Nope, the world did not end…recalculating!

So the world did not end. Microsoft might have been glad if it did! Windows 8 hasn’t sold well. More Linux laptops than Windows ones. More Android phones than Windows ones. Shame about the nice tablet [fondleslab]…

Still it is a new year. Hope it goes well for all of us. It would seem that South Africa is still on holiday. As none of the new price lists have ‘hit my desktop’ this year.

Oh well at least its sunny and warm here. My daughters are suffering a cold and wet winter in the UK. Reports of flooding and very low temperatures are reaching here in SA with the outside temperature [now] of 25C plus at nine o’clock in the morning. Its almost unbearable…

The Rand to Pound exchange rate wobbles around R13.80. It was supposed to have improved after Mangaung. Wow! I even spelt that right! Must be getting used to the Africanisation.

But wait! There is more. My NEOTEL phone number is no longer working. It hasn’t worked properly since October. When I sent an email to find out, I got no response. I had to send the email from my Telkom account as the NEOTEL one never worked satisfactorily. It now did not work because I was ‘cut off’ and could not make calls. Fortunately I could receive them. After a month of no response, I sent an email cancelling the contract. No response for quite a while. Then I received an email stating:

“Kindly be advised that your request has been sent to our Retentions department (ref no.SREQ_58296749  ).  A retentions consultant will be in contact with you to confirm your cancellation request.” 

This was on the 27th of November. I never had any communication from NEOTEL since. With the exception of the invoice! So I have gone to my friendly bank and stopped the ‘stop order’ with extreme prejudice!

IF only they had ‘talked’ to me earlier. I could have straightened out whatever ‘issue’ there was with my RICA. I would have kept using the wireless phone and praising NEOTEL for having a ‘lightning proof’ phone.

Many years ago, a colleague told me that it was a one to eleven ratio for the happy/unhappy customer to additional customers. So I shall now tell eleven of my friends and colleagues about the rubbish service and lack of response from NEOTEL…

I am now using Skype for phone calls. Its not lightning proof but it does work in my study at my main PC. My cell phone is also wireless and lightning proof. It also transfers data about three times faster than my NEOTEL phone at 158kbps. Since Telkom is removing the caps in February this year, I think this will work in my favour. Maybe I shall get a remote phone for the landline…

When I first moved here to Roodekrans, the lightning would strike the ‘Praying Hands’ statue in Maranata. This is less than a kilometre away. Not too much damage then. When the SABC built the gap-filler tower of 150 metres less than 50 metres away, things started to happen that interfered with my life. The flash and bang from the well earthed tower would make me and the cats jump into the air. Nowadays the additional communications towers along the ridge seem to have affected the lightning strikes. This year the tower doesn’t seem to have been struck. But the flash and bang is very close, probably hitting one of the new towers. I know I am tempting providence stating this but so far there have been no cracks [discharges] from the phone lines or mains wiring. There were in past years…

Oh well, better get back to work…