Back in April I was having a problem with my Thecus N4100 Pro where it was taking a long time to boot up, I’m talking around 8 hours or so. The confusing part was that on the display, it said it was ready, even though it hadn’t moved to displaying status information yet, and when I attempted to login via the web interface it would just hang until it had finished booting up properly.

I could not find anything on the net about it, and I couldn’t get any response from Thecus as to what the cause might be either.

I was doing some research into RAID arrays to try and find out how complicated it would be to move a RAID 5 array to a different RAID controller without rebuilding it when I was reminded that when one disk fails ina RAID 5 array, even though it will continue to function, it will be slower as the data needs to be rebuilt.

This prompted me to have a look at the RAID health through the web interface. It is meant to display on the N4100 Pro LCD if there is a problem with the RAID health however I couldn’t easily see the LCD from where I had it at the time. Unfortunately it was quite slow going accessing the web interface given how slow the NAS was performing in general. When I eventually got it open I discovered that one of the drives had indeed failed.

From what I understood from both the manual and my research online, replacing a drive in the NAS is as simple as pulling out the faulty drive and sliding in a new one. It should then automatically rebuild the data onto the new drive.

This was not the case however. The data simply would not be rebuilt automatically. I read numerous reviews on rebuilding and not one gave any extra steps, they all simply referred to it as simple and painless and only explained having to replace the drive.

The thing that none of them mention though is that after you replace the drive, you MUST set the new drive as a spare before the data will be automatically rebuilt. Once it is set as a spare, it will rebuild the data automatically.

So without further ado, here are some screen shots to help explain:

Raid Configuration Showing New Drive As Spare

As can be seen in the screen shot above, you need to check the “Spare” check box and then click apply. This tells the NAS that this drive is a spare to be used to rebuild data onto when a drive in the array fails. As a drive has already failed, the NAS will automatically rebuild data onto the drive we have now set as a spare.

Thecus N4100 Pro Rebuilding the RAID

In the screen shot above you can see the NAS is now rebuilding the data onto the spare drive.

It really is very simple, the problem is both the manual and all of the instructions I could find online simply don’t mention the fact that the drive has to be a spare before the automatic rebuilding will occur.

What gave me the idea to try this was actually a review of one of the higher end Thecus NAS devices that indicated using the spare option to create a 3 disk RAID 5 array with a hot spare so that it would automatically rebuild immediately without needing to replace the drive, thus giving an extra level of redundancy and additional time to replace the dead drive.

Unfortunately I don’t have the address of the review anymore, but that’s it, it really is very simple once you know about the “Spare” check box.

Penny Skateboards!

Back when I was a kid I used to have a plastic yellow skateboard with orange wheels, a Penny skateboard from the 70’s.

They have a plastic deck instead of the usual wooden one in a mini-cruiser shape with a rear kick. In total its only 22.5″ long.

The trucks are miniature as well at 3.125″ wide. The wheels are regular size Tunnel wheels, and with the standard bearings they just keep spinning!

Skate-Parts.Com has the Penny completes in stock in every colour at the moment, which includes Blue, Yellow, Black, Red, Bone and Green, and they look great! They are going for $149 at the moment but there are a number of $129 specials planned between now and Christmas. Check out the details here.

I’ve gotten to have a play on one and they are heaps of fun for such small little boards, they are great for cruising on and to take with you given how small they are!

I was down in Lismore recently with my girlfriend for a friends birthday dinner. Anyway, it turned out that we couldn’t pay separately, so needed to get cash out. Fortunately, I already had cash, and there was a Bank of Queensland ATM in the Bullbar restaurant where we were having dinner (in fact there is a Bank of Queensland branch and another ATM directly across the road from it as well), so my girlfriend could get cash out from the ATM in the restaurant. When she began the transaction, it warned her of the ATM fee, which she assumed it just showed to everyone and would be waived for her as a Bank of Queensland account holder.

