A bit of a very long rant here so grab a cup of coffee as it's late here and I can't sleep so nothing better to do.
Life is getting way too complicated, and I think the universe is telling me to sit in the recliner in front of the idiot box, with a cup of chocolate and spend the rest of my life there. So here is a bit of the background to this, so it will take a while!
Missus and I sold our house, bought a block of land up North and moved into a rental whilst we wait for the house to be built. So got the designer to send us a preliminary plan to see if we liked it. As it is a lot of money to spend, we decided to go over the plans thoroughly to make sure we get every thing right. So we get the old tape measure out and compare the room sizes on the plan with the rooms in the rental to get a sense of dimensions and space in the new build. That got old real quick so after doing this umpteen times I decided to upgrade to the latest technology and buy a Bosch GML 50-27 GC laser measurer. It's a green beam laser which is able to transfer the dimension directly to a smart phone via bluetooth as Bosch has an App that can uses this data to build a correctly dimensioned house plan.
As the missus was driving to a major city to visit daughter and family (400km trip each way) I got her to buy one on the way down and bring it back. When I got it, I plugged the batteries in and off I went, easy-peasy, measuring everything. Next to connect to the phone and that is where it started to go pear shape. Fairly straight forward or so I thought, hit the Blue Tooth button twice on the Bosch to activate it, get the phone, activate the blue tooth function and scan for nearby devices, done this a gazillion time over the last decade on PC to phones, Laptops to phone, phones to car etc, etc. Always the same process, scan, you find the device, pair to it, a code gets thrown up on one of the devices, you enter it to confirm that is the right device you want to pair with and your done. Simple right, Not!
Phone couldn't find the Laser, read the instructions, Yep did what it said. Thought it may be some incompatibility between it and the Samsung Note 20 Ultra 5G phone or the laser might be faulty. So dug out a few more old Samsung mobiles sitting in the drawer. Nope, nothing, tried the S8, Note 4 and even the very old S3, that last one actually detected it, great I am on a roll here, tried to pair it and got message the laser was actively rejecting it, bugger. By this time about 6 hours rolled by, checked the manual several times, yep I was doing everything right.
So ring up the store and described everything I had done and was told that I had done it correctly and to bring it in as it was probably faulty. Great, another several hundred kilometer trip each way. Anyway rang Bosch technical support and explained what had happened and they said I was partly right. Apparently Bosch does it a little different with connecting the device to a phone, you do the first part, but it is the download App that does the actual pairing, go figure, first time in over a decade that it has been done this way. So I said where in the manual does it says this, to which they apologised for any inconvenience it has caused, yada yad yada! Anyway, rang the store and told them how to connect it and the guy there said he would tell the other staff as he hadn't come across this before either.
Next register this product on line to get extended 6 year warranty. Got on the Bosch site and could remember the password, so do the usual, enter your email address and hit the "Forgot Password box" and it was supposed to send a reset link to my email address, waited and waited still nothing, do it again and again nothing. Ring Bosch tech support, was told that they have a new site for extended warranties, and they will send me a link directly to reset my password. Go to the new site and start a new account using the same email address for account and all my existing tools are not there. So rang Tech support again and told you have to get into the old site to add them, one would think that if they set up a new site that they would have transferred all existing data over, but no, that is the customers job. I explained that I still did not have the reset link and all other attempts to get it have failed. So he said he would do it again, waited some more, no link, rang back, oops they have gone home for the day. Arrrrgh!!
. Will have to call back in the morning.
Next, I use ExpressVPN on a Workstation running Server 2019 Build 1809, Windows update hasn't been able to upgrade it to a new build for some reason. Anyway get a message on the program from ExpressVPN saying new version available, so downloaded it, click on it and get message saying it won't run on this version of "Windows 10" and I need to upgrade to build 1903 or 1908. As Update won't upgrade my Server 2019 OS, that is not an option. So rang their tech support only to be told "Sorry we don't support the Server OS" to which I replied I have been running your software for about 18 months with countless upgrades in that time and never had an issue, their response was why don't you run the VPN via a laptop, so I replied, you want me to add another computer so I can access the internet via a VPN just because your latest upgrade is buggy? Next reply from them was put the VPN software on your router, I replied, tried that ages ago but there is way too much overhead which slows the connection down to a crawl. Next suggestion is why don't you buy one of these fast new routers, then my reply is, so now you want me so spend about 3 to 5 hundred dollars just because your latest software upgrade is buggy. I had thought about updating the Server software to a later build, but if anyone has done this before then you know that it is not something that you would do lightly. I would lose about a week backing it up, reinstalling all the software and making sure everything worked and then another back up or two with updates etc. etc. Not happenning!!!
My last reply to them was; how about you close my subscription and refund me my unused portion. I will have to wait now and see what hoops I have to jump through just to get some money back, in the meantime I have to find another VPN to use!
So the question is, I feel that life is getting way too hard and I am not keeping up, am I expecting too much or am I just getting too old and senile and should just whilst away any remaining time I have left in that recliner doing nothing? Any of you guys have had similar problems? Rant over.
Cheers
Ed.
