Pro Tip: Do Not Buy From Symantec

So I needed to sort out backup software for our new-ish web server. Despite its occasional issues, I decided on Symantec Mess-It-Up Backup Exec , on the basis that we’re already using it in-house, my team is familiar with the interface, and it is well sand-boxed – has never crashed anything except for itself, which is essential for a web server sitting in a server park on the other side of the Channel.
Big mistake. What followed was one of the worst sales and customer service experiences I ever had. It went a bit like this:

1. I went to Symantec’s UK website and bought Backup Exec 2012 for the slightly extortionate sum of £700.
2. Their website redirected me to an order confirmation page (and sent me an identical email) with a download link and some text explaining that the licence key will be emailed to me in 3 to 5 working days. Wait, WHAT? If I buy this in some random online store, I don’t just get a DVD copy, but also the licence information included, all within 24 hours with express delivery. What’s the point of buying online if that takes a week? And why? Are 1000 monkeys with 1000 typewriters busy creating my licence key as I’m typing this? The mind boggles.
3. I decided to download the software anyway to get the installation over with. This is when things started going really wrong. Clicking on the link produced a direct download of a 4.5GB file (simply titled BE_2012.zip). 4.5GB for a software installer? What is this, the special extended edition with previously cut bonus features and programmers' commentary?
4. Two attempts (with different browsers) to download the installer fail at the 4.5GB / 100% stage. The resulting files cannot be opened, even after renaming them, going directly through zip software etc. Something is clearly amiss. This is made worse by the fact that our webserver only has 5GB monthly bandwidth allowance with our collocation provider (we don’t get that much traffic). In other words, I’ve just burned about £50 in extra bandwidth charges. This does not include bandwidth from when (hopefully) I’ll be able to actually perform a successful download at some point in the future.
5. I decide to contact Symantec Support. As you’d expect, they’re making it difficult to find a phone number to speak to Real Actual People, but this is not urgent (as – haha – it’ll take them a week to email me a licence key) so I’m happy to use the web form.
6. Easier said than done. There are two to choose from: Tech Support or Customer Support. Their Tech Support web form asks me to specify one from a list of a dozen or so really, really obscure products, none of which is Backup Exec. I click the link labelled “other product” underneath. It takes me to a 404 error page – page not found. Really? Thousands of customers must click that link every day – how are you not monitoring / fixing this?
7. So I am trying Customer Support. This web form asks me for some personal details and order details, and a description of the problem. All very sensible. I click the Submit button. The page refreshes and shows me a job title box highlighted in red. Hmm, was that there a second ago? I go through the list, but they’re all US-style, nothing applies. I select other and click Submit again. The page refreshes again. Another box has appeared: “What other?” I fill this in, click Submit for a third time. Guess what? Another new box appears, “please select the size of your company”. I select an option, click Submit. Yes, page refresh, new box: “select your industry”. I give up; this could go on forever. I resolve to find some phone number instead.
8. After 15 minutes of vigorous clicking, I track down a page with two phone numbers, one for Customer Service and one for Tech Support.
9. Let’s start with Customer Service, this time. Will I get lucky? Not so much, it turns out. After 10 minutes of queue music a recorded voice informs me that the entire Customer Service team has a departmental meeting for the next 2 hours, and then disconnects me.
10. OK, Tech Support then. I navigate through a menu where I have to confirm twice that I really want to speak with Tech Support, not with the (currently unavailable) Customer Service team. Someone finally picks up after more queue music; he bizarrely starts off by asking my last name, but then just asks me to describe the problem, rather than taking any further contact details. I tell him, he responds, “huh, you probably want the Downloads Team then, not the Tech Support team”. What? There is an secretive third team? Well, fine, I say, that sounds like the ticket, put me through!
11. Someone immediately picks up! And greets me: “Hello *brzzt* *crackle* *bzzzzt* your *crackle* *brzzzt* today *brzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt*”. Me, straining to hear: “Sorry, can you repeat that?” The Download Team hangs up immediately.
12. I take a deep breath and call Tech Support again. This time I get a completely friendly, easy-to-hear American. She does not mention a Download Team at all when I describe my problem, which puts her in my good books, kind of.
13. She explains that the trial version of Backup Exec is actually the full one, so I should download from the Symantec main page instead of using the link that I was sent. I click on it, and it tells me that it will download a 1.7GB file. I query that: is this the right size? Don’t want to get this wrong after all, I explain, what with the bandwidth surcharge etc.
14. It takes her 10 minutes to check. At some point her continuous mantra “so, as I’ve said, wait, don’t download this […] so, as I’ve said, don’t download this […] so wait, don’t…” turns into “so as I’ve said, download this…” without missing a beat. I double-check to make sure; she confirms that yes, I should.
15. I ask her to stay on the line while I’m doing this, 1.7GB only take about a minute or two. What’s that? The file hangs at 99%. A feeling of Déjà vu settles in. I query this, she stutters, we go back and forth a bit. After a minute, the download randomly finishes. I’m letting out a “whoop”, relief all around.
16. I open the zip file. It contains an ISO. To be burned to DVD. On the web server in Holland. Why are they delivering web purchases like this? This is possibly the most pointless way of doing this, ever.
17. Well, I guess I’ll burn this ISO here at the office and copy the files over via FTP. Or install a virtual DVD drive on the server and mount the ISO on that. I got a few days to sort this out anyway while those monkeys with the typewriters busy themselves with my licence key.