In total she made three transactions, a balance inquiry and two withdrawals (she decided to get extra just in case after the first one) so $6 in fees. When we got back to Brisbane, the fees were on the statement and were showing as non-BOQ ATM fees. After speaking to her local branch about it, they told her that the ATM was not a Bank of Queensland ATM and thus would not refund the fees, when she insisted that it was a Bank of Queensland branded ATM they flat refused to even look into it.

I suggested calling the Lismore Bank of Queensland branch since it’s directly across the road from the ATM in question. When she called them, they also said they were sure it wasn’t a Bank of Queensland ATM but they were willing to go check it.

After they went and checked it, they called her back and told her that it is in fact a Bank of Queensland ATM, like she had been saying all along. In lieu of that amazing discovery, they refunded the fees along with an extra $2 (so a total of $8 refunded) to apologise for the inconvenience, which was nice of them.

I have to wonder how often this happens with them though, it’s certainly happened to me before, at an actual branch ATM too (Kelvin Grove), not just a stand-alone ATM.

It’s really pretty ridiculous if they can’t even keep track of their own ATM’s, I mean seriously, this one is right across the road from the branch in Lismore and they don’t even know it’s there.

Has this happened to you at a Bank of Queensland ATM with a Bank of Queensland account?

The new, official Clan Hunter website is now live at http://clanhunter.org.uk courtesy of all the hard work Peter from Scotland in Oils has put in to get it done. Also up is http://www.hunterclan.co.uk/ which is currently an information archive and picture storage.

I’ve also got a few more Hunter Clan links, all of which are also courtesy  of Peter:

1. The home page of David H. Hunter - http://www.david-h-hunter.com.au/
2. Clan Hunter New Zealand - http://www.clanhunternz.com/
3. Clan Hunter on RootsWeb - http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/CLAN-HUNTER/2009-12/1259833886

In August last year when my car’s rego check was due, I also had to get all 4 tyres changed, so they were all brand new in August. This was done in NSW.

In October, while I was in QLD I took it in to Keema at Mt Gravatt for the 90,000km service. I’ve had previous services done here and even though it was a bit more expensive than other places I was happy with their customer service as they generally went out of their way to help me and ensure I was happy with everything.

When I picked up the car after this service, which I might add was a $962 service, I discovered that the passenger sun visor clip was broken. I called them up about it and they were a bit difficult about it and didn’t want to know about it, but eventually they did agree to replace it for me free of charge.

I noticed about a month later that one of my back tyres was more worn than the other 3. At the time besides thinking it was a bit odd, I didn’t think that much of it. They were supposed to do a tyre rotation as part of the service so I thought it could have been on the front, and given that my car is front wheel drive, the front does tend to wear down more than rear wheel drive cars. So perhaps they had rotated it to the back and I didn’t look too closely at it.

When I got back from my holiday in February this year, I had a closer look at all the tyres, and that’s when I realised that it was the only one that was worn down, and not only was it more worn than the others, it was significantly more worn. If it was just because of the front wheel drive, there should have been a second tyre equally as worn, and even so, it shouldn’t have been worn that much in such a short space of time.

I checked all the markings and everything on the tyre to make sure it matched all the others, and it did, which left me a bit uncertain as to why it was so much more worn than the rest.

At the time I didn’t think there was any point going back to them about it, after all, it had been 4 months since the time of the service, they could easily argue that I had done something in that time or whatever and refuse to do anything about it.

I’ve put air in my tyres a number of times since but yesterday when I was doing it I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before, the worn down tyre has a silver valve. The other three have gold valves. The worn down tyre IS NOT my tyre. Which leads me to believe that something happened at the service and one of my tyres was swapped for an old one for who knows what reason. I also checked the wheels and it is definitely my wheel, all four of the mags on my car have distinctive scratches, and it has those scratches. So the tyre had to be changed while it was in for service, it can’t have been somehow one of my wheels mistaken for the wheel of another car that was in for a service or something like that.  Which means whoever did it had to be well aware that they were replacing one of my tyres with a tyre that had probably done closer to 25,000km’s, than the ones that were on my car that had only done about 800-1000km’s at the time.

