PLDT DESERVES SOME SPANKING!!!

FORWARDING A LINK....

As many of you may be aware, my disgust towards PLDT MyDSL's UNETHICAL AND HORRIBLY UNACCEPTABLE LEVEL OF COMPETENCE is never ending. (Fact:: 8 MONTHS of patience and DIPLOMATIC means to get SERVICE DONE RIGHT got me NOWHERE!!!) Ika nga sa tagalog, sagad na sa buto ang pambabastos na natanggap ko mula sa mga taong bumubuo ng kumpanyang ito. Hindi na nga nila kayang ibigay ang nararapat na serbisyo, may kaya pa silang mambastos ng PAYING (NOTE:PAYING) CUSTOMER NA HARAP HARAPAN!

I think it's just a matter of time that someone actually did something like this....
http://www.petitiononline.com/pldtdsl/petition.html

Please forward to people you know who have experienced the same level of INCOMPETENCE I did the moment I paid them my first few hundred bucks SIMPLY TO GET MY PHONE LINE INSTALLED... PLDT has already juiced out more than 40K per subscriber the moment each subscriber decides to get the lowest DSL plan... multiply that by the number of subscribers they manage to sign up monthly (and who have no choice of leaving until 2 years after). that is how much the company is getting for such lousy service.

Wag tayong pumayag na tuluyang abusuhin ng kumpanyang ito dahil sa "24-month" contract kahit na di naman nila naibibigay ang nararapat na serbisyong binabayaran ng bawat tao na gumagamit ng kanilang MyDSL Service.

Minsan, wish ko lang magkaroon ng Better Business Bureau ang Pilipinas. Minsan mapapaisip ka rin... bakit kaya walang nangyayari sa mga complaints laban sa PLDT hanggang ngayon sa dinami dami ng taong nagrereklamo. Di ba kayo nagtataka? Ako nagtataka ako bakit di pa rin ako sinasagot ng NTC at ng DTI. Siguro nga, tama ang hinala ko. Ayoko na magsalita, pero sana lang...isang araw sa nalalapit na panahon, nagising ako at iba na ang DSL provider ko. Yung mura na, mas mabilis pa... at matino pa ang customer service. Gusto niyo ba yun? Ako OO.

ANOTHER PLDT MYDSL NIGHTMARE

After several rounds of emails and after having sent a complete detailed blow-by-blow report to NTC's Engr. Edgardo Cabarios, they finally managed to send someone to my place to fix the connection. Yes, my DSL is back up but NO - their so-called technical people HAVEN'T MANAGED TO RESTORE IT TO THE SAME SETTINGS I HAD BEFORE THE DOWNTIME. Unfortunately, he doesn't know how to properly configure my router to the same settings I had before the downtime. That leaves my P5,000.00 Airport Express completely useless and sitting in the box next to my PC... CRAP!!!

Add to my dismay - I DID NOT GET A REBATE! I was billed the full amount when I got to my bills today!!! When I wrote to PLDT's Corporate Governance about this, obviously they were covering up their asses now, telling me that they simply NOTED my concern about a rebate, but they were not responsible to do it ---- SAY WHAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?

Geeez, transacting with this company is an ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE - You might as well save yourself from having a heart attack by going with another provider if you haven't got DSL yet. OMG, I am still appalled at how LOUSY, UNPROFESSIONAL and... DID I SAY LOUSY? THEIR SERVICE IS!!!!

Add to my dismay, they can't even do their computations correctly! They approved of a rebate after I persistently emailed their corporate governance today... BUT - it was a rebate for one day less of my actual downtime. So if you have to do anything - AS IN ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING - with PLDT MYDSL... MAKE SURE TO KEEP THESE THINGS IN MIND:

1. MAKE SURE YOUR COMPLAINT IS DOCUMENTED IN EMAIL. (YOU CAN DO REGISTERED MAIL - BUT THAT MIGHT TAKE YOU AGES!)There are a bunch of liars out there, knowing that they can get away with it. If you transact with them over the phone, it's simply your word against them. ALWAYS ALWAYS HAVE PROOF!!!

