31
Mar
Posted by: Dav // Category:
Film,
Stuff I've been at.
So you go to a cinema website and book a ticket. To do this, you hand over your email address and contact telephone number as well as your credit card details. I guess they have to email your confirmation and need your number in case they need to get a hold of you, right?
Not so it seems…
Both my girlfriend and I were really looking forward to seeing Kickass. We said we’d go last night (Tuesday 30th) so I’d booked on the Monday (29th). She wanted to go to the Savoy which would never have been my first choice as I don’t think too much of the place, but I was happy enough to go with the flow.
So we go in and I have to swipe my card at the only working credit card collection machine (which said welcome to Omniplex Newry on it). We wander over to the stairs and the guy looks at our tickets and tears them and says “enjoy the film” as one would expect. We get to the screen number 6 and see it says “Green Zone” over the door. Figuring they must’ve forgotten to change it or something like that and having quickly checked the other screens to see if it’d been moved or something, we sat down as the trailers were running. I decided that it was time to get some popcorn so headed back downstairs to the concession stand. There were 5 staff members behind the counter there (as well as a security guy telling tales of his past experiences on the job it seemed) and no one upstairs (it seemed) working as an usher. That’s the sort of thing that rings alarm bells with me – poor distribution of staff means there’s a manager somewhere not doing their job properly.
Anyway, I get back up, the trailers end and we spend a few minutes with nothing doing whilst waiting for the projectionist to line up the film. That’s no problem. Then the film starts and it shows the IFCO rating stating we’re about to see Green Zone. After an exchange of puzzled looks, my girlfriend and I grabbed all our stuff and made our way back downstairs. She asked the same gent who’d checked and torn our tickets what the story was and he said “oh yes, there was a problem with that. If you’d like to follow me around to the ticket desk we can sort this out.”
So I get over there and the gentleman behind the counter informs me that there was a “monumental meltdown” with their system and that 4 people had booked tickets for Kickass before they realised it.
So, they knew there had been incorrect bookings.
- Given that there was only one working credit card ticket machine in the lobby, why didn’t they have a sign up for the 4 people who’d made bookings for Kickass?
- Given that a member of staff checked out tickets before letting us upstairs, why wasn’t he paying attention to see that the tickets very clearly said “Kickass” on them?
- Given that they had my contact details, why was no attempt made to get in touch to tell me that the film wasn’t showing before we ventured out on what was a miserable evening?
The gent behind the counter at the ticket desk was, I think, doing his best. He offered me a refund straight away and told me we could see any film of our choice that was currently on with their compliments. We didn’t really want to see anything else and decided to chance getting over to Cineworld to see if we could get to see what we wanted there (we got soaked on the way over and were too late to see it).
So I am left wondering why this has happened and why no one could address the issue before it became a problem. I got the feeling that they were simply hoping that the 4 people who’d booked simply wouldn’t turn up and there’d be no problem.
As it stands, I can’t ever see myself going back to the Savoy or any Omniplex Group cinema again. It’s shabbiness of the highest order that something like this could happen and there really isn’t any excuse when there’s a reasonable choice of cinemas in Dublin.
So, dear readers, I would ask that if you have had any poor experiences with this cinema or this group, please leave a comment, I would like to bring it to their attention.
21
Jan
Posted by: Dav // Category:
Random
So my favourite place on the internet, which also happens to be the place I work, Boards.ie, has been hacked this morning. Here’s our official word:
Fellow Boards Members,
Today, Thursday 21 Jan 2009 at 11:20 GMT the Boards.ie database was attacked by a source external to Ireland. This triggered our security response policy and as a result we are sending you this warning email.
In this attack, part of the database which includes our members usernames, email addresses and obfuscated passwords was accessed. While our investigations indicate that individual user accounts are not in danger we have taken the step of changing all user passwords.
We also recommend that if you used the same username/email and password on other sites that you change your password there too as a precaution.
What happened:
- This morning our database server was accessed by an unauthorised source.
- We discovered this intrusion and took the site offline.
- As a precaution We contacted the Gardaí, the Data Protection Commissioner and an independent security consultancy.
- We have followed the advice we have received on how to proceed.
- Like all large sites we are regularly the target for disruption and take continual actions to proactively protect your data. This particular attack was completely unprecedented despite our rigorous security measures and while we have no idea if this data will be used for any malicious reasons, we felt it vital to tell you this immediately.
