An HTC DoA: Part 5
Continued from Part 4 (read from the beginning).
I took a trip to the UK at the beginning of the month, and when I returned on the 13th immediately checked my credit card statement. I wasn't surprised to see that the refund still hadn't been processed (now past the 14-business-day cut-off mark for credit card refunds). I called HTC yet again, and after a bit of hold time was given some good-ish news.
The agent confirmed that yes, HTC's warehouse had received my phone and they had accepted it. However, someone at said-warehouse hadn't closed the ticket in their system which prevented the refund from being processed. I was promised that the ticket would once again be escalated and that the escalations team would get the warehouse to close the ticket and things would get moving again.
I asked if HTC would compensate me for the interest accrued on my credit card from having this charge sitting on it for nearly two months, but was told they wouldn't do anything. It was worth asking about, though.
So, on Tuesday the 17th I once again checked my credit card statement and there it was! A line item showing a credit for the DoA Nexus One. Although I wasn't happy with the time it took to deal with the issue, and the interest charges that built up from it, I was ready to put the issue to bed.
And then I got the following email from HTC:
Dear Laslow,
Thank you for using HTC Customer Service. We want to make your next visit even better and would like your feedback. If you haven't already done so please help us improve by taking a quick survey on your experience using HTC Customer Service.
Thank you very much for your time. Be sure to visit us online at http://www.htc.com to read the latest announcements and check out our newly released products.
We are unable to receive replies to this email account. Please visit us at http://www.htc.com if you have any questions or need further assistance.
Sincerely,
HTC
I couldn't pass it up. I filled out the survey and was completely honest about the experience I had with trying to get a refund for a DoA unit and how ridiculous that I had to choose that route in the first place, rather than having the option to simply get a new, non-refurbished replacement like American customers. I submitted it, and then completely forgot about it.
This morning, while I was off rebuilding a borked IPCop box, HTC left me a voice mail message that went something like this:
Good morning Mr. Laslow. My name <redacted> from HTC, and I'm just calling to follow up on your return. I am very, very sorry that it took so long to process your refund. I'm also very sorry that you received a DoA unit in the first place. If you need any further assistance with this, please call us at 866-449-8358. Once again, we appreciate your business and are very sorry about this whole thing.
I was stunned; I never expected to hear back from HTC at all. I'm not, however, surprised by the fact that they simply apologized rather than offering some form of compensation (be it an accessory, a t-shirt, anything really). Regardless, I'm happy that this is over and I can finally end the tale of an HTC DoA.
Logon Server Unavailable Error
I came back from vacation the other day to find that some computers on our primary domain (example.local) were unable to access shares on a secondary domain (test.local) located in another building, accessed via a wireless link). When attempting to open the share (or just browse to the Domain Controller), the following error would appear:
"There are currently no logon servers available to service the logon request."
Google'ing did no good, as there were only vague references to DNS issues and WINS servers (the later of which we don't use). As nothing had changed in the environment recently, I was at a bit of a loss. I could ping the DC (Homer) in question, and even RDP to it, but I couldn't for the life of me access the share. NSLOOKUP behaved normally, but then I had a thought -- the DC that I couldn't access was also acting as a DNS server (the primary one for test.local) with example.local as a Secondary Zone (which, of course, contained the DNS entries for the computers that were having trouble accessing the secondary domain). When I loaded the DNS manager and clicked on that zone, I was immediately greeted with an error stating the following:
Turns out, there *was* a DNS problem!
The problem was that I had removed a DNS server over a year ago and it was still referenced as the primary DNS server for this zone. For some reason, the Windows DNS service had just now decided this was a problem and stopped grabbing copies of the zone from the functional secondary DNS server.
To fix this, I simply right-clicked on the zone, chose Properties, and then removed the offending server IP from the General tab and updated with the correct servers and order. As soon as I finished, the computers had no trouble accessing that DC again. Magic!
Solution: Mouse Cursor in Windows 7 Disappears
I reinstalled Windows 7 on my MSI Wind U123 today because of a number of problems with sound input and PulseAudio on Fedora 13 that I couldn't be buggered to fix. After the install, I ran Windows Update as normal, rebooted, and then noticed that my mouse cursor was gone. I could still click around and select things, so I knew the mouse was working, however I couldn't see it.