2. SCRUTINIZE EVERY DETAIL - Do not stop at face value. When they say they NOTED it. Explicitly as for an EXPLANATION what it means. If their definition of noting is "Yes we hear you, but no we're not acting on that", then you might as well get a CLEAR INSTRUCTION on getting what you need to be done!

3. ESCALATE - Your concerns will never be heard by their pseudo technical support team. All they will tell you is - leave your PC and modem turned on, we will do remote testing... fo 600 HRS... Oh, you might notice that do have different ways of putting that - thanks to PLDT, I have simply gained another 300 pesos on my meralco bill - NOW, ARE THEY GOING TO PAY FOR THAT?! ---- Ha! Don't even think about it - probably when hell freezes over...so what am I saying? NAME DROP IF YOU MUST, ESCALATE TO YOUR FRIENDS WHO KNOWS SOMEONE HIGH UP IN THEIR CORPORATE LADDER, OR SEND AN EMAIL TO THEIR CORPORATE GOVERNANCE.

4. IF THAT STILL WON'T RESOLVE YOUR ISSUE - GO GET A LAWYER AND LOBBY FOR A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT. When you are ready with this, do count me in!!!!

PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!!

PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!!PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!!PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!!PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!!PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!!PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!!PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!!PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!!PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!!PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!! PLDT SUCKS!!!PLDT SUCKS!!!PLDT SUCKS!!!PLDT SUCKS!!!

I would say that out loud over and over again in a heartbeat!!!

I knew it was a bad omen all along. I know I shouldn't have pushed for it, but I did... and I regret subscribing to PLDiTch My DSL shit for the rest of my contract.... Obviously, I would move to any provider on any given day had I not been on a 24-month contract...so if you're not hooked up yet, don't even fall for their stuff too quickly. It's an absolute nightmare the moment you give them your money.

Here is a journal of my encounters with the worst kind of customer service EVER!!!

Monday, March 27, 8AM - DSL Connection Intermittent
Tuesday, March 28, 8PM - DSL Connection Disconnected - DAY 1

DAY 2: Wednesday, March 29
8 AM - Reported to 172
- Advised agent to contact me on my mobile for results of investigation
12NN - No call received.
- Follow up 172
- Advised to turn on the modem for remote testing
- Did as advised - turned on the modem.
- Advised to wait for 24-48 hours

----- no call received between the 24-48 hour timeframe-----

DAY 3: Friday, March 31 (48 hours after)
9AM - Follow up call again with 172
- 15 minutes listening to hold music on the queue
- When someone picked up, I was asked for my number and what the problem was.. I had to repeat my speil again - If my ears could talk, it can repeat what I've been telling the last few agents I spoke with earlier on... For a big telco like them, can't they even have a better CRM to document calls like this?!? or do i really have to repeat myself everytime?!? Truly, this is an absolute lack of concern for their subscribers...
- when someone picked up the phone, the agent advised me that someone called and I wasn't there.... HELLO!?!? Am I supposed to stay at home on a work day until they fix the problem? And worse, they can't even give me a date/time when someone will go there to fix it!!! I gave them my mobile phone for crying out loud and I specifically instructed the agent to call me on my mobile... geez, I don't know if these people are really listening or some people they hire aren't just competent to comprehend what is on the report... or probably THEY JUST DON'T CARE.

10PM - Follow up call again.
- 30 minutes listening to hold music on the queue.
- No response.

DAY 4: Saturday, April 1
1 AM - Follow up call again.
- 30 minutes listening to hold music on the queue.
- No response.

2 AM - Follow up call again.
- 1 hour listening to hold music on the queue.
- No response.

9 AM - Follow up call again
- Advised that modem was malfunctioning
- Report forwarded to technician
- Will get a call after a while

10AM - Follow up call again
- Still no sign of technician but coordinating it

1030AM - Received call from PLDT to check if modem was turned on.
- Was again advised the modem was malfunctioning
- Mel Lumagbas was coordinating with a technician to go to my place to check modem.
- Was advised to wait.

