This is a continuation from Why Webhosting.uk.com Sucks – Part 1

In this post I will be discussing and reviewing my biggest grievance with Webhosting UK Com Ltd.

When it came to cancelling my services with them I put in a request to cancel it and expected to have the remaining time (25 days out of 30 which had been pre-paid) to be refunded on a prorated basis. As per their terms of service.

Their terms state:

Refund requests after 30 days will be refunded on a prorated basis of any unused time.

 

I thoroughly checked terms and there is NO limitation on VPS services or any other clause. So I expected that I would have been able to get the remaining time refunded with no problem, particularly considering I was leaving due to their poor service.

However this ended up turning into a lengthy dispute with the company, directly with Jenna Strong (Company Sectary) and John Strong (Managing Director).

They argue that they only provide refunds on a monthly basis, and because I didn’t have a full month remaining I couldn’t get it refunded. This seemed very unfair and a break of the terms which I agreed to, and which was a key reason to why I initially signed up.

After numerous tickets back and forth with Jenna, I emailed John Strong the MD in an attempt for someone to recognise the error in judgement on their part, his response:

Hello Dan,
Thank you for your e-mail.
I was already aware of this matter and it was me who informed Jenna when this was brought up.
Our packages are sold on a monthly, semi-annually and annual basis. We don’t sell packages on a daily or weekly basis and we therefore don’t issue refunds for unused weeks or days. We don’t classify weeks or days as an unused period and we never have done. We apply the same policy to all customers and I’m unaware of any other previous complaints. Webhosting UK COM Ltd is one of the most flexible webhosting companies when it comes to terms and conditions, particularly refunds. We offer an unconditional 30 day money back guarantee within the first 30 days of purchase on all plans other than Dedicated Servers. If a customer has paid on an annual basis for any hosting plan, we will always refund the remaining months should a customer request to cancel.
To be perfectly honest, I think you are being very unreasonable. However, should you wish to forward your complaint and our subsequent communication to Trading Standards, you may feel free to do so. I’m very satisfied that our Terms & Conditions are amongst the fairest in the industry and I don’t feel the need to change our policy or make a special exception for you.
Kind Regards,
John Strong
Managing Director
Webhosting UK COM Ltd

I naturally responded to this pointing out the issues with the stance, such as the fact that there is NO limitations mentioned on the website or Terms of the monthly clause, and that the recognised business & legal definition of pro-rated is normally by day, not month unless otherwise stated (which is wasn’t).

It is also worth noting that the Bodhost Terms state VERY clearly the monthly limitation which they are also applying to Webhosting UK – which kind of disputes the fact the webhosting uk terms are satisfactory don’t you think? Why make it clear on one but not the other?

I also made an enquiry with Consumer Direct (Part of the Office of Fair Trading) who after reviewing my complaint & webhosting UK Com Ltd’s terms of service concluded:

Having viewed the companies website it does appear that they should offer a refund for any unused time according to section 8.1 of their terms of service.

The complaint was also forwarded to Trading Standards for their own information & investigative purposes. It should also be noted that it was advised if direct communication with them was unsuccessful in reaching a resolution (which it obviously wasn’t) I can take the issue to court, where I would likely win.

Unfortunately as satisfying it would be to take a dishonest company such as Webhosting UK Com Ltd to court, it is currently not worth the time and costs. After all, I do have a honest business to run…

Please take this as a warning, anyone looking to use Webhosting UK Ltd should be aware of the dishonest ways they do business. A company which cannot honour their terms of service, provide decent, honest support is not someone worth spending your hard earned time and money on.

A little while ago I made a bit of a booboo, and moved my brothers XBOX Console… with his copy of Modern Warfare 2 in… least to say he wasn’t too happy – and neither was I. I love that game. The disc had been badly damaged, and had what appeared to be a pretty gruesome laser burn and a few scratches, but all was not lost!

I came across DiscsLikeNew.com who do XBOX 360 disc repair, it was surprisingly quick and easy simply put in the request had a prepaid disc postal wallet sent out, popped the disc in and sent it off, within a week the disc was delivered back shining. It looked like a brand new disc and played first time – even though my mum got at it first and “attempted” to repair it with crappy home repair kit… which only left it in a much worse state!

They seem like a very friendly company and offer a fantastic disc repair service, they can professionally repair the vast majority of damaged discs be it DVD, CD, data discs, XBOX, PS3, Wii, you name it they can probably fix it.

Throughout the whole process they were very helpful provided an easy high-quality service – which I am more than happy to recommend to anyone excellent results and great pricing too.

I now have a growing pile of previously discarded discs which I had all but retired to gathering dust, and they shall be getting a nice big order soon from me!