Searching Google proved worse than useless. The two best solutions listed were to either enable pointer tails (annoying) or lower the hardware acceleration level on your video card. Although true that both of these options will work, they both suck.
The real fix? Install the correct video drivers. As it turns out, when I ran Windows Update I accidentally selected the Intel Graphics driver update, which caused the problem. After downloading and installing the correct driver direct from Intel the cursor suddenly reappeared. Magic!
TL;DR Version: If your mouse cursor disappears, go to your video card manufacturer's website and get the drivers from them.
Dell Packaging
I ordered a bunch of new kit last week, and in typical Dell fashion they decided to send the order to me as they get the parts, rather than just send it all at once. This morning, I received the first piece:
Seriously, Dell? All that for one lousy DVI extension cable? Well, at least they're still better than HP.
Rogers Marketing: Opt-Out is Hard-ish To Do
It seems like ages ago I'd gone and opt'ed out of Rogers Marketing 'services' - I made sure that I'd chosen opt-out options for email, snail-mail, and SMS, and all was well. However, a few months ago I started receiving telemarketing phone calls on my Rogers-provided cell phone. I did the individual opt-out each time they called, a different company/number would call each time.
While updating other parts of my account today, I decided to double-check the marketing settings, and found this:
Click for the full-sized image
Err, that's great Rogers - you're not going to have anyone call my work number, but why isn't my cell phone in the list, and why can't I add it?
A quick call to Rogers (meaning twenty minutes of hold time) later and I had an answer (sort of) - the rep that I got instructed me to http://www.rogers.com/optout and enter the relevant details to opt-out of all marketing on that number.
After doing this, my cell number still isn't listed in the Marketing Opt-Out in my Rogers My Account section, but the site did say that it may take 1-2 weeks for the changes to take effect. Only time will tell, but next time the telemarketers call, there will be a few more questions as to how they got my number.
Symantec Endpoint: Good at Giving Me Heart Attacks
Oi. Symantec is definitely giving me a lot to blog about recently.
I logged in to one of our public file servers today for a weekly inspection, and as is someone common was greeted with a dozen reports from Symantec Endpoint 11 of infected files being deleted. It's not uncommon for our clients to open malicious attachments, visit shady websites, and generally make a mess of things, but a combination of good ACL's, Deep Freeze, and SEP 11 on the server have kept things clean.
So, after reading through the alerts and verifying SEP cleaned all of the detected files, I ran Live Update followed by a Full System Scan, as is standard procedure. Out of curiosity, I watched the first part of the scan process, when I noticed it pause on these files:
c:\windows\hide_evr2.sys
c:\windows\9129837.exe
d:\autorun.inf
The first two file names made me worried, and the third a little more so, if only because D: is another RAID array and therefore has no reason to have an Autorun.inf. After a little digging, however, I found that none of these files seemed to exist on the server. Now I started thinking 'rootkit'.
Sure enough, a quick Google later showed that yes, these files are common to a number of different rootkit variants. As such, I busted out my usual toolkit of malware detection/removal utilities and took the server offline.
As I dug deeper in to the server, though, I still couldn't find any traces of the mentioned files. I tried several different rootkit tools, browsing the hard drive contents from a Linux LiveCD, and even a few tools to check ADS (Alternate Data Streams), but had no luck.
At this point, I was fairly convinced that the server was clean, however why would Symantec report those files as present, unless.... Digging a little further in to the results from Google, I found this forum thread: http://www.antionline.com/showthread.php?t=278671 - apparently, during the initial part of the scan, Endpoint doesn't actually report just the files that it's scanning, it also reports the name of the files it's looking for.
So, a little life lesson - don't assume that Symantec will do anything that makes sense. And, when in double, Google is still you're friend - you just need to look harder.
Sample Symantec Endpoint scan showing a non-existent file
The TL;DR version: The scan status on Symantec Endpoint 11 doesn't just show the actual files on the computer, but it also shows non-existent files that it's looking for. When in doubt - verify manually!