Life is getting way too complicated, and I think the universe is telling me to sit in the recliner in front of the idiot box, with a cup of chocolate and spend the rest of my life there. So here is a bit of the background to this, so it will take a while!
Missus and I sold our house, bought a block of land up North and moved into a rental whilst we wait for the house to be built. So got the designer to send us a preliminary plan to see if we liked it. As it is a lot of money to spend, we decided to go over the plans thoroughly to make sure we get every thing right. So we get the old tape measure out and compare the room sizes on the plan with the rooms in the rental to get a sense of dimensions and space in the new build. That got old real quick so after doing this umpteen times I decided to upgrade to the latest technology and buy a Bosch GML 50-27 GC laser measurer. It's a green beam laser which is able to transfer the dimension directly to a smart phone via bluetooth as Bosch has an App that can uses this data to build a correctly dimensioned house plan.
As the missus was driving to a major city to visit daughter and family (400km trip each way) I got her to buy one on the way down and bring it back. When I got it, I plugged the batteries in and off I went, easy-peasy, measuring everything. Next to connect to the phone and that is where it started to go pear shape. Fairly straight forward or so I thought, hit the Blue Tooth button twice on the Bosch to activate it, get the phone, activate the blue tooth function and scan for nearby devices, done this a gazillion time over the last decade on PC to phones, Laptops to phone, phones to car etc, etc. Always the same process, scan, you find the device, pair to it, a code gets thrown up on one of the devices, you enter it to confirm that is the right device you want to pair with and your done. Simple right, Not!
Phone couldn't find the Laser, read the instructions, Yep did what it said. Thought it may be some incompatibility between it and the Samsung Note 20 Ultra 5G phone or the laser might be faulty. So dug out a few more old Samsung mobiles sitting in the drawer. Nope, nothing, tried the S8, Note 4 and even the very old S3, that last one actually detected it, great I am on a roll here, tried to pair it and got message the laser was actively rejecting it, bugger. By this time about 6 hours rolled by, checked the manual several times, yep I was doing everything right.
So ring up the store and described everything I had done and was told that I had done it correctly and to bring it in as it was probably faulty. Great, another several hundred kilometer trip each way. Anyway rang Bosch technical support and explained what had happened and they said I was partly right. Apparently Bosch does it a little different with connecting the device to a phone, you do the first part, but it is the download App that does the actual pairing, go figure, first time in over a decade that it has been done this way. So I said where in the manual does it says this, to which they apologised for any inconvenience it has caused, yada yad yada! Anyway, rang the store and told them how to connect it and the guy there said he would tell the other staff as he hadn't come across this before either.
Next register this product on line to get extended 6 year warranty. Got on the Bosch site and could remember the password, so do the usual, enter your email address and hit the "Forgot Password box" and it was supposed to send a reset link to my email address, waited and waited still nothing, do it again and again nothing. Ring Bosch tech support, was told that they have a new site for extended warranties, and they will send me a link directly to reset my password. Go to the new site and start a new account using the same email address for account and all my existing tools are not there. So rang Tech support again and told you have to get into the old site to add them, one would think that if they set up a new site that they would have transferred all existing data over, but no, that is the customers job. I explained that I still did not have the reset link and all other attempts to get it have failed. So he said he would do it again, waited some more, no link, rang back, oops they have gone home for the day. Arrrrgh!!
. Will have to call back in the morning.Next, I use ExpressVPN on a Workstation running Server 2019 Build 1809, Windows update hasn't been able to upgrade it to a new build for some reason. Anyway get a message on the program from ExpressVPN saying new version available, so downloaded it, click on it and get message saying it won't run on this version of "Windows 10" and I need to upgrade to build 1903 or 1908. As Update won't upgrade my Server 2019 OS, that is not an option. So rang their tech support only to be told "Sorry we don't support the Server OS" to which I replied I have been running your software for about 18 months with countless upgrades in that time and never had an issue, their response was why don't you run the VPN via a laptop, so I replied, you want me to add another computer so I can access the internet via a VPN just because your latest upgrade is buggy? Next reply from them was put the VPN software on your router, I replied, tried that ages ago but there is way too much overhead which slows the connection down to a crawl. Next suggestion is why don't you buy one of these fast new routers, then my reply is, so now you want me so spend about 3 to 5 hundred dollars just because your latest software upgrade is buggy. I had thought about updating the Server software to a later build, but if anyone has done this before then you know that it is not something that you would do lightly. I would lose about a week backing it up, reinstalling all the software and making sure everything worked and then another back up or two with updates etc. etc. Not happenning!!!
My last reply to them was; how about you close my subscription and refund me my unused portion. I will have to wait now and see what hoops I have to jump through just to get some money back, in the meantime I have to find another VPN to use!
So the question is, I feel that life is getting way too hard and I am not keeping up, am I expecting too much or am I just getting too old and senile and should just whilst away any remaining time I have left in that recliner doing nothing? Any of you guys have had similar problems? Rant over.
Cheers
Ed.
...take the advice from the above posts,pencil..paper and a good Stanley tape measure. I have had the same rant with my wife recently and have seriously decided to put a middle finger up to any further technology in my life and start reeling all this madness in
What's the basic, quick gist of your post? 3 sentences or less. 
