We’ve all had the usual email from the likes of Amazon, getting you to buy some associated kit, but I recently got this one after buying some Canon printer paper. It proudly starts with “We hope you’ve been enjoying your recent purchase, and thought you might like to see a few accessories and service plans that will help you make the most of it.”
Nothing surprising there, but it’s all back to front, basically saying: “We notice you bought some paper, would you like a printer to print onto that paper”. Why would I be buying the paper if I didn’t have the printer in the first place?
I think Amazon need to tweak the programming that produces these emails.
Update: April 2009
Amazon really don’t know what the Canon printer paper is; they’ve just sent me an email recommending that awful film “Mamma Mia” again because I purchased Canon printer paper:
I’m posting this in case it might help someone whose condenser tumble dryer has stopped working. Our seven year old Crusader* dryer developed a fault whereby it would run for a few minutes or seconds then stop. The water tank was not full and pressing and holding the start button would make it run, so this ruled out any safety cut-out (such as overtemp or door interlock) from being faulty.
There is a relay (Schrack part number RM505730) which latches in when the dryer starts. It was this that kept dropping out on its own.
The relay being the cause was reinforced by this forum post on a white goods site, so I ordered a replacement from RS (210-6661) and this fixed the problem, so for the sake of eight quid, we have a working dryer once more.
* Crusader is Comet’s own brand name and the dryer was identical to a Hotpoint and Zanussi model at the time of purchase, apart from the cosmetic front cover.
IMPORTANT: Do not attempt a repair (or even open the cover) unless you are competent to do so. IF IN DOUBT CONSULT A QUALIFIED PERSON. This information is posted entirely ‘as is’ for those who are curious. Your fault may not be related.
Further to my last post, I now have email confirmation from Photobox that they have removed ftp upload capability (despite still accepting logins on the ftp server and having instructions on ftp uploads on the help section):
…to be honest i’m not to sure when or why it was stopped.
I think its something to do with the new uploader software.
I will look into the FTP servers openness and have the information from the website. [Ed:I presume the word ‘removed’ is missing here]
again my apologies for the inconvenience.
FTP capability was one of the benefits of Photobox. I don’t want to have to install Photobox’s own upload software, I have a perfectly capable one of my own – it’s called a standard ftp client. When I have tried their software in the past it is slow and clunky, whereas I can just type ‘mput *.JPG’ at the ftp command line.
I wonder how many others have suddenly found this not to be working without warning.
So what does something to do with the new uploader software mean? Come on Photobox, I understand that some people like to have their hand held with an uploader applet, but why stop others from using ftp as well?
Photobox’s ftp upload service seems to be screwed again. It still lets you upload files, but whereas it normally creates a directory named ‘ftp uploads – dd_mm_yyyy’, it is not doing this and simply dumps the files in the root area, which does not appear in ‘My Albums’ and cannot be deleted either. These files also do not get logged in the photobox ‘uploads log’ .
A few hours later, the files in the root area disappear, presumably cleared out by some automatic script, but do not get moved into a sub folder as they should.
The same thing happened last November and was reported to Photobox, but took several days to get sorted.
Update (11/3)
I have just received a reply from Photobox:
Thanks for your email.
I’m afraid that we no longer offer uploads via FTP
What!!?? Since when? When did that happen? Why wasn’t I warned about this?
Strange then that their help pages still detail how to upload using ftp, even detailing which software to use. *
Also why is the ftp server (ftp.photobox.co.uk) still live and accepting logins?
It would appear that either: Photobox have pulled ftp uploads without warning, without closing down the server and without removing the associated webpages, in which case they are incompetent, or the email came from someone who doesn’t understand what ftp is. I’m hoping it is the latter.
* although they wrongly say that Mac users need to download a client when Mac OS X already has a perfectly workable ftp client built in.