Check them out Discs Like New at DiscsLikeNew.com and don’t forget to give them a follow on Twitter too @DiscsLikeNew

I was recently sent a copy of TrainSignal’s Exchange Server 2010 Training and asked for a “really honest review” as Exchange Server is one of the many things I want to learn more about, so I happily jumped at the chance!

Format:

The training series comes in a nice DVD case with 3 discs, these aren’t DVDs and instead run an auto-run exe once inserted which provides a basic navigation of the discs lessons and links to the instructors notes in PDF format which is the slides used in the video, which could help make notes for easy reference.

The lessons themselves open up in your web-browser and provides navigation links between lessons as well as some jump links which appear to try and use JavaScript to skip or seek to sections with in the video however this only works within Internet Explorer and doesn’t seem to function in Google Chrome or FireFox which is a little disappointing, although most likely unavoidable when using the Windows Media Player as the embedded player.

I also had a few issues with the codec of the video, and admittedly I didn’t spot the help link on all the lesson pages which links to the website where you can download a small exe which which installs the required codec in seconds which was rather useful.

Content:

I was extremely impressed with how the tutorial is done as it clearly explains everything in a way which was easy to follow without any prior knowledge of Exchange Server, or even Active Directory & Windows Server and nicely explains the set-up procedure from start to finish.

Being as I haven’t had detailed experience with the Windows Server environments I was expecting to struggle a little following the tutorial however I was pleased to find this was not the case, while I tried to create a lab set-up (I ordered myself a nice rack server off eBay, but that’s another story) I wasn’t able to get anything running so there may be a post later when I get my lab set-up fully running, but thanks to this tutorial I am confident that I can set-up Exchange Server from a small office to a large international corporation.

Example Demo:

This is a great tutorial series if you are a newbie to Exchange Server or just new to Exchange Server 2010, definitely recommend for anyone looking to use Exchange Server 2010 – Check it out at: trainsignal.com/Exchange-Server-2010-Training.aspx

Recently I have been looking at Bijk.com and testing it out to see how it holds up as a Server Monitoring solution.

The Bijk.com Server Monitoring interface is clean, feature packaged and rather sexy to look at. The dashboard combines most if not all of the stats into a nice place to view your servers status and see helpful charts which show things like CPU, Load, Memory and Traffic usage over a period of time. The best bit about this is you can easily change the graphs, simply click the change graphs button and you can drag and drop the graphs you want to see into the box. The software tracks a fantastic number of useful points about your servers right down to Disk Operations, CPU Per Process, file system usage and much more, there’s 50+ to choose from.

This comes with some great alert features too to inform you when things go wrong.

The easy to use interface makes it really simple to setup alerts for all aspects of the server, and depending on your subscription package it includes SMS Alerts. A fantastic option to keep the server admins in the know about when they need to get to work. This includes options to have SMS when it is back up, and you can also opt to have it resent the notifications at a set increment should it remain down. When I was testing this the SMS verification came through almost instantly and alerts seem to be prompt when there are issues. Fast notifications are a key benefit when keeping on top of servers, particularly if they are critical.

I also particularly like the refresh timer in the corner, it’s only a small point but its a great example of those little features which have been properly thought about and “just works”.

Overall the software has some very nifty features and looks brilliant, however there are a few downsides. I had some troubles with the server side program which collects the data to send back to them, it seemed to be eating up a load of server resources (150 – 180Mb) before being killed by the firewall automatically, this is quite a problem with running it on a VPS with only 768Mb and is a bit excessive for a monitoring software.

Unfortunately due to this I missed out on seeing the benefits of some of those really nifty stats and figures which would be very helpful. I have spoken with the guys at Bijk and it seems this is a bit of an anomaly and it normally only uses 20 – 30mb on their Debian & RedHat servers so hopefully I can work with them to reduce the resource imprint and can do a follow up review on that soon.

Support is good, but a little slow with responses however they have now added live chat support and are planning to provide US and UK phone numbers which will hopefully boost the support offered and bring this up to the same level as the service.

After providing some feedback it seems there are a lot of helpful tweaks and features on the way and I am looking forward to seeing this service develop as it really gets on its feet, to definitely worth checking it out.

Definitely worth checking out, Bijk.com they even give you a 2 week free trial!

I recently purchased the LG W2361V-PF LCD Widescreen monitor as a replacement for my previous 23” full HD monitor as I had to unfortunately return it due to a fault and couldn’t get a replacement.

