Bug report to Epson

At work we have several Epson Photo R300 printers. If you put compatible cartridges in them rather than genuine (expensive) Epson cartridges it reminds you of this fact *every* time you print. It does this in the form of a ‘nagware’ dialogue box which asks you if you’re sure you want to print because your printout might look “different” to what it would look like with a genuine epson cartridge.

I was feeling particularly evil so decided to give Epson a call. I navigated through their lengthy phone system to narrow down my query and was put on hold for around 15 minutes. Someone eventually answered and asked how they could help.

Me: I’ve got an error message in my Epson Software and I wondered if there’s a bug fix you can send me
EpsonGuy: What is the error message?
(I read out the error message in its complete form, very clearly.)
EpsonGuy: [pause]
EpsonGuy: Have you tried re-installing the printer since you got this error?
Me: Erm… no. But I doubt it will really help.
EpsonGuy: All I can suggest is that you buy an Epson cartridge as the current one isn’t working correctly.
Me: So you don’t have a bug fix? Surely one of your software guys could stop this message coming up?
EpsonGuy: I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do, the cartridge isn’t communicating with the printer properly so it thinks it isn’t an Epson cartridge.
Me: That’s because it isn’t an Epson cartridge. I think as an adult and computer user I am quite capable of deciding whether to install an Epson cartridge or a cheaper compatible.
EpsonGuy: I completely agree Sir.

Hmm. Well I insisted that my complaint was noted down so that Epson could be made aware that nagging their customers to the point of irritating them and affecting their productivity is not the best way to promote their brand.

I felt a little sorry for the guy on the other end of the phone though 😛

Google Suggest

Google has a new BETA feature called Google Suggest. It’s a bit of JavaScript with some very clever algorithms sitting behind it which autocompletes your search terms based on previous searches stored in the Google database. Seems like a useful feature but I would have thought it has large overheads on their servers.

Amusingly all obscene words are filtered out (they must be, “sex” doesn’t autocomplete!).

I wondered if it would autocomplete my name and if it had stored anything someone may have searched for including my name! It came up with my name, but on its own. I was suprised to find that Googling for my name these days points you to my homepage as the first result. I’ve been a little freaked out at how many of my general Google searches have had results pointing to my homepage recently actually. I must be a very narrow minded person 🙂

Music Recording Software

I’ve been playing with music recording software today, including failing to get Ardour to run under Ubuntu, apparently it can’t connect to the Jack server. I really wish I could find time to record some of my songs and write some new ones, my musical side has been badly negelected this year.