Low on Server Disk Space? Have Symantec Endpoint? There’s Your Problem
This morning, I received an email from a charity I do some consulting for saying that they were getting a Low Disk Space warning on their primary terminal server. After remoting in, I confirmed that on the 120GB primary partition, there was less than 100MB free. Odd, considering that the server only has about 40GB worth of user files on it.
A quick check (done by selecting likely folders in the root of the drive and opening the properties window) confirmed that C:\ProgramData was using an extra 40GB space that it shouldn't. Further digging revealed that C:\ProgramData\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection\Xfer contained somewhere in the neighbourhood of 48,000 file, each ~20KB in size.
Solution? Delete and recreate the Xfer folder, then run Live Update again. Low disk space problem solved, but would someone at Symantec care to explain just what the hell happened?
Update: Found a temporary fix here: http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/symatec-ep-making-alot-files-under-xfer-folder
Apparently, the issues results from EndPoint rescanning files in quarantine every time new definitions arrive. If you have a lot of files in quarantine, your disk space will disappear that much faster. Go figure. Apparently they've fixed some instances of this, but not others, as it was supposed to have been solved in MR4, but is still present in MR4 and MR5.
Rant: Business Internets are Serious Business
I work for a non-profit that provides general employment services to the public. In part, we offer a large number of public-access computers for job search purposes, as well as a smaller number of systems for general use. Couple these with ~20 staff workstations and a video conference unit, and we chew through a large chunk of bandwidth each day.
Until now, our dual 6Mbit DSL connections have been making due, but really only because of a WSUS server and two IPCop servers acting and web and update caches. With the possibility of adding new offices and increasing the number of computers on our network, I've been looking in to alternative ways of boosting our throughput.
One of the first plans was to check in to a Fiber connection, but that was quickly scrapped. Unfortunately, we can't afford the $1500/month rates being offered for the lower-tier connections, and the staggering ~$5900/month for a 100Mbit up/down connection is completely impossible. As such, I started looking in to other business packages.
This brings me to the root of my rant. I've never been a big fan of DSL, so my first thought was to check out what was offered by our local cable provider, Shaw Cable. I've used them for my residential internet connection since 1997 and couldn't be happier, especially since they've just started to offer 100Mbit down 2Mbit up service in my area.
After several phone calls to them, however, my opinion has completely changed. Despite the fact that they provide faster service, Shaw is only willing to offer a 15Mbit down/1Mbit up service to businesses. That's the fastest you can go without switching to Fiber, which again is out of our price range. Although the service is slightly cheaper than the DSL equivalent, I need at least 4 static IP addresses, and which Shaw will provide--for an extra $50 on top.
Speaking with their customer service reps was a frustrating experience, because I couldn't get an answer as to why businesses aren't allowed access to higher tiered packages. "That's just the way it is" was all I was told.
As such, we'll be sticking with DSL, and Shaw has lost a potential customer. I hope they eventually decide to let businesses catch up with home users, but somehow, I have my doubts.
Seriously.
From the Search Results: Backing Up
To the person who found my blog by searching for "raid 1 backup", please note: RAID IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE BACKUP SOLUTION!
Any method of RAID (other than RAID0) is good for protecting against failing hard drives. However, it is by no means a backup solution, as it doesn't save your data from things like accidental deletion, file system corruption, users, and malicious software. If you're looking for a backup solution, investigate external hard drives, SAN/NAS devices, tape backup units, etc....
Please. For the sake of your data, get a real backup solution.
Short Non-Tech Rant: Tim Hortons
Wow. I've got quite a long history with Tim Hortons, but for some reason I keep going back (probably because of Roll Up The Rim). This morning at the drive-through was about par for the course.
Her: Welcome to Tim Hortons, how can I help you?
Me: Hi. Can I please get an extra-large tea, with two milk and two sugar?
Her: <several seconds of silence> Ummm, so you want a decaf tea?
Me: Actually, I just want a regular tea.
Her: Okay. Do you want anything in it?
Me: Yes. Two milk, and two sugar.
Her: <several seconds more of silence>. So two cream, and one sweetener?
Me (trying not to sound frustrated): No. Two milk. <pause> And two sugar.
Her: Oh! Okay!
I'm surprised that I didn't end up with a Double-Double instead, as has been known to happen before.
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