What you need to know and do:
- If you use the same password on Boards as you do on other services, you should change it on those other services to be safe. Boards passwords are NOT stored in plain text, they are obscured with the standard vBulletin “Hash”. While this provides strong protection, we have altered all passwords on Boards as a precaution and suggest you take this time to allter other similar passwords.
- If you are a subscriber, please be assured, we do NOT store credit card details or any payment details on our servers. Nothing of that nature is held on our site and as a result such data was not compromised.
- We apologise for this inconvenience. We do not want to over stress the problem, however we felt the situation requires full disclosure.
Tom Murphy.
Things to check out:
Boards.ie on Twitter
So there you have it. It’s been a rather frantic day of writing emails, ringing security people, talking with press people, figuring out the best way to email nearly 300k members, etc, etc. I can’t even imagine what a day Conor and Ross on our tech team have had, and whilst my own technical knowledge is limited, the scope of this is huge – we have to change everyone’s password and at the same time, perform a forensic analysis on what’s happened. It’ll be a long night ahead for the guys.
I just want to say a thank you to everyone for their good wishes and support and to those who’ve helped us out over the last few hours of stress. There’s a long night ahead yet…
Dav
11
Jan
Posted by: Dav // Category:
Random
I changed themes cause the old one wasn’t that easy to read. This one’s not quite right, but I’ll get around to tweaking it sooner or later.
That’s all for now…
05
Jan
Posted by: Dav // Category:
Music,
Tech
So it seems, contrary to popular belief, that Santy thinks I have been a good boy this year. I have received from him 2 most wonderful new toys which move my plans to unleash horrific music upon the world even closer to reality.
Tosh and Pod - a double act to be frightened of...
So what is it?
Well it’s a Toshiba Satellite LD350 – 214 which boasts an Athlon Dual Core CPU, 2 GB of RAM (soon to be upgraded to 4GB when I have some spare cash), 250GB hard drive and a 17″ screen! So it’s “portable desktop” rather than “laptop” territory which is great as I need to be able to take it to and from practice etc.
On top of that we have the Line 6 Pod X3. This is a guitar (and vocal!) multi-effects processing unit that can replicate the sound of many different amps, cabs, microphones and of course, effects units. It also acts as a MIDI device when connected via USB into a computer and after some fiddling around with stuff this afternoon, I managed to get it correctly installed on the Tosh.
Next remaining step is to install some manner of recording software and learning how the frak the Pod works 
I also need to get some manner of backpack or bag to carry both devices, their power supplies, cables, etc. Have had a few recommendations already in that regard, so no worries.
My current problems are two-fold:
1) my flat is WAY too small to set this stuff up in it.
2) my decent guitars are all out in storage since the closure of the BatCave.
So I’d already planned on moving house anyway, so that’s grand, all that remains is getting to the storage place and grabbing my axes.
Fun times ahead 
04
Dec
Posted by: Dav // Category:
J-Cloth,
Music
Some of you are aware of a place I call the Bat Cave. Some of you have even visited! It’s where J-Cloth practices, or should I say practised…
The lads who own the place are closing the doors. They’ve apparently been hit with a big rates bill that they just can’t afford and so have decided to wind the company down. We’re all completely gutted. The BatCave was a second home to most of us. The studio bit we spent a long weekend (not to mention a fair whack of money) soundproofing and you could hear nothing outside the building because of that. We often worked out there will 3 or 4 am and it bothered nobody.
Just last week we had got all our recording setup figured out after several long weeks of tweaking this and that and re-wiring both the sound desk and the ProTools PC attached to the DigiDesign desk. I will now have to spend Wednesday (when I get back from the States) clearing my gear out of the Cave and trying to squeeze as much as possible into my tiny flat. I have my big amp, my effects board + pedals, 3 guitars, a computer, various books and DVDs (we have an extensive library built up over the last year). We also have to find place for our PA, 2 bass-bins, 2 speakers, all the cabling that goes with that, 4 MASSIVE stage curtains that are used for sound proofing on the walls, various bits of furniture (tables, desks, couches), a TV, some computer monitors, another 2 PCs, all sorts of stage equipment odds and ends, etc, etc – the list goes on and on…
Miserable doesn’t even begin to come close to describing how I feel about this whole thing, but I’m trying not to let it ruin my holiday.
So if anyone knows of a warehouse/big room somewhere in the Dublin area that we could rent, please let me know. As it stands, we have 24/7 access to this place which suits us well, so that’d be ideal, but not completely essential. It has to be somewhere that’ll just be us though. A shared studio is too expensive and restrictive.
I hate when shit like this happens 
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