30 November 2005

Mike Cox

I was reading some posts at ZDNet
and found this very funny
post by this guy named 'Mike Cox'

He's supposed to be renowned for his satire.

Read his blog.

My rep iis taking me to Yarrow's today to celebrate our new Microsoft Security Services contract. I signed up for a total of 9 years and promised to funnel the money to Microsoft as soon as I could. My rep is giving me bogus invoices today at lunch so I can submit expenses to help add to the war chest to pay for these fine services.


Unfortunately its not updated as frequently as his posts on zdnet.

yk.

8 November 2005

Converting PAL DVD to NTSC

I needed to convert a small video from PAL to NTSC.
Supposedly the dvd players in Canada is not multi-region
and wont support PAL. bah.

Fortunately the video is already on a DVD so I dont have
to worry about getting the hardware to capture it...

So Im trying out ffmpeg.

This is the command which I figured should work:

ffmpeg -i video_ts/vts_01_1.vob -target ntsc-dvd -r '30000/1001' -acodec copy ntsc.mpg

The .vob file is the original video,
the -target ntsc-dvd hopefully uses the NTSC resolution (720x480).
-r changes the frames per second from 25fps to 29.999 fps
and the -acodec copy is suppose to just copy over the audio.

The process took about 10minutes or so for a 11minute video
with alot of strange messages.

After it was done, xine played the video perfectly,
but the audio was just white noise.

Anyway, dvdauthor was next, and since I just need something simple,
Im just using the command line to generate the DVD structure:

dvdauthor ntsc.mpg -o ntsc-dvd

which will have the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS structures within the ntsc-dvd directory.

So now Ill try to figure out the audio problem...

yk.

TMNet Horror 1.14.4 - Zety

After a recommendation by Anonymous,
I emailed Jeff Ooi to get a contact from tmnet
to respond to my 'query'.

Its been abit more than a month, and Im still not getting anywhere...

=== Sept 30th 2005 ===
Hi Jeff,

I have read your post:
http://www.jeffooi.com/archives/2005/09/streamyx_roundu.php

with interest, and would like to know if its possible for me
to get in contact with someone from TMNet who can help
me out with a very long standing problem w.r.t overcharging and billing.
Come november, I will be 'celebrating' my 1st Anniversary!

Anyway, I wont bore you with details, but I certainly
would like to give some senior management at tmnet an earful.

http://yoonkit.blogspot.com/2005/09/tmnet-horror-1143-2-months-and.html
http://yoonkit.blogspot.com/2005/07/tmnet-horror-114-explanation-again.html

Any help would be appreciated!
=====
Within 15 minutes, I got this reply from the man himself!

==== Sept 30th 2005
Dear Zety

Could you please take care of this issue brought by my reader?

Cheers
Jeff
===

Great, I thought, progress!

Surprisingly, only 2 hours later, I got a response from Zety herself.
It sure beats the 1 month waiting time I usually have to endure.

===
Dear Mr Jeff,

Please be informed that our CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Unit has
already received Mr Yoon Kit's complaint pertaining the aforementioned
matter on the 27th September 2005 via e-mail (report reference no: 316805)
and is currently awaiting feedback from the relevent departments.

Should there be any updates, our TM Net personnel will contact Mr Yoon Kit
directly.

Mr Yoon Kit's kind patience on this matter is highly appreciated.

Thank You.
Best Regards,

Zety Kamal
====

PATIENCE! I have alot of that!

to that I responded:

=====
Hello Zety,

> Please be informed that our CRM
> (Customer Relationship Management) Unit has
> already received Mr Yoon Kit's complaint pertaining the aforementioned
> matter on the 27th September 2005 via e-mail
> (report reference no: 316805)
> and is currently awaiting feedback from the relevent departments.

That is the problem I am facing.

The CRM Unit has been shown to be ineffective
for the past 10 months since my first complaint!
Do you expect me to wait yet another 1-2 months for another
meaningless response? (as I have experiend throughout this episode)
Do I have to speak to yet another unempowered CRM Representative?

Zety, Show me Im not just another 'number' (316805)!

I really would like to deal with some person who actually
wants to solve this issue instead of passing it around,
or hoping it would go away with the passage of time...

> Mr Yoon Kit's kind patience on this matter is highly appreciated.

Your CRM Unit had my patience for the past 10 months.
It is infinitesimally thin now.

Even though I am paying my monthly fee of RM44,
I dont have internet access at home now because of this issue.

I hope you understand my frustrations,
I would really appreciate it if you can help me, Zety.

Regards,

Yoon Kit.

[Jeff, to prevent your mailbox from getting cluttered,
this will be the last email I will CC you.]
=====

And then I waited .... and waited....


===== 3rd Oct 2005
Hi Zety,

Any progress?
From whom should I be expecting a response, and when?

Regards
=====

And waited ....

==== 7th Oct 2005
Hi Zety,

I have waited patiently for a week,
and there has been no response
either from you nor your CRM department.

Do you need any more information from me to help
expedite this inquiry?

Can you at least re-enable my streamyx account
while your team is working on this so that I
can have internet access at home?

Thanks.
====

... and waited ....

==== 11th Oct 2005
Hi Zety,

Any progress?

A little acknowledgement would be appreciated.

yk.
====

Finally I got a response!!

==== 11th Oct 2005
Dear Mr. Yoon Kit,

Please be informed that I have constantly been in contact with the CRM
department in following the progress of your case.

However, kindly note that we need to refer to various departments (systems,
billing,etc) in order to resolve your case.

Therefore, we need some time before we can revert on your case and your
outmost patient is highly appreciated.

Please note that you will be informed immediately of any updates received.

Thank you,
Zety
====

That was helpful!
I didnt know that it would take almost a year to solve this problem.

But anyway, I responded cordially:

==== 11th Oct 2005
Hi Zety,

Im glad that you and your team are working on this,
but I have been sending them emails, and I havent
got any response yet, nor a date which they can come
back to me on.

Do you know when this issue can be completely resolved?
Does your team need another week? another month?

Im just hoping that it can be done within the year !

I can be patient, but I need to know when this can be resolved:
a deadline of somesorts.

Regards
====

And with that, I have been waiting for almost a month now...

sigh... I dont want to resort to calling in Jeff again,
but what does it take to get some service here?

yk.