Tuesday, June 09, 2009

O2 iPhone 3GS - WTF

**** DISCLAIMER ****
This post contains profanity (lots of), reminiscing, dream sequences and full frontal male nudity.
One of the previous items was a lie. You decide if you want to take that chance.



Well O2,
it looks like you've done it again. You've gone back to being an incompetent lumbering giant in a marketplace that rewards agility.

I can't actually believe that you don't want to take my money for a longer period of time, I'd gladly sign up to a rolling 24 month contract if every time the new release of the iPhone is made available. You really don't get apple fans do you? You saw how good the hardware/software was, how EVERYONE and their dog has or wants one and you decided to royally screw them.

Never mind the fact that it wasn't just going to be my iPhone contract that you would be getting extended, it was my wife's, several of my colleagues and I was -> <- close to recommending that we use the iPhone and the O2 network in the company I work for, for all the sales, pre-sales and marketing staff.
Needless to say that this won't be happening with your current policies of screwing the customer.
If that wasn't bad enough you want to charge an extortionate amount for tethering ability. Yes I do class a doubling of my monthly bill extortion, if I have my laptop with me I'm not likely to be using the data connection on my phone. Now you can pretty much bet that I'll be streaming youTube videos all the live long day, hell, I might not even WATCH them.

Somewhere in my mind I think the conversation between O2 and we went something along these lines
~~~~~~~~~~Wavy Lines for Reminiscing~~~~~~~~~~
2 YEARS AGO:

O2: Hello Customers Me: Hello O2, two shiny iPhones please.
O2: That will be £600 and £80 per month for 18 months
Me: Okay, that's great, thanks.
Me: Yay, iPhone baby, shame it's only 2G but fuck it, I've got an iPhone

LAST YEAR:

O2: Hello Loyal Customer
Me: Hello O2, another two shiny iPhones please.
O2: Thanks for trusting us with an important purchase, here, have this iPhone "free" and have this one substantially discounted. I'll just extend your contract out starting today
Me: That's great, I don't mind that at all as the cost to me directly is largely invisible and I don't mind giving you money each month
~~~~~~~~~~End Reminiscing~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~Future Dream Sequence~~~~~~~~~~

SOMETIME IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE
O2: Hello You Gullible Shithead Fucktard
Me: Wait, Something's not right here, this doesn't normally start like this?
O2: That's right, I've decided to stop taking your crap
Me: But I give you CASH MONEY EVERY MONTH for you to take my crap and let me use your service, I think that's how capitalism works, right?
O2: Yeah, that's largely how it goes, but we've decided to really fuck you over this time, we know you paid for your first iPhone, then we got you hooked on 3G and going faster
Me: Yes, and I want to continue this trend, and the trend of giving you money for this service
O2: We know that, but we also know that you *really* want this new one with the compass and the camera and the "ooooh shiny"
Me: Okay, let's just gloss over this, say I want to use my laptop with me as well.
O2: That's another £30 a month for, realistically, a limited service.
Me: Wait, what? I PAY you for data already, and it's not a small amount either!
O2: Yeah, well, too bad. Fuck You.
Me: You know something, I actually wouldn't have minded but saying as you don't want to play ball with me, you obviously don't want my money and you don't want my recommendations to all my friends that O2 are actually pretty good to deal with.
You see, I'm not a silent complainer, I'm not a silent complimenter either. If I like your product, and your company I WILL tell people. People that make decisions about where to spend money. But on the otherhand, if you or your products piss me off I've got a fairly loud voice and I like to shout.
Me: @O2 Your silence is deafening. You were very noisy on WWDC day but strange, I can't hear anything now...

~~~~~~~~~~End Future Dream Sequence~~~~~~~~~~

O2 really haven't thought this through at all, they must realise by now that the iPhone has a 12 month lifecycle but they decided they want an 18month contract. This doesn't work unless you play ball with your customers and let them roll it over, which the majority of them will gladly do.

I Hope someone from O2 reads this and passes it to the appropriate people, you've really gone and fucked yourselves. I hope you are ready for the backlash. http://search.twitter.com/search?q=o2fail kinda puts it in perspective at a quick glance to see how badly you've screwed up. I don't think it's going to get much better either as today goes on.

so O2, to sum up:

Fuck You.
Fuck You Very Much.

Monday, June 08, 2009

Directory Services could not start Error 0xc000006a

This error can also present if your system state backup of your domain controller exceeds the tombstone lifetime of your domain, this defaults to 180 Days.
The exact error message you will see is


Directory Services could not start because of the following error:
The specified network password is not correct. Error Status:
0xc000006a. Please click OK to shutdown this system and reboot
into Directory Services Restore Mode, check the event log for more
detailed information.


Moral of this story is to ALWAYS CHECK YOUR FREAKING BACKUPS and make sure they are done regularly and inspected regularly.

This mistake cost me 2 days of working on this. I should have checked the date modified on my system state restore.