Avoid Bristol Cameras
Avoid Bristol Cameras
Update 27/11/11
I note that the returns page has now removed the non-existent / functional email address I refer to below, so *something* has fed back and been achieved – not that anyone has been in touch to get any more detail, ask for a right of reply, or work out what they could have done to be better. I also note that googling for ‘Bristol Cameras’ brings this page in at number two, so hopefully at least I’m helping you guys make an informed purchasing decision
I have deliberately left this a month from complaining (ranting?) at Bristol Cameras to give them every opportunity to fix, resolve, and generally be better, but they haven’t. As of now if you’re thinking of buying a new digital camera or accessories online then Bristol Cameras may not be for you, avoid Bristol Cameras.
Background, I was in the market for a decent wrist strap and a spare battery for my Canon G12, not surprisingly I wanted the best deal, so a Googling I went. The end result was with me at Bristol Cameras website where they had listed (not specifically claiming in stock) what I wanted, adding in carriage was a fair price, and my background checks showed no horror stories (till now?) and they seemed legit. This was the 10th May 2011.
I received my order confirmation email from a ‘no-reply@’ address (not unusual) and got on with life.
On the 16th May I had heard and recieved nothing and wanted to query the ETA, spotting the email address I went hunting over at the Bristol Cameras website, nothing obvious, the contact us page was empty other than an 0844 number and snail mail, but thankfully the Bristol Cameras returns page (http://www.bristolcameras…) offered me shop@bristolcameras.co.uk so an email was sent asking for an update. Edit: Image removed as host where image lived no longer exists, thank you Skitch / Evernote!The next day I got an email back stating that the wrist strap was out of stock. Knowing that I would have to purchase elsewhere (and incur another shipping charge) I replied asking them to cancel the entire order as I didn’t want to split with another vendor and loose money.
They ignored this email, shipped the battery, and charged me for it anyway. Now, I have no idea if they have *ever* read or replied to any of my emails, certainly none ever bounced back, and seems a co-incidence that I got the out of stock email a day after I contacted them.
I didn’t complain, assumed they had mis-interpreted my email and just cancelled the out of stock element.
On the 21st June I got another email with an order up date, wrist strap still out of stock 🙁 Annoyed, I pinged another email back to shop@bristolcameras.co.uk making it quite clear I did not want the wrist strap and to cancel the remaining order.
All quiet until the 7th July, Good News! The wrist strap is in stock and will be shipped shortly, **not amused**. Especially as it’s gone 5pm when I read this and they could have shipped already, no choice but premium rate 0844 with an impressive ire on me.
Which gets worse, they don’t answer, well their phone system does, but a human doesn’t, so I’m on hold and paying for it. Looking at the Bristol Cameras contact page doesn’t help, ‘the shop’ is open till 5, ‘mail order’ till 5.30′ there’s only one mind, the 0844 one. At this point I’m still paying, so I google some more for alternative numbers and dial them all on my mobile (still on hold on land line), but at this point it’s gone 5.30 so assuming all gone home, not that their phone system seems to know, it’s still suggesting someone will answer, at 5pm. I’m pretty sure the won’t, and after half an hour hang up, spin off a vitriolic email, and wait till morning.
In fact I wait till late morning to give them a chance to respond, they don’t, so I call (at 5pm again). To sum up, they don’t care, no apology, only a grumble that an email address is actually published on their own site, that apparently is a mistake! They are an E-commerce trader and actually admit to not wanting to communicate electronically? Daft thing is I’ve given them a month and it’s still there 🙁 But then the key revenue stream for Bristol Cameras seems to be from 0844 call share, and you guessed it, no apology for a phone system that keeps you on hold even when there’s no one to pick up, probably disappointed that I didn’t hang on longer.
