I have been trying to update my registered debit card for Orange Pay As You Go, and it's harder than eigenfunctions...
I feel the need to transcribe the automated system's painfully drawn out instructions. Right here.
I dial 450.
"Welcome to Orange Pay As You Go", she says, in her mildly patronising, mildly cheerful, mildly indistinct, mild old voice.
"Make sure you have your card with you when you next top up, as additional information will be requested to help increase credit card security." Okay. You have been telling me that for over a year now. I get it. And I know my security code, so don't worry about asking me to have my card ready. Tell me what number to press please.
"To find out your current balance, please redial 453 free from your Orange Pay As You Go phone." I know. It's in my phone book. In my phone. That's not what I wanted. I want to top up my credit. TELL ME THE NUMBERS.
"To set up, amend or cancel a monthly direct debit, please press 1." No...
"To register a voucher, please press 2."... getting closer now, I can feel it...
"To increase your account balance using a credit or debit card, press 3." ..Bingo!
I press 3.
"If your payment is for the phone you are using, press 1. If not, press 2."
One.
"Please enter your 4 digit identity code, followed by the hash key." Done. Not sure why you need the hash key when you know the number if digits though. The HSBC one doesn't.
"Please hold."
"Please enter the last 4 digits of your nominated card, followed by the hash key". Okay. That's okay. Once again with the bloody hash key though...
"Card regulations now require us to obtain additional information.". (I know, you told me before. What do you need?)
"Please enter your card security code, followed by the hash key." Okay. Done it.
"Thank you. We recognised " + the number I typed in (not telling you lot, you might try to top up my phone credit...) + " as your card security code. If this is correct, press 1, if not, press 2."
One.
"The postcode for your card billing address contains numbers. Enter these numbers followed by hash key." (+ an example that I can ignore). Okay. Well, I registered the card at my old address, which was... ah - got it - numbers entered.
"We recognised three two as the numbers from your postcode. If this is correct, please press 1. If not, press 2." One! Hurry up!
"Please choose from the following two options. If there are numbers in your card billing address, excuding your postcode, press 1. If not press 2." Yes. There were numbers in my old address. I have pressed One.
"Please enter the nunbers, followed by the hash key." Done it.
"Thank you. We recognised two zero as the numbers in your address, excluding your postcode." Great. Go on...
"If this is correct, press one. If not, press 2." ONE!
"Please choose the amount you wish to pay from the following list." HOOORRRRAAAAY.
"For five pounds, press 1. For 10 pounds, press two. For 15 pounds, press three. For 25 pounds, please press four. For fifty pounds, press 5." Um... THREE. I don't want to have to do this again for a WHILE.
"We recognised the amount as fifteen pounds. If this is correct, press 1." ONE! ONE!
"Please hold while we process your request." Come on...
"Please hold while we process you request." I am...
"Thank you. Your account balance has been successfully increased."
JURASSIC MOTHERFUCKING PARK.
Now. That was a good day. Sometimes it times out at the last minute. And I have to do it again. Plus, I recently had my debit card replaced, so this didn't work any more. I will save you an infinity of verbose trademark-soaked menu options by providing you with the number you require to change your card. It is: 07973 100 451. You will be asked for your 'password'. This is the only time I have ever had to actually say a password. Have you ever tried to think of a password that you are prepared to say out loud to some gormless customer services temp? Cheesy as shit. I eventually decided to ignore the language and gave my mother's maiden name as a replacement. Turns out that's what I'd said last time. Ol' predictable ol' me.
Why I can't top up my credit online remains, and forever will remain, I suspect, a mystery. Stop advertising that you are being 'more secure', Orange. Maybe you should adopt a system like the banks. Account number, Date of Birth, selected digits from a security code. It would be a lot less insanity inducing. :. 1:10:33 PM :: permalink
I hate it as well! I hate it so much! Not only is this pointlessly long string of options really annoying and time-consuming, but sometimes at the end of it it doesn't work! I went through this twice only to have it not work both times. I then rang up customer services to be put on hold for forever, and then told that it "happens sometimes". In the end I just went looking for a shop to top-up.
well i currently am on hold to orange...because I've forgotten my 4 digit identity code...how annoying! Does anyone know what to do if you've forgotten it?? On the website it says to call a number... so i call it....and it asks for my mobile number (followed by the hash key haha) so i do that....and then it tells me to enter my 4 digit identity code...........but how??? if i've forgotten it?? and this is the number i'm supposed to call if i've done so?!?!?AAAAAAARGH
Wouldn't the world be a better place if everyone was forced to wear a special colour-coded badge indicating their basic psychological hangups?
