Thursday, June 27, 2013

Visual Studio 2005 asks for a Product Key

If Visual Studio 2005 surprises you by asking for a Product Key when Microsoft has told you it won't, for example having been downloaded from MSDN, have a look for the file setup.sdb on the ISO, maybe in \vs\Setup, it should contain the Product Key, possibly right at the end.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Three Customer Support

Under a month after buying an HTC One from Three it developed a fault, a physical fault. According to Citizen's Advice and the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 it is Three's responsibility to supply me with a handset of satisfactory quality and that will last a reasonable amount of time. However Three were not interested, repeating again and again that physical damage is not covered under warranty, that the damage must have been caused by my own carelessness (without even examining the handset) and that in any case HTC is responsible for the warranty. They've told me that theirs is "standard worldwide practice", ie, English law somehow doesn't apply? They've ignored, and seem to have no knowledge of the letters I'd sent (by registered post), and one of their shop assistants actually advised me to commit fraud by taking out insurance after the fact and then claiming on it, saying that going down the legal route (ie, asserting my legal/consumer rights) would just be "a headache for everyone involved".

UPDATE: I took Three to court (quite easy to do online) and won by default when they continued to ignore the situation. They only paid up (the full price of the phone) when I threatened to send in the bailiffs.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

HTC One Cracked Camera Glass

HTC One Cracked Camera Just under a month after getting my HTC One I put my hand in my pocket to stroke it and felt a sharp edge. Taking it out of my pocket I discovered that the material covering the camera had cracked. I have done nothing out of the ordinary to cause this, and have certainly treated it better and had it for a much shorter period of time than all of my previous phones, none of which have broken like this.

I am not alone in this. In fact there is a list of approximately fifty people with the same problem on XDA. That thread is full of flames, conspiracy theories and wild theories, but at the end of the day a considerable amount of the users reporting the issue have either posted a photo or have accounts older than May.

HTC said that physical damage is usually not covered by warranty, and that if I decided not to go ahead with the repair after hearing their quote (which others have reported will be $90) I would still have to pay £25 postage to get the phone back. Citizen's Advice said that under the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 Three are responsible for supplying me goods that are of "satisfactory quality" which should last a "reasonable" amount of time, however they are really not interested and say that I should have noticed if there was something wrong with the phone when I bought it.

UPDATE: I took Three to court (quite easy to do online) and won by default when they continued to ignore the situation. They only paid up (the full price of the phone) when I threatened to send in the bailiffs.

UPDATE: I paid HTC a total of £85 to repair the cracked camera glass. There are now many walk throughs, including videos, showing you how to replace the glass yourself, which could be much cheaper.