I’ve been moaning about Internet banking Web applications for awhile now. However this aggressively marketed HSBC Firstdirect banking service couldn’t escape the blog treatment.
- It’s free to view your statements on your mobile until 2007! Isn’t that amazing? Amazing that viewing your statements is somehow not as free on the ‘Mobile Web’!
- Requires Windows, IE, and ActiveX. Seriously OLD SKOOL. I wonder if I can still dial up and telnet on their system?
- Their demo of screenshots. No you can’t demo the actual Web application. Not until you’re signed up. By which you can get 100GBP if you don’t like it… (that’s satisfaction guaranteed!) Err, that’s after you’ve pumped 9000GBP through their system in 6 months.
Honestly get a clue HSBC. I was interested in getting an HSBC account, because I heard (unconfirmed) you could do international transfers in their Web banking application. That would save me a ton of hassle, as I currently need to go to my Barclays high street branch to do a transfer to the EU. And pay 20GBP for the privilege of filling forms over and over again.
However that killer “international transfers” feature is missing from the ‘innovative’ firstdirect Web banking feature list. The Internet is global and I want a decent Web banking application!
This is so incredibly dumb. Why is my tax payer money now spent on endorsing:
- del.icio.us
- digg
- stumbleupon
I don’t want cruft like social bookmarking on each page I read FFS! You’re making the pages even more clumsy. Do you want me to start reading your RSS feeds??
A year older and a year wiser hopefully. Or another year where I just don’t get ‘social networking’ sites?
I’ve seen Friendster and Orkut come and go. All these silly invites I keep receiving for LinkedIn, FaceBook, whatever-reunited and WAYN. It reminds me of some pyramid scheme.
Then at startup events which I sometimes attend, ‘social networking’ is like the hottest buzz word since the Mobile Web™. In fact “mobile web social networking” (with AJAX) is probably the next Web 3.0. puke I’ve also heard people defend it, by calling it “community management”. Ah, does that make it better? No.
Here are my issues with social networking:
- Social networking isn’t exactly new. I’ve been around since the very early days like BBSes, like co-founding #durban on ZAnet and this is all a little ‘beneath me’.
- I don’t want to meet people on the net. I’m sorry.
- I really don’t think it will get me laid.
- I am not sure it is a good idea if I want my social/sexual network mapped out. I don’t want people to know who I ‘know’ exactly. It could get me into trouble.
- Then if my “reputation” is tarnished, how do I repair it?
- Start again? New identity? Who is who? Who are you? Make new friends? Yeah, right.
- I think business contacts/partners are a precious thing and with LinkedIn, I think you’re supposed to share them. A relationship is a lot more deeper and meaningful than a Web link could ever be. I wouldn’t let someone look at my business card collection, even my precious business contacts.
- Worst thing is often you don’t seem to own this data. It’s all in the hands of the crazy bunch of guys known as the “FaceBook admins”.
- Who are absolutely desperate to sell all this personal information they’ve gathered about you and buy themselves some real friends
Ok, I’ll finish by trying to be constructive. If these things were using standards (XFN, microformats?) and had more user control, then I would be happier. These proprietary islands of “social connectivity” feel wrong.
I’ve been looking after my family’s pet whippet and occassionally feeding him. I’ve come to notice how awful dog food tins are.
In particular Winalot from Purina stands out as being scarily bad. I just tried to complain to their Website and the Website asks me first to register. Ummm… no thanks!
Ok after a whois and learning that they are in fact the evil Nestle company I thought I’ll voice my concerns publicly on my blog.
Their dog food doesn’t smell a bit like the label claims. I’ve fell short of actually tasting it, though don’t you think a Tuna tin should smell “just a little” like Tuna? Every flavour alarmingly smells the same.
When reading the label, it seems though you get a minimum of just 4% meat! That’s pitifully small.
How awful! And with this “recycling craze” hitting Cornwall, I’m also supposed to wash out and clean these disgusting tins.
Update: Skippy finally managed to find some organic Easter rabbit.
I am not impressed about this advertisement in the Private Eye by the charity Christian Aid. Age old tactic of making you and I feel guilty, so you’ll donate to their now environmental cause.
How about getting the facts Christian Aid? Computers take about the same power as a light bulb yet provide essential services for this information age. I feel sorry for poor kids out there with parents who will probably berate their child’s computer usage.
I’m also amused about the similarities whilst browsing the Christian Aid website and the Guardian. I guess they copied the Guardian’s site design.
How opportunistic of Christian Aid.
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.—Winston Churchill
Friends think I can be a bit ‘over critical’ of certain things shall we say. So I propose: When I complain about something, I will praise something else.
For example:
- I hate how Websites can’t seem to tell you the delivery cost of an item until you signup and go through umpteen checkout steps. (complaint)
- I love how quiet my Thinkpad X40 is. (praise)
As usual Wikipedia have an interesting read on critics and there is a funny looking book on Amazon called “Is it just me or is everything shit?”.
In the last days I have been surfing the Web thinking about business ideas and sometimes doing phone interviews. In any case I need reliable Internet. Like almost anyone out there.
Though today my ISP plus.net ‘s broadband service was down for most of the working day. I complained when I got the Internet back eventually around 4pm and said: “My business is completely depedent on it.”.
Those cheeky assholes replied saying “you are using this account for business purposes which is not permitted on a residential account. You will therefore have to upgrade to a business account within 30 days.”
What is the difference between a residential and a business account service? The contention rates “might” be better, though essentially it is the same product with added business value, i.e. more expensive.
This concept of business value is slightly disturbing. Add 20% if you want a “business PC” instead of home PC (same spec). Get more bank charges if you have a business bank account (business value). And in the case of this dire ISP plus.net, pay more for the same crap service.
I’ve had another pair of Meindl shoes fuck up on me after 3 months of use and I wanted to return them.
Problem: Oh no! I can’t find the receipt. God knows what I’ve done with it. Sound familiar?
Solution: I really hope the days of paper receipts are numbered. If I had purchased the shoes and returned them to a store, with say a loyalty card, I wonder then would I still need a silly little paper receipt?
Conclusion: I don’t think stores want to make it too easy to return faulty goods. Assholes.
Gillette is on my shit list.
Well, the title is misleading. The real problem is incompatible interfaces due to their “innovative” upgrades. Gillette have pioneered in razors with 2, 3, 4 and 5 blades. Whatever next!?
Incidentally the price for 5 sensor excel double-blades are 5.5USD in Argentina.
Their newer Mach3 Turbo triple-blade set of 4 (not 5) costs about 8USD. I recall that being a lot cheaper than the UK.
Yesterday I met a Pilates instructor who claimed that Pilates is a scientific method.
Now I can not find any published scientific medical papers verifying this, can you? I did notice a couple of paperbacks, but that is hardly legitimate.
I will claim Pilates is just another fad exercise, unless someone can prove me wrong.