1130AM - Follow up call again
- Still no sign of technician, but is presently being worked out to get someone to my place.
- Was advised to wait.
1230PM - Follow up call.
- Advised to wait in the afternoon.

1PM - Phone rang once and got disconnected.
- Went to a neighbor to test - their phone line is working

130PM - Borrowed a neighbor's phone to call 173
- Was advised that phone line was being checked alongside DSL line
- No indication when it will be fixed but probably someone is already on his way.

430PM - left the house with no DSL and phone line disconnected

DAY 5: Sunday, April 2
12MN - Phone line was back but still no DSL connection
- Called 172 for follow up
- Waited for 1 hour listening to hold music
- NO RESPONSE.

3AM - Called 172 again for follow up
- fell asleep and woke up around 4:17 AM to PLDT hold music buzzing on my speakerphone.
- Again, no response.

9AM - Called 172 again
- No dial tone for 172
- Phone number you are calling is not yet in service

9PM - Called 172 again
- advised that this has been assigned to a certain Mr. Balolong at the Jupiter Exchange
- they don't know when this will be fixed.
- They don't know when a technician will go to my place
- they don't know the person who is running with this request
- they don't know how to contact this person... "it's all in the system". According to the agen, the process is that they will tell their supervisor about it and the supervisor will call the person in charge (talk about bureaucracy and its pitfalls... )
- asked for a supervisor - none available (usual speil huh?)
- asked for the number for tech, they don't have a number (am i talking to robots without a brain? they just told me earlier that their supervisors talk to them!!!)

DAY 6: Monday, April 31PM
- called 172 for another round of follow up
- this has been forwarded to the jupiter exchange blah blah blah
- still no news of any technician
- no phone to the technical group

9PM - Called 172 again for follow up.
- agent was giving me the same bullcrap i've had over the last 4 days.
- asked for a supervisor
- no supervisor was available
- pushed to get a supervisor on the line. (this time i am getting really irked at how lousy and how unskillfully trained these agents are. he even left the phone unmuted and i can hear what they were discussing in the background!!!)
- 2 minutes later, the line went dead.

...waited for a call back - obviously, if they were genuinely concerned they would have called back.

1030 PM - still no call from PLDT.
- called 172 again
- agent won't pass the call to a supervisor.
- advised him that i will not talk to any agent any more
- talked to a supervisor who was obviously MAKING UP that the system was down
- supervisor was making lousy excuses about their totally fucked up system
- obviously he had nothing new to offer. my concern is none of their business.

DAY 7: Tuesday, April 4
10AM - Arrived in Jupiter Exchange.
- Asked to speak with Mr. Balolong or any of the supervisors who can fix my concern.
- Guard checked if someone was there to talk to me and the guard on the other end advised to let me in.
- Walked towards the end of the compound.
- When I got there, the guard informed me that the person has JUST LEFT THE BUILDING for LUNCH at 1030AM!!! how convenient is that?!?
- I was advised to wait there, and nobody cared. They just went on with their lives.
- When the person arrived, he gave me this look like "What the hell are you doing on my building?!?"
- He went past me, over to his desk, which was probably three tables from where I was seated and asked what the problem was with his back facing me.. and yes, HE DID NOT APPROACH ME, NOR WAS HE EVEN ONE BIT APOLOGETIC FOR THEIR LACK OF SERVICE OR ABSENCE THEREOF!!! NOW IS THIS A MANIFESTATION OF RUDITY? OR UTTER LACK OF BUSINESS ETHICS?
- He asked me for my phone number then turned his back against me... I had to repeat if 5x before he went to the back of the office to talk to someone
- When he got back, asked for the name it was listed on
- I gave him my name but it does seem like he has a hearing problem...so i offered to write it in paper
- He handed me the paper where he wrote my number on...when I saw the paper, it became apparent that he forgot to clean his ears this morning... he didn't catch my number correctly!!!
- While I was writing, he even had the nerve to lecture me on how I write - "Baka mabali yung ballpen ko" Fuck that!!!
- he went to the back again, pretended to look something up his computer, then told me to go home. DID I HEAR HIM RIGHT?!? "UMUWI KA NA, TINE-TEST NA YAN!!!" shouting with his back towards me, 3-4 tables away from where I was seated.