The Specs:

• Aspect Ratio – 16:9
• Resolution - 1920 x 1080
• Brightness- 300 cd/m2
• Digital Fine Contrast Ratio- 50,000:1
• Response Time (GTG) – 2ms
• Viewing Angle – 170°/160°
• Surface Treatment- 3H, Anti-Glare

Initial Thoughts:

I mainly purchased the monitor based on price for the features I was looking for and the reviews I had read previously, as it came up pretty good in the reviews on eBuyer.

As with anything new and shiny I eagerly opened the box and have to admit I was a little disappointed, while it’s fantastic that this monitor includes both a VGA and DVI I was disappointed that they are extremely poor quality. I also found the buttons on the side appeared cheap and plasticy, but still perfectly bearable for minimal usage.

I both love and hate the clear droopy clear plastic bar on the base of the monitor which acts as the power button, this a “Live Sensor” which apparently recognises hands approaching the monitor and automatically turns on/off by proximity sensor. However in reality it seems a little unreliable and usually you have to touch the droopy area to get it to recognise, and seems to require a few seconds between turning on/off before you can turn it on/off again as it seems to not detect for a few seconds, which can be slightly irritating. This is a very cool little feature from a geek point of view, so kudos!

Functionality:

I do appreciate that this monitor (unlike my previous one) has a non-glossy finish which really helps with the keeping the colours and glare in check, it also majorly reduces a problem with my previous monitor where the slightest touch left dirty marks on the screen and it generally seemed to get dirty very easily, this one however seems to be holding up well.

This monitor includes 3 inputs, VGA/DVI/HDMI I have yet to test out the HDMI or VGA I am currently opting for the DVI option as main input. I  have briefly tested the VGA as a second input which worked well, you can switch between inputs via the forteManager software or the middle button on the side of the monitor.

Usability:

Generally I have to admit the software and inbuilt buttons and menus for the monitor aren’t as intuitive and easy to use as previous monitors I have and it can take a few minutes to figure out what you need to do with the software to change the colours to suit your preference. It is also slightly irritating that It seems I now have 3 pieces of software running in the tray constantly – forteManager which is used to control colours, contrast, colours and other monitor display controls – “ImageBooster” (still not sure what this does) and finally CinemaMode which while I am not 100% sure on it’s function it appears you click the icon and then select an area on screen and the screen adjusts to match, obviously intended when watching movies.

Movie Playback:

I have played a few movies on the new monitor ranging from DVD quality to full 1080 HD and it’s pretty damn good, the quality is what you would expect from a full HD LCD, a crisp clear picture and fantastic colours.

So should you buy it?

This monitor seems good for the price and is a good quality for most usage, good colours and a fairly reasonable price at the £150 mark especially considering the 3 input functionality which could make it an ideal solution for anyone wanting a nice HD monitor for their PC which can easily be used for the game system too – not being much of a gamer I can’t comment, but I can guarantee if I get my hands on an XBOX it’s going straight into the HDMI.

While the quality isn’t fantastic it has to be expected that there are compromises when getting some good features you unfortunately have to sacrifice the quality of the small things – cables, buttons and perhaps slightly user interface of software/menus – to keep the price low.

So far this seems a great buy for those on a budget and definitely a recommendation.

You can check it out on http://www.ebuyer.com/product/165288

YouTubeSocial.com is a nifty idea which solves the age old problem of sharing videos with friends online, and being able to follow it at the same time. This is a problem I can relate to a lot as I often find myself sharing a link and then struggling to watch it along with them and you end up spending most of you time checking what point each other is at in the video.

Initially I was slightly discouraged as the site seems to be fully flash which I tend to be slightly prejudice against as I generally take the view that if it can be done using JavaScript then it should be, although that’s a debate for another article.

Finding videos:

Finding videos in this is incredibly easy to use and works extremely well. Simply click “Find a Video” and search; videos are then displayed and clean and tidy format and just click the video to load it into the “YouTube Social” area to share with friends.

When sharing these videos with friends you can hold the “remote” and control exactly how and what your friends see, you can select the video pause, skip and change between videos which is shown to all your friends in real-time.

Sharing:

This site has really made sharing the links on Facebook very easy to do you can connect with Facebook and you chat/online contacts get loaded into the “friend dock” from there you can simple drag n drop the contacts and you are then given a message box with a pre-defined message to send to that person, this is sent via Facebook chat and provides a link for them to join in.

It also includes the general post to Facebook so you can share the link and tell everyone that you are hosting a “viewing party” for others to join in.

Irritatingly Twitter sharing isn’t yet possible however it does say that it’s coming soon. However I am not sure why it can’t be added right now as Twitter integration to post a simple status can easily be knocked out in a few minutes even if it is a simple link passing the status via the URL, it should be there.

