in the UK.
Number: *99#
Username: User
Password: mms
APN: general.t-mobile.uk
As you might have gathered, we're very fond of the Gnome NetworkManager that comes ready installed on Jaunty. You should be able to install it on most Linux distributions without too much hassle. Source code is available at its project site here and it's available as a package for many distros. KDE users should also check out the KNetworkManager front end.
First in line is a T-Mobile mobile broadband dongle - a Huawei E170 to be precise. I've previously blogged about mobile broadband under Linux, using a Huawei E160 provided by Virgin Mobile with Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron). This time, getting online was even easier.
As soon as we plugged in our dongle, a wizard popped up to guide us through the setup process. We clicked Forward to continue. As illustrated in the screenshot below, we were presented with what appears to be a complete list of UK mobile broadband providers and services. All we had to do was select ours, T-Mobile, and confirm our selection on the next screen.
A notification briefly popped up to tell us that our new network configuration had been successful. If your mobile broadband connection isn't enabled by default, just click on the networking icon on the taskbar at the upper right of the desktop - it looks like two black screens, one in front of the other. (No, we're not sure what that's supposed to illustrate either.) Select the radio button marked T-Mobile (see below for screenshot). You should now be online.
Incidentally, if you have another net connection (such as a wired Ethernet link) set as your default, your system will still favour that one unless it's disconnected, even if you've enabled your mobile broadband connection.
We didn't need to manually enter any information about our provider, but for anyone setting up their connection by hand, here's the relevant information for T-Mobile broadband in the UK.
Number: *99#
Username: User
Password: mms
APN: general.t-mobile.uk
As you might have gathered, we're very fond of the Gnome NetworkManager that comes ready installed on Jaunty. You should be able to install it on most Linux distributions without too much hassle. Source code is available at its project site here and it's available as a package for many distros. KDE users should also check out the KNetworkManager front end.
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