Categories
annoyances internet outsourcing

Rupak Basu here…

Well, here, there and everywhere. Another Indian spam-design company… oops, did I say spam? Noo! They are “ISO 9001:2000 certified organization providing world-class IT solutions since 1991” company, based in Salt Lake Kolkata, India. Long time outsourcing partner with “large client base in India as well as in USA, Canada, UK and Australia”. You know – big guys. The cream of the crop. The brass. What’s interesting though, is that these guys even provided their pricing:

Website design starting at US$ 300 – Web programming at US$ 10/hour – Flash design starting at US$ 75 – Logo design starting at US$ 45.

What I still fail to realize is why would any self-respecting web design company fall for that? It is widely known by now that especially indian programmers are producing especially bad results and (this I know from first-hand experience) even Americans from India refuse to work with programmers and web developers from India.

Generally speaking – there’s nothing wrong with outsourcing or India. It’s just that combined they don’t work. Especially, when I start getting as much Indian web design spam as I do get *various body parts* enlargement spam or nigerian spam letters. Sorry, folks, but if you spam – no cookies for you.

Categories
annoyances laptop technology

Old case, new case

Just called Lenovo for the status of my old laptop repair. So far they only got the replacement fan yesterday and fixed the whole unit today and shipped it today as well. In the meantime, they moved to new software so now reps look up orders in two versions of support software, giving wrong trouble-ticket numbers and messing up other stuff.

Good news – I’m putting Vista and Office 2007 Beta2 on my old laptop tomorrow.

Bad news – need to sell the old laptop ASAP.

Categories
annoyances

What the brown can do for you

Before my planned leave to Ukraine I have ordered several items from eBay (couple of laptops, PDA, quad-band cell phone, accessories, etc.). Everything, except for laptops was to be delivered by UPS. And almost every delivery got messed up. Notes for packages got switched with one another. Packages were delayed. Packages were not delivered on promised time. 24 hour customer service several times in the row condirmed that thay cannot clearly communicate with local station that is responsible for delivery. Local station has no control (and no way to communicate to) delivery trucks. Delivery truck drivers lack English language skills. Overall – each delivery was major hassle, a lot bigger then finding proper item, winning an auction and getting the stuff mailed as soon as possible by contacting seller directly.

For some magic reason carriers like FedEx, DHL and USPS never had any problems finding my location. UPS, on the other hand, hires drivers who never attended English reading classes, so they perceive 1 street and 1 floor as randomly interchangeable entities, have no idea what “Leave with neighbour” means and, apparently, lack general intelligence.

Order something. Ship it through UPS. See what the brown can do to you.