As a result, I realised while checking the air yesterday, this tyre will not pass rego this year and I will need to get a new one.

There is no way that I could have worn one tyre on my car to unroadworthiness in one year, approximately 7,000km’s. Especially not without wearing the others. The ones that have been on the front since the service still look virtually new, as does the other back tyre.

Admittedly the tyres on my car are relatively cheap compared to some - $95 each when I got them last year I think it was, but they should last much longer than this.

I can tell you where I will not be getting another service done - Keema.

I’ve thought about approaching them about it, but it was almost a year ago now and I can’t see them being willing to do anything about it or admitting any wrongdoing. What do you think? I was actually pretty unimpressed with their service at the time to, they are usually quite friendly but I recall that they weren’t that time.

Either way, they won’t be working on my car anymore, there are plenty of other places that are more than happy to do my car service.

Just some more notes on my previous blog posts about the Bank of Queensland and the Greater Building Society here and here.

I still haven’t actually had any indication from the Bank of Queensland that anyone there has noticed anything I’ve said online. I still don’t expect to either.

Since my last blog, I have received mail from the Bank of Queensland, offering me a special offer on a “low rate” Visa credit card. I don’t want a credit card until I know for certain if I’m going to England or not, so I’m not interested at the moment. Out of curiousity though, I did some comparisons.

At the time of writing this, the Bank of Queensland’s Low Rate Visa charges are $55 per year and the current interest rate is 13.49%. This is also exactly what they offered in the “special” deal.

Comparatively at the Greater Building Society the annual fee on a Visa credit card is $30 and the interest rate is 10.49%. Also of note, the annual fee is waived if you spend over $10,000 a year on purchases.

Both are 55 days interest free. I had a quick look at other related fees as well. The Greater just display them in a regular HTML page which is great. The Bank of Queensland though require you to download a PDF which is just a pain.

Anyway, some more comparisons, just for the hell of it:

Domestic Cash Advance Fee

BOQ: 2% of transaction within Australia, minimum $2 - maximum $30.

Greater: If the account balance is negative then 1% of transaction within Australia, minimum $1.50 - maximum $20. If the account balance is positive than a flat fee of $1.50 is charged.

International Cash Advance Fee

BOQ: 2% of transaction within Australia, minimum $4 - maximum $30.

Greater: If the account balance is negative then 1% of transaction within Australia, minimum $4 - maximum $20. If the account balance is positive than a flat fee of $4 is charged.

International Currency Exchange Fee

BOQ: 3% of the Australian Dollar equivalent of the foreign currency transaction.

Greater: 2% of the Australian Dollar equivalent of the foreign currency transaction.

Late Fee / Missed Payment Fee

BOQ: $30

Greater: $30

Over Limit Fee

BOQ: $30

Greater: $25

Information Fee

BOQ: $7 per statement or request beyond what is provided in your monthly statement.

Greater: $15 + $1 per page copied beyond what is provided in your monthly statement or is available under the Consumer Credit Code.

Disputed Transaction Fee

BOQ: $8 - refunded if the dispute is resolved in your favour.

Greater: $10

Default Notice Fee

BOQ: None listed

Greater: $50

Summary

So more or less, the Greater is better priced or comparably priced on everything except the information and disputed transaction fees. I don’t think the information fee is necessarily that big of a deal. The disputed transaction fee is something though that could be important. I guess as long as one is careful with their card and details so as to avoid any potential transactions that may need to be disputed then this one probably won’t add up as much as the difference in interest and transaction fees. Especially not if there are a lot of transactions and you don’t pay within the interest free period.

Like I said, I don’t want a credit card at the moment anyway, and I wish the Bank of Queensland would stop trying to sell me one - I get a letter with an application that has my details pre-filled in every 6 months or so. It’s just annoying, especially since I can get a better deal with my other bank that doesn’t annoy me with regular sales pitches.

