What annoyed you today?

[ABERS]

Until recently we seem to have had a nutter that has been popping of cats all over Surrey.The Phantom  Cat Killer From Croydon has been charged with multiple offences of Katricide.

Quite a few old blue rinsed ladies are demanding the severest  of penalties.

[jinky]

Been trying to settle my father in laws estate as Executor. Everything sorted bar the sale of the flat on an old persons complex with a management lot in charge. I thought it was an annoying formality as he had agreed to sell it at a below market fixed  price some years back in exchange for reducing their monthly service charges which had doubled since they bought onto the estate. It`s very nice but ludicrously expensive at £366 service charge a month!!!! Anyway the company have spent 2 months trying to decide if it is worth buying at £30 k under the supposed selling price and finally say yes just 2 days before the deadline that I reminded them of came up. OK I thought and we went to appoint a solicitor for the sale who noticed  that when the deal / lease had been renegotiated no one - neither the lawyers for my father in law nor for for the Village that drew them up seems to have noticed that a clause had not been crossed through. So we now have to go through probate for my mother in law too who died over 2 years ago as technically she owned half the house as joint tenant even though their will makes no mention of this joint tenant stipulation which some do to protect housing in event of one of the couple going into care. My father in law had never mentioned this - not aware I don`t think. So his solicitor, who died and whose business folded returning their deeds some years back costs his estate another few hundred pounds. In the meantime we carry on paying service charges on an empty property until completion date. The law is indeed a self preserving ass!

[Paul Montgomery]

Getting annoyed trying to get colour right....

Step 1 - the monitor is calibrated.
Step 2 - I shoot in raw with the white balance set to 'auto' (working on the assumption that it doesn't really matter if its wrong... )

Whatever software I use (Elements 10, GIMP or Nikon capture NX2) If I set the white balance to anything except 'as recorded' I get a colour cast that really bugs me. In away, its not a problem as I like the 'as recorded' results, but I don't get why setting it to the 'correct' value (i.e. daylight or flash etc) looks wrong.

Its starting to annoy me now...

[Simple]

Paul, it sounds to me you try to change the WB when it is already embedded in the format. In other words, are you sure you try to edit the WB of the RAW file.

[Paul Montgomery]

Not sure - opening the file in the raw converter / software and attempting to choose a white balance...

[Mick]

Not just today, but for the last couple of months.  Trying to get a intermittent broadband fault fixed via BT support, utterly useless.

[David Blandford]

Not just today, but for the last couple of months.  Trying to get a intermittent broadband fault fixed via BT support, utterly useless.

Good luck Mick, I had a intermittent fault and it took Sky and BT Openworld 4 months to get to the bottom of it, however it now works fine!!

[Mick]

Not just today, but for the last couple of months.  Trying to get a intermittent broadband fault fixed via BT support, utterly useless.

Good luck Mick, I had a intermittent fault and it took Sky and BT Openworld 4 months to get to the bottom of it, however it now works fine!!

David, thanks. 

I fear this one will go on for a while too.  I know intermittent problems are the worst ones to fix, but their support system is seriously flawed, they must have asked me the same questions and I've answered with the same replies a thousand times.  They just go through same script over and over, and never actually do anything. They also seem to only test things while it's working, thus coming up with no fault found every time. So frustrating.

[anglefire]

We had a fault some years ago with Birmingham Cable (Now Virgin) and every Friday, we would loose phone service. Every Friday it was the same thing and just required the switch down the road to be reset- but every call they wanted to send an engineer out - which the first couple of times they did, but when I worked out what it required, I just got them to reset it.
Eventually they worked out the real problem and it was the first channel on the switch was the one to get dumped when it got busy. And that is the one we were connected to. So they moved us to a different channel, but meant changing our phone number, which was annoying.

[Mick]

Mark, I actually managed to get them to send a Broadband engineer out, by going through the BT community forums, their staff passed on my case to open reach.  Arrived Thursday, done some thorough testing and detected a fault roughly 85 meters away, that's two telegraph poles away from my house. 

When the guy touched the wires in the junction box one of my wires fell out.    Wires freshly connected and tested again all was good, and my connection has been steady as a rock since. (touches wood).

[anglefire]

Well that's a result Always hard to sort intermittent faults though.

