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Thursday, October 27, 2011

Fit the best, fit Everest!

Posted on 8:06 AM by Unknown
Yes, the marketing slogan of Everest Ltd., a UK double glazing firm that fits replacement windows, doors and conservatories. Our experience is that "We're just another bunch of cowboys" would be a more fitting strap line.

Unfortunately we recently entered into contract with Everest for the simple conversion of a kitchen window into a glazed door with external steps down. But like other Everest customers when the work commenced the trouble started ...

What should have been a straightforward three day job turned into several weeks of inconvenience for us and incompetence by them in which they managed to cut clean through a main structural timber, not lintol it and then try to hide this behind plasterboard, not fit fire stops to the cavity, not fit a damp proof membrane and not provide steps of the required technical standard. The overall finish of the works was also of poor quality.

But what really is of concern is that it was ourselves, their customer, who discovered these deficiencies and then had to get the local council building control officers on the case to get the work re-done. Everest have no quality control and inspection regime. Had we paid for the work as per contract and not taken the trouble to inspect it ourselves, we would have had a completely incompetent and dangerous works which we had paid for! Makes you wonder how many bad jobs they have left for some unsuspecting householders.

The way in which the company operates is interesting: the sales staff are self-employed on a commission only basis, and have to pay for their sample cases. The fitting teams are also self-employed and actually pay Everest for the use of a logo'd van. Our fitting team consisted of a recent school leaver and an accomplice with just two weeks experience. The fitting team receive a "bounty" for collecting full payment form customers on the day they "fit" the goods. Payment by credit card incurs a 2.5% surcharge. All contact with Everest is by premium rate 0844 numbers and they do not reply to letters in a timely manner.

So, if you are in the market for new or replacement windows and/or doors our advice is to do yourself a big favour and avoid Everest at all costs.











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Saturday, August 6, 2011

OS X Lion, PostgresSQL and launchd

Posted on 5:18 AM by Unknown
Recently decided to install PostgresSQL on my new MacBook Air - and yes it's a beauty - as I always like to have anR DMS handy.

The installer for v9.0 for OS X from Enterprise DB works pretty much OK - just make sure to create the postgres user before running the installer and follow the advice in the README to tweak the shared memory settings in /etc/sysctl.conf. That got me back to using vi by the way!

By default several daemons are installed to run at startup. Now OS X uses the launchd to manage starting and stopping daemons so managing startup requires using launchctl load/unload statements in /etc/launchd.conf. The full details are here.

If you want to avoid all this hassle, head over to the App Store and get yourself a copy of Peter Borg's Lingon application.Works fine for me under OS X Lion 10.7.
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Thursday, August 4, 2011

Changes, changes

Posted on 5:01 AM by Unknown
Having reached 60 in pretty decent shape I decided to retire and did so on the 29th July. There will be fewer technical issues blogged as I no longer have access to, or responsibility for, corporate server infrastructure. Oh Joy!

So far so good!
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Monday, July 11, 2011

SQL Server Maintenance Plan Cleanup not working

Posted on 7:18 AM by Unknown
Like many folk, I've recently been caught out by the bug in SQL Server 2008 Maintenance Plan Cleanup tasks apparently running OK but not actually deleting files and the backup volume filling up.

This is caused by the trailing slash '\' being omitted from the folder path and giving the file extension as .BAK (or .TRN) and not just BAK (or TRN) without the . (dot) when editing the subplan properties. Correct this and everything works OK. James Howard provides a slightly longer explanation in his blog on this iLinkssue.
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Thursday, June 23, 2011

Sizing tempdb in SQL Server

Posted on 8:30 AM by Unknown
Today I learnt that it is a bad idea to use the default size (8MB) and growth (10%) values for tempdb in a production environment. And you may also want to consider using multiple tempdb files on different disks. The relevant articles are:

Maximizing TempDB performance by correct initial sizing and Optimizing tempdb performance
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Thursday, June 16, 2011

Find SQL Servers on your Network

Posted on 5:30 AM by Unknown
Very useful script.
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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Adobe Flex - The New Standard for VMware Management Consoles

Posted on 2:32 AM by Unknown
Adobe Flex - The New Standard for VMware Management Consoles
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Tuesday, May 17, 2011

O2 Home Broadband Stuff

Posted on 11:06 AM by Unknown
SuperUser - case matters - provides more options for Wireless Box IV than Administrator account. Both use serial number of the device (192.168.1.254) as the password.

General router settings for O2 broadband: http://www.o2help.co.uk/broadband-settings/
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Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Dell iDRAC6 Virtual Media Detached error

Posted on 7:01 AM by Unknown
See the solution to this error here:

http://www.it-book.co.uk/771/error-attaching-iso-in-idrac-%E2%80%93-virtual-media-is-detached
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Blog Archive

  • ▼  2011 (9)
    • ▼  October (1)
      • Fit the best, fit Everest!
    • ►  August (2)
      • OS X Lion, PostgresSQL and launchd
      • Changes, changes
    • ►  July (1)
      • SQL Server Maintenance Plan Cleanup not working
    • ►  June (2)
      • Sizing tempdb in SQL Server
      • Find SQL Servers on your Network
    • ►  May (2)
      • Adobe Flex - The New Standard for VMware Managemen...
      • O2 Home Broadband Stuff
    • ►  April (1)
      • Dell iDRAC6 Virtual Media Detached error
  • ►  2010 (8)
    • ►  December (1)
    • ►  November (1)
    • ►  August (1)
    • ►  June (1)
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