I think I would actually prefer a MasterCard than Visa anyway, primarily because I already have Visa debit cards, and while I understand Visa and MasterCard are both fairly widely accepted in the United Kingdom, it probably wouldn’t hurt to have a MasterCard along with the Visa debits, rather than just lots of Visa’s. American Express is also a possibility I suppose. Either way I’m not that worried about it at the moment since I don’t know for sure whether I’m going yet or not.

I also discovered via an ad in BOQ’s online banking that they are on Twitter, their account is @BOQ - Though I’ve not had any interaction with them as yet, I did follow them and they subsequently followed me in return. I think that was a week or so ago now. They do appear to interact with some people though, so I suppose I shall see what happens.

I’ll write about something else soon, I promise. Also I guess I should probably also note that the above fees are from the time of writing this blog, they may well change any time, so you should definitely do your own comparison’s and draw your own conclusions - chances are though, the Greater will probably be better value and be easier to find information about.

I’ve been meaning to write this blog for about a week now, finally found time to do it! A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog on the Bank of Queensland after I was extremely unimpressed with some fees I was charged.

I drew some comparisons with my other bank, the Greater Building Society. I have been very impressed with the Greater Building Society in all aspects for as long as I have been with them, the Bank of Queensland thouh I am very unhappy with, and I think that shows quite clearly in my previous post. I also made a few Twitter comments about it and comparing the two.

Now I’ve not heard from anyone from the Bank of Queensland at all regarding the complaints I made, and I didn’t really expect to. However, 5 days after I wrote the blog and made the comments on Twitter, I received an @ response on Twitter and a comment on the blog post, both addressing the one complaint I had about the Greater - no branches or ATM’s in Brisbane. Turns out that there will be ATM’s from the 1st of June via the RediATM network - Press release here.

I thought that was fantastic, not only the fact that there are going to be numerous ATM’s available to Greater customers without direct ATM fees, but because someone took the time to actually respond to the one issue I had, which isn’t really a big issue anyway.

If that’s not enough though, the next day I got a call from the bank manager at one of the nearest Greater branches, Pacific Pines. She wanted to thank me personally for the glowing feedback on Twitter and the blog post and to give me a suggestion on how I can reduce tax on the interest on one of my accounts as well as to see if there was anything else she could give me advice on or give me a hand with.

I can tell you now, if I wasn’t already happy with their service, I would be now! In fact, I’m absolutely extatic! A bank that wants to see if there is anything they can do better when I’m already extremely happy with them makes me far more confident in them than a bank that takes no interest at all in my complaints (as I said earlier, I didn’t expect any response at all, it was just my venting and I haven’t formally complained to the Bank of Queensland, I don’t like them enough to bother), even if they are only on my blog and Twitter feed. If a building society can afford to actually look at what is being said about them online and respond to it, I’m sure a larger bank can manage it. After all, they need their customers just as much as a small bank/building society do.

Suffice to say, I am happy.

On another note, I’ve applied to go on Exchange to either England or Scotland next year for a semester, and look what I just came across while writing this blog: Win $1,000 spending money on a Travelex prepaid Cash Passport - From the Greater website. Basically, buy a Travelex ATM or Debit Cash Passport through the Greater before the end of June to go into the draw to win a bonus $1,000 on the card. I had a quick look at the Cash Passport information page on the Greater website and also on the Travelex website, and it turns out, British Pounds is one of the currencies available! Timing or what?

As of version 0.7.97, Dropbox has an extremely useful feature called LAN sync. Basically the way it works is that, when enabled, after a file is updated on one computer, it syncs with the Dropbox servers. Then, when other computers that are synchronizing the same files go to download the changes or new file, they first check the local network to determine if the file exists on a computer logged into the same Dropbox account. If it finds it, then it downloads it from that computer on the local network instead of from the Dropbox server.