This isn’t the worst case of Customer Service ever, but it’s bad and it’s a sad fact that these days people only seem to learn the hard way once we the disgruntled consumer start shouting, hence am typing. Bristol Cameras clearly have no respect for their customers, 0844 only and no published (working) email address just doesn’t cut the mustard for an online trader, it’s against all best practice. So if you where thinking of placing an order with Bristol Cameras then don’t, in my opinion Avoid Bristol Cameras
Rant Over
iOS 5 Beta 2 has bricked my iPhone – Updated
Updated 28/6/2011 – See below for a solution to avoid bricking in the first place
And I’ve just bricked my pants, thankfully I think as I type (gives me something to do as I wait the process out), there is a solution.
I was already running iOS 5 on a non jailbroken iPhone 4, legit route (am a registered developer so downloaded and updated via xcode etc), all good, got to the ‘Waiting for Iphone’ message, and stayed there. So I waited, and waited, but nothing.
Screen was black, so went to power on, and nothing, holding down power and home button, nothing, not a glimmer, one dead iphone. Bricked.
On a whim I killed Xcode and fired up iTunes, and a glimmer of hope, a dialogue box appears, we have detected in restore mode, still nothing on the screen, no connect to itunes diagrams, but still, who am I to argue, if you can see my iphone I’ll work with it.
Clicking through the process it offered me iOS 4.3 as the last ‘released’ version, so I cancelled out, Alt+Clicked the Restore button and browsed to the v5 beta 2 .ipsw file, and waited, and am still waiting, but it’s restoring and as I type there’s an Apple logo and a progress bar on the screen so something’s alive.
Looking about I did find this link (Apple Dev forums so needs a Dev logon I think) Iphone 3gs dead after IOS 5 beta2 update which pretty much echoes my process, and I can verify the success now as iTunes is offering to restore from backup, and the phone is showing the new activation screen.
Phew, I think, and thanks Apple, that was seamless.
Caveat: Apple warn you not to install Developer releases on your primary / sole device, but I know best, blah, blah, yes, all my fault if it goes wrong I know 🙁
Update: Have installed iOS 5 Beta 2 on 3 Devices now, first two I did normally via Xcode and both showed bricked symptomks of an entirely black screen and lifeless after Xcode finished restoring. Thankfully both came back to life by re-restoring through iTunes as per above.
The third I’ve learnt from (only 2 failures to learn, I’m getting there!), plugged device into Xcode and clicked the ‘Use for Development’ link in Organiser (it was a new device and UUID so necessary) and let it install the debug symbols etc. And then quit out, into iTunes and immediately Alt+Clicked Restore, browsed to the firmware and off we go, basically bypassing the wasted and aborted Xcode restore process. All good, and straight into the new Activation process after a reboot.
Andy Flisher is a Software Developer based in the North East of England specialising in cross platform development. Mobile Development experience includes Windows Phone, Android, and iPhone Apps. Desktop Software Development includes bespoke Windows, Linux, and Mac Applications. Web Development Skills include PHP, Perl, Python, ASP (Classic and .NET) – Andy Flisher on Google+
South Africa Life
Real life street photography showing the life and people of South Africa…
Taken on a a family trip encompassing the Garden Route, Cape Town and more. These are just some samples, please check out the full gallery on Flickr
No funding in the North East, at least not for websites
I’m a web developer, in the North East, my customers (rightly) want to pay as little as possible, so funding and grants is a popular question. ‘Can I get funding towards my website’, and the answer is, am not allowed to talk about it. It’s like Fight Club, ‘The First rule of Website Funding is …’
Ok slight distortion of the truth, but today have been threatened with suspension from the North East England Service Providers Register (NEESPR – You all know what that is right?) because I used the word ‘funding’ on our website. Apparently it was against the rules and not allowed, ok, it’s been removed, but after much discussion as to why, and what the alternative information we could offer was (there isn’t any) it’s just not allowed. We basically cannot even say that if you are interested in funding we’ll direct you to the correct people, at least not on our website – And there’s no route to feedback how unhelpful this is to the end client, it’s the rules, do it.