I cannot believe how RUDE, UNPROFESSIONAL AND UNCOMPETENT THESE PEOPLE ARE...

At this point, I am short of superlatives to describe the UTTER ARROGANCE AND INDIGNATION I EXPERIENCED FROM THESE WORKERS AT PLDT.

BEWARE OF SIGNING UP WITH THIS BULLCRAP COMPANY!!!
You have better alternatives - better bandwidth and better service from the smaller players in the industry.

Check out:
Bitstop
Globelines
Bayantel

PASS THE WORD AND SAVE YOURSELF AND YOUR FRIENDS FROM THIS KIND OF LOUSY SERVICE. Believe me, you are doing yourselves a favor if you sign up somewhere else...

One Kick Ass Camera

My tamad self wanted to let the picture do all the talking but that won't give justice to the Canon 5D if one merely looks at it at face value - simply and classic. What lies beneath this body is a breadth of features never once conceived by any other player in the Digital SLR space.

In the simplest terms possible, let me try to capture in words what this kick ass camera has to offer, apart from the common ones....

1. It is a whopping 12.8 megapixel camera that is relatively lighter than the Canon EOS 1D. Not sure how helpful the weight is because I know some people who prefer to have heavier ammunition for more control. But twelve point eight megapixel?!? Now that has to be something...

2. You can use CF I and II with it, including the 2 GB ones - Meaning more more more storage space! Well, for the size of the photos, you would definitely need more storage space!!!

3. It comes with a high speed interface that allows one to move photos from the camera to the computer faster than the speed of light... Ok, I'm exaggerating now, but it does allow you to transfer photos way faster than the normal. So what does that do to you? We'll let's just say you're in the middle of watching a super bowl game and Hines Ward is on his way to a score a touchdown when you run out of memory and need to move some files on to your laptop very quickly. A high speed connectivity comes in handy, so that you can move these files and not lose time doing it, giving you just enough time to capture the touchdown! Now isn't that amazing?!?

4. It uses CMOS image sensor. Compared with the CCD (which is what most DSLRs use), the CMOS allows one to dramatically increase the pixel size while not increasing the number of pixels - meaning you are not using up extra space by increasing the pixel size.

This list could go on and on and on but one thing is for sure - It is worth EXPERIENCING the Canon 5D. With that, I take my cue to leave it up to you to check it out at the Photoworld Exhibit. I can't wait to get my hands on this new Canon DSLR myself!!!

Am I getting one for myself? ABSOLUTELY YES!!! This will be the first thing I will splurge my money on IF I win the lottery!!!

An apple a day makes ME happy!!!

So much for dreaming. I do love technology. I love gadgets. But most of all... I would love to own a Mac one day. Look at the latest addition to the Mac family - The MacBook Pro.

Like the teaser says, "Wishes do come true." Someday... someday soon.

Going Loco over Visual Studio.NET

One day, the Microsoft Engineers in Sunny Redmond just went bonkers and built a solution so powerful, so economical, so user-friendly, and so portable... it makes you think like it's the end of the world.

Obviously, I just came from one of Microsoft's Marketing talks aboutVisual Studio.NET and I am still ogling over its gazillions of nifty features. Truth be told, Microsoft has come of age and the new Visual Studio .NET 2005 is definitely a living testament of its thrust for usability and portability and everything else in between.

Back in the days when programming is a tad boring (it still is, to me,at least) and you have to cut and paste snippets of codes back and forth between files just to get the similar output you want from the other website you made 2 years ago, Microsoft comes out with this new application framework that answers every programmer's woes about redundancy and coding nightmares.
Truly, this new Visual Studio.NET is aptly described as .NET on Steroids. Coming from a *nix advocate like me, that is a sure shot compliment (Damn, I deserve an exam voucher for this!). But really, attending the demo on Visual Studio.NET this afternoon made me say "Wow!" over and over again like there's no tomorrow.