I propose: Green - overbearing mother Blue - single child Red - youngest of multiple siblings Brown - Parents divorced Yellow - trusting parents Mauve - untrusting parents Cyan - Schizophrenic parent/parents Purple - Car accident involving immediate relative Grey - Suicide in family etc...
This way, we might be more capable of judging people's attitudes to us and we might be a bit more tolerant and understanding of certain deviations from polite protocol. :. 3:22:30 PM :: permalink
Check out this fun toy. Type in a couple of things that are a bit like each other, and you get a list of other things like that. Just like a person might. Would help with one of those games where you've got to think of something for every letter of the alphabet...
By the way - if you're under the impression that Google is finally going crap, make sure it's not because of the 2020search results that might be inflating your search results. Cos that's happening on your side due to a virus that's hijacking your searches and inserting its own extra results. It was quite paranoia-inducing looking for a cure for this problem, as you don't know which results are real and which are fake any more... "Is that page advertising instructions for removing the virus real? Or has it been implanted in my search results by the virus itself? It would be a sensible self-preservation tactic..."
I think I got it out. Serves me right for downloading free software (albeit free software recommended via boingboing.net, or some part of mozilla - not really sure). I did this. I think.
Can I just mention this guy? Get your sound turned up and make sure you've got the latest Flash player installed and check out this woozy messed-up trip into a sequence of darkly humerous dreamscape tech-art pieces. You won't be able to take your eyes off it.
Actually - I should mention that the navigation is a bit odd (possibly misleading...) - you want to start from chaper 1 - if it throws you into chapter 2 then you need to use the menu that slides from the left to select chapter 1. If you're some sort of linearist 'ordinary'.
If you want some more (and there's plenty more!) go to N.A.I.L.S.
Use the 'Interface' button, then 'Archives' to see all the little bits. There's other stuff too, but that's where the meat is.
I love boingboingblog, but despite a redesign (incorporating new!adverts!), they've kept that crappy bouncy dungaree-girl gif at the top... I never liked her. She's way to rectangular. :. 9:15:38 PM :: permalinkCare to comment?
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Banning the bots
Here's a good article if you need to edit your global.asa file to ban bad search bots (bad because if you're using a 'x visitors online' thing on an IIS Server then you'll be reporting all the obnoxious search bots that start up session after session with no regard for the quality of your statistics...) - link.
I was doing lots of if-then-elseifs to go through the possible bots - the lateral thinking in the aforementioned document was that you can just put all the possible IP addresses in one string and compare the user ip address to that!
I thought there'd be a bit more response to my survey on the homepage. Here it is here, in case more people are coming through this way:
Thanks to "Robo" for linking to Cinestatic from "Soft[ware] Subversions". Can't tell how much the association of Cinestatic with Warwick University was based on the content or recognising names... But yes, most of us round here did, in fact, go to the esteemed University of Warwick. Let's poll... That was fun.
You may or may not have noticed the addition to the comments sections - a little mouth that links to the live-chat-box and flaps whenever people are using it... So now the chat system is distributed throughout pretty much the entire site (cos it's in the include file that all the comment-featured articles reference).
My "x visitors online" display is acting a bit cock-eyed at the moment. This is because I am trying to filter out he search-bots. To varying degrees of success. I'm trying to find a balance between comprehensiveness and performance. I think the numbers are crazy cos I've messed something up in the code somewhere (though there's not very much of it, so I'm not sure how).
Pheeee-yewwww I've been in a shit mood the last couple of (post-rave) days. I'm almost back to my normal (65% arsehole, rather than 95% arsehole) self today. So that's good.
Polls polls... Let the public decide.... How can I make this polling system like the I Ching?
Turns out I have nine days to go at New Ham, rather than six (as I thought before). Spunkit.
Interesting night out on Saturday - Headfuk at the Dungeons - one of the best venues I've been in ('specially the secret pitch-black tunnel room). Left a few stickers about. Time will tell whether they bring any extra traffic. However, since most people (I heard recently) see about 2,500 adverts every day, this may be wishful thinking...
Thought I'd post this pic too. The Cannabis March that came past my window yesterday. Heading up to Brockwell park for a festival. Which we arrived at quite late, but nice it was nevertheless. :. 10:20:30 AM :: permalinkCare to comment?
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Look at that pie
Home made steak and ale pie. Made from scratch by me, yesterday. Rachael did the pastry leaves. It was tasty. Mmmmmmmm. :. 10:12:39 AM :: permalinkCare to comment?
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::Tuesday, June 08, 2004::
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Megabturd!
Alright - let's blog.
