Marcus D. Hanwell's Blog

Hard as it might be to believe it just goes on with these guys. I got an email from some person informing me I wouldn't be getting a refund as they didn't offer one on the root servers! I phoned up a little angry about this, and point the guy to their web site. After being on hold for about ten minutes the person informs me that they do offer refunds and said he would refund my money right then.

He then went back on this and said the system wouldn't let him refund until 4 April. I protested, but as it wasn't too far away I unwillingly agreed to wait until then. On the 8 April after another phone call they sent me an invoice saying they were refunding £18.92 of the £197.41 I paid them! I found this quite unbelievable and mentioned again that I would be contacting my credit card company about this and expected a full refund as offered clearly on their web site.

On 13 April they sent me another invoice saying they would refund me £116.33 to me. I have since sent yet another email saying that they have still missed £62.16, and I expected all of it back. I have had all I can take as it is nearly a month later. I have sent them a courtesy email but I will be talking to my credit card company about recovering the money. I still haven't seen a penny back from them.

What got it for me was the guy on the phone right at the start, who felt the need to say "We are a legitimate company". What more can I say, I seriously have my doubts that you are and would certainly never touch 1&1. I wish I had never gone near them, but I thought they must be OK having been voted 2nd best hosting provider in the Linux Format Awards. I do not think any company should be allowed to treat its customers so badly.

I still need to sort out a dedicated server once all this is over with too...

I went to the GLAMOR 2005 conference on Monday 11 April. It was a three day conference held at Trinity College in Cambridge on Glasses and Amorphous materials. I have never been to Cambridge to look around before, so it was a great opportunity to see Cambridge as well as learn about what others in my field are doing.

Neil picked me up at about 8am, and we drove down arriving at around 11am. We were staying in the student residences as it is outside of their term time. Trinity College is very beautiful, as is Cambridge as a whole. Filled with grand, old buildings I felt quite privileged to be there. We ate our meals in a grand dining hall, with the staff eating at the top and the rest of us filling the rest of the hall. The hall was very old, and filled with portraits of great figures.

The conference had quite a tight schedule running from 9am to 7pm each day apart from the last that finished at 5:30pm. I helped Neil prepare his PowerPoint presentation which was given on the last day. Luckily I took my laptop so that we could correct a few small mistakes before the talk was given. I couldn't get on the Internet though, so it was quite strange being cut off from the Internet and TV for three days.

I am glad I wasn't a student at Cambridge as I don't think it is the life I would have wanted for myself, but it was great to be a part of it for three days. Eating in the grand dining hall, listening to lectures from some of the finest lecturers in the field and taking in the beauty and history of the place when I had some spare time.

Some of the talks and posters have me some great ideas for future work. It was also great to see what other people are doing, and talk to other researchers in my field a little less formally.