All my friends on the other neck of the woods are probably going to ditch me for this, but guys, Microsoft deserves a credit for this one. Really! What they have is simply an application framework which rids you of the time spent coding stuff which could otherwise take you ages to complete, and allows you to just drag and drop these things onto your development space like never before.

Imagine creating a team blog site with moderated permissions per member, all on your own, with very limited programming knowledge. By limited, I would say you know the theory but you've never done it your whole life. (Read: Experience=NULL).

How many days would you normally spend, scratching your head over your code to allow you to create a login screen and connect this to a datasource and what not? My best guess, a day and a half or more for a novice programmer. With Visual Studio.NET, you can simply drag and drop your login screen onto your development template. The framework uses ADO that allows your login screen variables to connect automatically to a database for validation - no more extra coding needed (not even fixing the design of the text boxes!) You may however, need a little bit of encryption to ensure security of your data but that definitely demonstrates how Microsoft has tailored this application framework for dummies (like me!).

With the users' preferences in mind, the Visual Studio.NET also has a feature for web containers which allows a user to freely customize how he would like his page to look. Take the case of Yahoo Mail or your Friendster, it allows you to customize the color and look and feel of your page, what your preferences are for the extra info like weather, stock quotes and news and what not (whether you want them there or not, or if you want them just about anywhere on your browser). Visual Studio.NET's framework extends this even more by putting in an extra drag and drop functionality. Now, isn't that absolutely cool?! Drag and Drop on your web browser!!! Like Stanley said, "a 6-year old can figure that out!"

Just when you thought nothing can get better than this, Microsoft knocks you down one more time with their answer to the perennial problem on caching. Many have tried and failed, and Microsoft admittedly accepted the fact that Active-X has eventually went down the same path that "crapplet" (read: crappy applet) went. But theVisual Studio.NET 2005 struts its stuff as a dynamic platform by showcasing its intelligence in a manner that just rendered me speechless. The issue with caching on old days is that it compromises data integrity. Ok, this is a little difficult to explain now, but let me try.

In the past, the way the internet worked was that, when a user tries to access a website, an application server communicates to a database and sends data to a local server. When the user accesses the website for the first time, it stores this data on a local server and the next time the user tries to access the same website, it immediately pulls the data from the local server, without connecting to the database to validate if there were any changes. Chances are, when the database is updated between the time the user first accessed the site and the second time the user tried to access it, the local server doesn't recognize any changes. In the new .NET framework, it has a very intelligent mechanism to trap these changes. Every event happening on the database consequently sends a trigger to the application server. Provided that certain changes were made prior to the user's next attempt to access the same website, the application server validates the cached information on the local server and consequently updates this if it is not current.

If I base my opinions on the things I've seen and heard from the demo, I would probably say this is the next best thing to CHOCOLATES --- Oh yes, I am a self-confessed chocolate addict, so shoot me! Now, I can't wait to get my hands dirty on the new Visual Studio .NET. Until then, I would like to suspend judgment on how well it really works for me. But let me leave you with something you can play around with (This is absolutely free, so jump at the chance!) --> http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/.

Hoooorah!

After lazily spending the afternoon combing my favorite blogs, I have decided to put up a blog for each and every nook and cranny of my so called life. Suffice it to say, I have decided to put up this blog for the sole purpose of featuring some really nifty stuff that anyone can get off the shelf.

Essentially, "burning a hole in my pocket" is a title that I picked for this blog because the intent is pretty straightforward - I will be featuring in this blog some of the things that I would eagerly spend my money on... stuff that I would save up for years and years and months of toiling... or even some stuff that are soooo beyond the capacity of my otherwise depleted bank account that I can only pray for the heavens to read my blog and grant me my wish because I did something nice! *wink*

Yes, indeed, this is a blog that you would want to go to when December is just around the corner! hahaha... Truly, I will spare you the hassle of thinking what I would like for my birthday... or maybe for Christmas in 2006!