Off the top of my head:
DJ Set Looking forward to DJing Dan's party at the beginning of July. Kinda like a buffered safe-zoned version of the live Smunk thing I want to do - mainly playing records but doing a couple of little 'bits' off of the laptop (which has finally been set up in such a way that I can start doing 'dress rehearsals', rather than doing everything on the far more responsive 'big computer'). I got my skratchin hands back on but plan to keep that crap to a negligible minimum. Cos I'm not that good (not like the NOT BLOGGING Beatmasta Bill!). No trumpet anyways. Just vinyl and mp3s (not actually mp3s - 'aiff's - cos I can stick them in Ableton and do a bit of time-stretchy beat-mixing with them). Currently mulling over the best way to wire it up to get software effects on the records (depends primarily on whether the Redstar's mixer has any aux sends).
My Birthday My birthday was last Friday (twenty-six) and despite my whinging indecision about what to do (and the resultant not-getting-tickets) I had a nice evening. Comedy in Balham (at the Bedford - fancy pub, but really shit food) was decent and then we headed off to Clapham Junction in a cab for a school-disco-like 'do' at the Battersea Arts Centre - it smelled of sausages but we got to sit a table away from Kevin Eldon, Peter Baynham, Stewart Lee and Harry Hill and stare at them a bit.
Madlib William got me a nice Madlib collaboration, a tune from which I have in my head as I write, even though I've only listened to it once. Need to listen again though, as apart from the aforementioned track, only the Quasimoto track gave me much of a reaction (I love that little guy!).
Dick My dad got me a biography of Philip K Dick ("I am alive and you are dead"), which is filling the tube-reading deficit nicely, but it's very odd reading somebody writing about how someone else felt at a particular time and place. I'm up to a good bit talking about the I Ching and "The Man in the High Castle", a book which was a personal Dick clencher... That is - the book that got me really interested. (I just wanted to say 'clench' instead of 'clinch'.) (The other thing that made me realise how great he is was the "I Ching and Schizophrenia" essay in that book. Of essays. The title of which I can't remember. It's at home. Much wisdom.)
More Presents! Um. Before this turns into a comprehensive list of birthday presents I'll stop and change the subject. In a sec. Worms 3D (from Jon) has reactivated long forgotten adolescent memories - I remember when the original came out on the Amiga - programmed in Blitz Basic 2 - the language I used to program in. An aspirational achievement, programming a game that good, that young, with those tools. And I am smooth jawed and inducted into the Bezique society courtesy of Rachael.
Poem Bloggerdy bloggerdy bloggerdy bloggerdy blog blog blog blog blog. Weblog! Weblog! Must log! Web log? Web turd. 'Bturd' I decree.
My Job I have seven more days left at Newham (over the next two and a half weeks). It's not long now. But happily my saved-up holidays will be converted to a reasonable amount of money, this month no less, so the urgency of my situation is a bit less painful. Must be careful not to leave it to the last minute though.
Glade Festival Going to the Glade Festival in July and wondering whether I can wait until after that (and three weeks of holiday) before getting a new job. Whatever I do, I should get into the habit of looking at the job sections of papers in the meantime. What papers will advertise web-programming jobs in small companies? And on what day? Answer me! (What are the chances that anybody other than Bruce and Rachael have got this far down??? I know. I will split into smaller entries...)
There! I split it into headings!
Um. Well done.
What else is on me head? I know - I forgot to mention that it's WOW IT'S BLOODY HOT OUTSIDE! My bedroom is a sweat factory.
CSS Internet Explorer puts the padding inside the width and height. The W3C says you're supposed to put it outside. But that doesn't really make sense - why not just combine the margin and the padding into one setting? Probably to do with outlines.
Nice box! The BETA version of CR is not displaying properly on this top-notch new PC at my local library. It was the same last week, but I didn't say anything because it was early days... I get the top menu bar and then about 200 yards of electric blue and then all the info-boxes displayed higgledypiggledy. Also, most of the links simply refresh the 'index.asp'!
Do you think you could "Print Screen" and email me what it looks like Pete? Then I could check whether it's some IE margin/padding css thing (and see what the measurements are) or it might be something more serious. Praggggg.
Okay - this is me with the computer and keyboard on my left hand and my trumpet in my right hand. In a kinda shit mood. If the bass is a bit out it's because my arms are stretched to full length and can't quite reach or see the keyboard properly. I've edited it down a little bit, but it's still pretty raw, you'll agree.
Just had this funny dream where I heard about this new film that was coming out called "Monty - the Male Vagina". Turned out the film was by John Cleese and I had the black slimy snake who stars in the film in a box. I took the snake out to show my family - (it was in two parts for some reason - a head bit and a tail bit) but it slithered away behind the TV. Then I spent some time rescuing it from the cats. :. 10:25:52 AM :: permalink
I'm not sure the snake was the vagina, I think it had more of a commentating role - you know - talking snake heads. Talking post-Greerist crap. Or something.
Care to comment?