The site also includes a basic chat for all users in the room, however it’s a very basic chat and has some privacy concerns if chatting with friends using it as there are no privacy controls for who can join your “viewing party”.

Irritations:

I don’t particularly like people coming to my parties unless I want them there so I’d very much like to see some kind of invite only option as well as the ability for the person with remote to give the boot to unwanted guests.

Legal Issues:

Unfortunately it seems YouTube/Google have taken issue with the use of their trademarks and are currently perusing SocialVision the company behind the site to remove the YouTube logo, find a new domain and give them the “YouTubeSocial.com” domain name.

While I understand YouTube’s view on this, however it is slightly disappointing from a users perspective as this is a great idea and something I’d like to see Google purchase and incorporate into YouTube itself or alternatively develop as a side project as with Google backing it can become a fantastic feature. Although it seems unlikely and no doubt because SocialVision is small they will eventually have to give into Googles will.

I was intrigued to see that I seem to be one of the few selected to view the new version of Twitter… So why don’t we take a look?

So as you can see got a nice banner to view the new version.

Once we click this we are presented with the new twitter design with a overlay explaining a couple of the key new features. Including the ability to preview Pictures, Videos and replies right from within Twitter.

So lets break down some of these new features and take a look, firstly Video previews.

With this new version of Twitter the design encompasses a simple arrow on each tweet when you hover over and click on a Tweet which slides out and includes a variety of items related to the tweet. Including the tweet itself, the Picture / Video preview as well as tweets with the same tags, other tweets from the user, user avatars of users who have retweeted it and other similar related tweets.

The example we have on the right shows the video preview for @iamthealterego this particular feature seems to work well, the design is very clean and flows nicely, most importantly the video preview seems to work well.

Now taking a quick look (after searching for a picture in my feed) shows much the same as the video, as one might expect.

We have the picture showing on the right under the users tweet.

While both of  these might be considered a much needed feature of twitter no doubt the reasoning behind this development is to help keep users on Twitter.com instead of forcing them to open new sites, such as Youtube or Twitpic. This could however raise some concerns for sites like Twitpic, who mostly rely on Twitter.com traffic from the everyday users clicking on photos to view; which naturally leads on to further browsing of their site. This feature from twitter will possibly have a detrimental effect to sites like Twitpic.com who rely on Twitter and the way it worked to function. I will be interested to watch this and how the changes effect the Twittersphere.

Another great little feature I discovered is Twitter seems to be making better use of the Location info it associates with users tweets (who have some form of location tracking enabled).

As we can see it shows a nifty little map highlighting the users location and also a link to “View Tweets at this place”

Which simply enlarges the map to fit the full width of the area and lists the tweets from that location below.

While I could go into extreme detail about each new change, other than the obvious change of look these seem to be the main features which will effect your everyday viewing and usage of Twitter.com, instead I shall leave you with these key parts, and would like to hear your thoughts.

Also just to note, thanks to @iamthealterego, @Rogem002 and @Bennuk who have inadvertently become part of this post.

I thought I would write a little review for the iPod dock/alarm clock I got for Christmas, hope this helps!

The Goodmans GCR1872 iPod Dock Alarm clock is a small stylish device which which has 2 handy alarm timings, includes a FM radio and also Aux input and output.

The alarm clock function allows for 3 types – iPod (plays iPod), Buzzer and FM Radio and the display panel also includes many brightness levels.

The sound quality is pretty good considering it only has 2 x 3W small speakers.

While I liked the Goodmans GCR1872 iPod Dock Alarm Clock I recently had to return it because the iPod connector came away from the main circuit board.

A lot of the problem I found with this product us the iPod Tocuh (Gen 1) didn’t properly clip into the mount, so I either had to not use a mount of have the iPod Touch mount improperly fitted, which probably lead to extra strain on the dock connector.

Unfortunately because this cost me £39.99 and it broke in less than 2 months, I have to recommend you avoid this product as it seems like it is poorly built in places and is not long lasting with long term use… which is a shame for such a nice compact little gadget.

Background:

I produce a local radio station show with some friends and we reviewed a film this is what i thought of it…

On Monday we saw ‘Meet The Spartans’ at Cineworld.

Synopsis from website:

After successfully skewering Hollywood’s scariest movie   (as two of the writers on “Scary Movie”), romantic comedy franchises (“Date Movie”), and Hollywood blockbusters (“Epic Movie”), writers/directors/producers Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer now set their sights on “300.”

The heroic Leonidas, armed with nothing but leather underwear and a cape, leads a ragtag group of 13 – count ‘em, 13 – Spartans to defend their homeland against the invading Persians (whose ranks include Ghost Rider, Rocky Balboa, the Transformers, and a hunchbacked Paris Hilton).