[jinky]

Last weekend actually. The LX100 that I have just got into thinking is not such a bad camera after all and using as my "hand luggage only" trip recording media stopped working. I`ve had the feared intermittent faults over the last 15 months - freezing on turning on / off / pulling out repacing batteries/ suddenly sparking into action and bits of dust inside way worse than any other compact I`d noticed removed with a Dyson but this time it seeks it`s gone and I think I might get told it`s my fault. Feeling a little unwell after a stomach bug hit me in Gran Canaria others in my party went on a walk down the beach whilst I laid up in the sand and  dozed off. I knew I was getting sand blasted by fine sand  but equally knew that I had take the decision not to take my camera out of it`s manufacturers case due to said flying sand  but had it around my neck on my chest. When others got back they mocked me saying I was effectively black and sand had stuck to my face / arms where lotion had been applied. As we walked I looked at my camera and realised  that sand had also got into the camera via the creases / fold s of the case. I quickly blew it off / brushed what i could see and started her up - zoom malfunction at firs before it stuttered into life.  Phew! Got back to hotel, packed, onto plane and tried again to switch on to find  that the problem was there again and this time no amount of restarts will help. The whole zoom unit coming out as start up process is rocking. Now it may be that the intermitten fault is now permanent but I fear they'll say sand in the works possibly with good cause. Of course i`ll say I`ve always treated it well and kept it in said case but will they be favourable. Will look even worse as they`ve asked for all accessories to be boxed up to at John Lewis and I have to explain that I don`t have the little flash because I put it to one side when I found it to be quite useless and have never seen it again. I suspect if fell off my office desk into an adjcent bin as that was it`s rightful place. never lost a camera part before!  Of course the camera I find is considerably cheaper now than when i bought it but that`s a given. Really wanted it available to me for a coming weekend trip to see Lincoln Christmas market. Hoping that John Lewis might be as good as Reinardina tells me and magically just give me a new one  as it`s in their 2 year period  prior to the 5 year Panasonic warranty kicking in but not sure that will happen

[Hinfrance]

A true tale of woe Paul. I do hope that you get some recompense. Nasties getting into a camera are always a bit of a risk. That's why I persuaded SWMBO to get me an Olympus TG-4 for my last birthday. So far it has been as advertised: I've used it on beaches, in the pouring rain and taken underwater pictures and videos. And unlike my Fuji X20 the battery lasts and last. Nowhere near a DSLR of course, but it does some clever things, albeit without much manual control. The built in wifi to upload jpgs (not the RAW files alas) to your phone or tablet is good for reviewing the day's snaps too.

[jinky]

I had to laugh at my expectations v reality of John Lewis customer service yesterday. I went off in the driving, flooding rain to drop my wife at the dentist and then take the camera with all boxed accessories as indicated by JL online to the newly opened flagship store in Leeds. Excited I might get an imediate exchange rather than repair I decided to even park in their exhorbiant centre car park at £3 an hour! Entering with box I waited patiently by the cameras whilst a young guy was showing 2x 17 year olds how could Sonos systes were against others blasting out Red Hot Chilli Peppers hits. Whilst keen not to judge I am sure those lads did not have the requisite funds to buy and after nigh on 10 mins I asked for service to be told "take it to the pay desk". surprised I went there to be told, not here, I`ll take you to Tech Guys unit. leaving her till and the line of customers she walked me through the store1 Tech Guys was one woman on a phone until my assistant went back office to get another guy who promptyly said he had to deal with the guy behind me first! He spoke to him for 30 seconds befor esaying to him that he needed customewr services but he`d take him there so off he went. The other woman came off the phone and deelat with me releasing the pay desk assistant back to her queue. I`ll not bore you with the full details but I only had to hand in the body with 28 day turnaround if repairable or a replacement but the issues were - " What is it?". I give the nam eand model number. "No what is it - is it a camcorder? No it`s a digital camera I say. That`s not on my list I have to fill in on PC - exactly what is it? !!!!! We finally agree words to fit her form and then she asks me the problem again. I show her my fully detailed sheet and say send that with it. I will but what are the problems to save me reading it as I have to write it down. I talk of lens not coming out to start up because of zoom error and she says it won`t recognise the word - do you not spell lens lense!!!!! Seems lewis` definition of a Tech Guy is different to mine and they won`t becessarily know what device you are bringing in or any of it`s component parts. Now I have to wait 28 days for them to tell me it`s full of sand no doubt when the problem re startup did come up intermittently from month 3 of ownership but never enough to be able to take it in n ot working. Oh well.

[Paul Montgomery]

Blimey - that's all a bit rubbish. I thought JL were supposed to be hot on customer service...

What's annoying me at the moment: Amazon drive... I was contemplating signing up for Amazon Prime to watch certain TV show, but that's not relevant. One of the perks was free unlimited photo storage for subscribers - that clinched the deal for me. So, as I tried to use the storage, it installs a 'amazon drive' app on the computer - you copy the pictures to this drive and syncs them to the cloud storage - easy-peasy But: This drive is a location on your hard-drive which cannot be changed... SO, as you can imagine, when I tried to copy 100GB of photos into a directory on my 250GB SSD boot drive the computer wasn't too happy.

Still trying to figure out a way round this...