London Riots Aftermaths: My Thoughts on Sentencing

I'm not even sure if this post is still necessary, seeing as from what I can gather, most people seem to be coming around to the view that maybe sending someone off to jail for half a year for nicking a bottle of water during the London riots is a bit over the top and not a great way of demonstrating that our justice system is fairer and less random and repressive than, say, Iran's.

On a side-note: I am preparing a much longer post about my general thoughts about the riots, their background and causes, but for the purposes of this, let's assume that we believe that those involved in the riots are to some degree responsible for their actions, that they chose to engage in random looting of their neighbours' corner shops, and that we wish for the criminal justice system to respond to this in some way.

Let's be a bit less emotional for a second and look at what we're trying to achieve here.

Are we trying to dissuade current and/or potential future rioters from engaging in this behaviour?

There is a very simple reason why higher sentences won't work:

People who commit crimes generally do not expect to get caught. They think they're the clever ones who'll get away with it; everyone else is the dumb suckers who will get arrested. Nobody, repeat, nobody, commits a crime in the expectation that they will get nicked for it.
This is the main reason why murder rates are not lower in countries where capital punishment still exists.

Or are we wishing in a more general sense to see justice be done?

If so, we're currently getting it wrong. We are throwing any semblance of "let the punishment fit the crime", one of the guiding principles of British law since the Magna Carta, out of the window here.
Right now, someone stealing a bottle of water is going to prison for the same amount of time as if they had engaged in a common assault (assuming no previous convictions or aggravating circumstance).
Do not tell me you believe that's proportional. If you genuinely think this, you are deluding yourself.

At one time, during the great (and completely non-existent, outside the media frenzy of that period) crime wave of the late 1700s, more than 180 crimes carried the sentence of capital punishment in this country, including, and this is my favourite, "Interfering with the Walls of an Artificial Fish Pond in a Way that allows the Fishes to Escape".
From our present perspective, that's ridiculous. And wrong.
Let me assure you that sending someone with no previous convictions off to prison for 6 months for stealing a bottle of water is just as disproportionate, and frankly idiotic.

Do you want to send the message that assaulting someone is only as bad as stealing a bottle of water? I know I don't.

Finally, let's look at costs. Most of the rioters are teenagers, and it costs roughly £140,000 per year to lock a minor up.

Do the maths. About 1,500 arrests have been made across the UK, let's say in the current climate about 90% of those will lead to convictions, and current convictions for participation in the riots average about a year in prison.

That's nearly £200M of tax payer's money.

There will be more cuts to finance this nonsense.

Cuts to your schools, hospitals, social services.

Is your knee-jerk wish for the courts to show them rioters worth that much to you? Really? Nope, I didn't think so.

Open letter to Brompton Cycles

Dear Brompton,

ever since buying one of your fantastically designed folding bicycles more than two years ago, I have become a total convert. I have recommended your products to anyone who would listen, despite them being a bit on the pricey side.

I have, however, criticised the build quality of your smaller accessories on occasion, e.g. your flimsy plastic chainring guard which interferes with the folding mechanism and breaks every 4-6 weeks as a result, and your totally non-waterproof rear light which stopped working after the the first two rainy days.

It is this rear light I want to talk to you about today.

As it stopped working ages ago, I was not worried when I lost it while going round a bent this morning (no idea how it came lose in the first place, but I guess we'll never know).

Imagine my surprise when I found that this flimsy excuse for bicycle lighting doubled as an essential spacer for parts of the folding mechanism, meaning that without it, the bike does not stay folded.

Really? A folding mechanism on a state-of-the-art bicycle depends on the presence and exact positioning of a crappy, overpriced rear light?

Get real, seriously. Back to the drawing board for you.

Don't fuck with me

So I was trying to be nice and a good neighbour and all, seeing as the new-ish upstairs tenants complain about the noise from my alarm clock, and also find the racket caused by removing a plate from the kitchen cupboard at 0:30 AM unacceptable.

I posted a nice, friendly party notice on the front door several days in advance:


The upstairs nutters pushed the following passive-aggressive note under my door last night (ironically, this must have been after 2 AM):





This is it. The only way to make these people happy is to Not Have A Party Again, Ever. So fuck them.

I went out to the pharmacy this morning and bought a really nice set of earbuds and a small pack of Nytol:



I wrapped it really nicely in Xmas paper...



...and left it on the stairs with this ridiculous, completely over-the-top note:



I wonder if they'll take it serious. This is an intelligence test and all ;-)