Shocking customer service list

If there's one thing that really shits me it's companies that think they can get away with treating you like shit. How places that do this stay in business is beyond me. Usually when they do it's because they're a monopoly company with little or no competition. Not much you can do about that but wait for the smaller competition to arrive and go with them. However, smaller businesses that think they can treat their customers rudely, almost with contempt in a lot of cases and stay in business are another story. You can do something about them. You can stop going there, tell your friends and write bad reviews via google etc.

Here is my personal list ( in no particular order ) of companies I've had such a bad customer service experience with that I would never under any circumstances use their services again.

* Europcar
* Virgin Money
* B.I.P Toyota Spares - just google them and read the reviews - you'll get the picture.
* Autobarn - PRESTON BRANCH ( NOTE: Autobarn are an excellent company overall. I am a regular customer of the Melbourne City branch who provide EXCELLENT customer service and who I would thoroughly recommend . This dishonourable mention applies only to Preston branch. )
* Biggin & Scott Real Estate - BRIDGE RD. RICHMOND BRANCH
* Melbourne City Toyota - Service Department ( pay through the nose for appallingly rude, totally complacent attitude customer service. no thanks. Shame too because the mechanics that actually do the work are great people and do an excellent job. )


Please feel free to "dis-recommend" any companies to me based on your own poor customer services experiences in a comment. I'd appreciate advanced notice of companies to avoid.

screen start of line / end of line shortcuts without remapping escape key

i like the escape key in screen as the default [ctrl]+a so don't want to remap it. this of course interferes however with the emacs command line start / end of line shortcuts.

i've finally found the way around this problem without remapping the escape key - hoorah..!

start of line: [ctrl]+a a
end of line: [ctrl] [ctrl]+e

these shortcuts are so quick and easy and similar to the emacs shortcuts that i far prefer this method to remapping the screen escape key.

diff - how to make it output what you probably want to see

i find:

diff -EbwBtrcx '.svn' | less

is clearest when recursively comparing directories with large numbers of files and changes.

another windows/linux to mac conversion helper

one thing i missed on moving to mac from windows/linux was using the tab key to "tab" through all elements on a page. by default on mac this only applies to form elements. to change the mac tab key behaviour to tab through everything on a page ala the default setting on windows/linux ( which is what i find i usually want ) go to: apple/system preferences/keyboard and change "Full Keyboard Access" to "All controls".

Control+F7 is the shortcut for this setting if you need to switch it often.

toggle between firefox windows on a mac

thank god for these kind people who finally told me how to toggle between firefox windows on mac osx! my conversion to mac is now complete..!

oh btw, it's:

[cmd]`

even better is the fact that that is the mac shortcut to toggle through windows in *any* program. hooray..! goodbye windows. i'll see you via the mac RDP program 'Remote Desktop Connection' ( which incidentally runs better than the *windows* RDP program! ) next time I need to test something on windows..!

Replacing stock front car speakers with Sony Xplod XS-GTF1027s

After upgrading the original Toyota car stereo in my new car to a new Sony I decided to upgrade the speakers as well. The '98 model Toyota Starlet I just bought only has front speakers so I decided to simply upgrade the existing ones to Sony Xplod XS-GTF1027 speakers to match the new Sony car stereo. The 4" model are only $49 for the pair from Supercheap Auto ( the stock toyota front speakers are 4" so it's a simple swap ).

This was a quick job. Remove the dash panel and the existing speakers. Unclip the existing speaker wires. Screw the new Sonys into place using the existing mount points. Connect the new Sony speaker wires to the car speaker wires. Give it a test and if all's well, replace the dash panels and done!

The new Sonys are decent speakers with nice sound quality and are louder than the original Toyota ones at 30W / 130W Peak. With such an easy install ( about 1 hour ) and with them so cheap at the moment it's definitely well worth upgrading the speakers to go with your new stereo..!

I definitely miss having rear speakers though. They would be quite easy to add on to this car on the hatch boot lid / tray however unfortunately that tray was missing from this car when I bought it so I have to find one of those first..!