Most people have heard of Business Link, and the key phrase is ‘Business Link Funding’, and to be a provider for a project that is funded by Business Link (the funding isn’t actually from Business Link, it’s from a range of fund sources co-ordinated by the Investment Centre) the provider must be listed on the NEESPR (I have been in it’s various guises for about 10 years now), you get vetted, show references, and obey the rules etc (which is why we removed the word funding). The rules state that all we can say is ‘As listed on the North East England Service Providers Register (NEESPR) so I asked if we could link to their site if visitors wanted information on funding, we can, but because the NEESPR don’t provide funding, there is actually no mention of funding their either.
So, what to do? I get that they have to monitor the unscrupulous, but we’ve never even bent the rules on this topic, it’s always frustrated me that I can’t offer clients any real information on web site funding, I can but guess at the eligibility criteria, the funding rates available, all from feedback from previous clients, I’m not really allowed to even guess in a face to face, just direct them to Business Link. This doesn’t help me as if not careful it looks like I’m being dis-interested or not trying to help my clients, when in reality I want to help, I want to make the funding process as informed and as simple as possible, but I can’t. ‘Go talk to Business Link’ as good as it gets, and that’s face to face. Now, I can’t even offer a link to Business Link on our website because we’re honestly not allowed to use the word funding, cannot even allude to whether funding is even available.
There will be no funding on our website. I cannot help but think this is not useful to Joe Public, this is not in their best interest, and it certainly doesn’t help me help my clients 🙁
As of writing a Google UK search for website funding north east returns 466,000 results, mostly my competition. Let’s see if the rules are evenly applied
Andy Flisher is a Software Developer based in the North East of England specialising in cross platform development. Mobile Development experience includes Windows Phone, Android, and iPhone Apps. Desktop Software Development includes bespoke Windows, Linux, and Mac Applications. Web Development Skills include PHP, Perl, Python, ASP (Classic and .NET) – Andy Flisher on Google+
Mac Appstore exit code: 173 issues
I just love an IT issue where I’m almost the only one that has it, means no fix, and a small group of people tearing hair out (thankfully I have none). Well my issue c/o the new shiny Mac App Store is purchased apps dieing with nothing more than an ‘exit code: 173’ logged, which seems to be part of the DRM / copy protection process. Shame is they’re legitimate purchases!
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Middlesbrough 10k – 2010
The Middlesbrough 10k – 2010 – As run by Flish
Official Chip Timing:
| Number: | 1713 | ||
| Gun Time: | 01:04:55 | Position: | 1729 |
| Chip Time: | 00:56:17 | Position: | 1393 |
| Category: | MOPEN | Position: | 763 |
| Gender: | M | Position: | 1298 |
Middlesbrough 5k – As run by Me!
Middlesbrough 5k – As run by Me!
Courtesty of Garmin Connect – for fat sweaty Gadget Lovers 🙂
(Hint: – Click View Details, then ‘player’ for a re-play!)
PS: Not Too late to sponsor me (http://www.justgiving.com…)
Out of the Mouth of – Cole:
June 2016 –
“Look, I can make by bits wobble” – Future exhibitionist 🙁
December 2010 –
“I didn’t do it [pump] I only do big ones” – That’s my boy!
April 2010 –
“Incey Wincey Spider has crawled up my Bum!”
September 2009 –
“Are you stinky dad?” – Hmm, point taken 🙂
August 2008 –
“I have a hole in my bum daddy! :-)”
Cole is the Karate Kid!
Cole’s impromptu rendition of the Karate Kid Trailer (yes that’s it in the background!), who said kids are influenced by the films they watch
So here she is, Leah Nicole Flisher
Leah Nicole Flisher was born at 5.25am on Sunday 13th December 2009, 8lb and 6oz and everyone doing fine. Thankfully a prerty much streamlined birth, out the house and back with bairn in about 8 hours!