I have three computers that are syncing, two of them always at home and the laptop that is out and about. So this is excellent news, since any changes I make while I am out only need to be downloaded once at home, or if I’m at home, all the computers will sync without needing to download much data from the internet. This is especially useful with big files because it means reduced internet bandwidth usage and quicker synchronisation times.

It is also great for that first synchronisation of a new computer. Just make sure it’s on the same network as another computer with all the files and it will sync them from that computer instead of from the Dropbox server. This is especially great when you have a lot of data to sync!

I was already won over by Dropbox compared to some of the alternatives, however this feature just makes it even more of a winner in my books!

One of the technical notes is that the computers must be on the same broadcast mask. Usually this is the case particularly on small networks so shouldn’t be an issue for most users. The other thing to note is that if your Dropbox has updated itself to that version or newer from an older version, LAN sync may not be enabled. To enable it, just open up your preferences and check the “Enable LAN sync” box.

I’m not sure what the big 4 banks are doing, or any of the 2nd tier banks besides the Bank of Queensland whom I hold a Reverse Charges student account with, but I do know, that this financial year, I have paid more fees on this student account than I have on my business account and personal account with the Greater Building Society in 3 years, and my personal account with them isn’t even a student account!

I started out with the Bank of Queensland after moving to Brisbane because the closest Greater branch is in Helensvale, it meant that having an account with a bank that has branches and ATM’s in Brisbane would be useful. Since BOQ were my employers bank at the time, it meant my pay went in the day they paid me (Friday) if I was with the BOQ, instead of having a 1 or 2 business day wait (Monday or Tuesday) if they paid to my Greater Building Society account. I dunno about you, but being paid before the weekend is a bit more useful to me than getting paid after.

Anyway, when I first opened the account with the Bank of Queensland 3 years ago, they took a photocopy of my student ID and put the expiry date into their computers. I was told then that I would be on a student account until the expiry on my card, and that if I am a student for longer, I would need to bring in an updated student ID.

This is all well and good.

There have been a couple of times over the first two years where the Bank of Queensland account went into overdraft, but was quickly fixed up. The first was when an EFTPOS transaction at a Shell servo didn’t actually get taken out of my account until 3 months later, and the money wasn’t there for it. This put the account into an overdraft of about $20. From memory I was paid the next day though and the account came out of overdraft with no fees.

The other time was when my insurance payments were changed and the date it came out of my account was also changed. I hadn’t anticipated the payment and it put the account a few dollars into overdraft. I quickly moved some money over from one of my Greater Building Society accounts and was never charged any fees though it took two business days for the money to show up in the BOQ account.

Since the start of 2010 though, the Bank of Queensland have just been getting more and more expensive and difficult.

I received a letter at the start of the year informing me that if I wished to keep my student account I had to prove I was a student and would have to do so by March every year or I would be charged the regular fees.

They have my student ID on file already and I don’t have time to make a trip to their branches in business hours just so they can take a photocopy of something they already have a photocopy of. Keep in mind, they only need this so that I don’t pay the regular fees on my account. The funny thing is, I have a business account with the Greater Building Society, and you know what? I don’t pay any fees on it and I don’t have to go out of my way to show them a student ID to get that either.

A few times I have used the Bank of Queensland ATM at the Kelvin Grove branch to get money out. I was charged fees for using a non-BOQ ATM. At the time, that was a $2 fee per transaction. Now according to their fee guidelines, this should be free anyway, but regardless of that, as a BOQ Reverse Charges account holder, I am entitled to unlimited free EFTPOS withdrawals from BOQ ATM’s. When I saw this on my online statement, I went to the branch and asked about it, they claimed it was impossible, so I told them to look at my account, so they said that they had no idea why the charges were there and removed them. These did not show up on my printed statement and disappeared from my online statement as well. I had to stand around in an empty bank (there were no other customers) for about 30 minutes to get this sorted out. Ridiculous.

Now, the thing that really annoys me is this. I pay my Skype account automatically via PayPal. It withdrew money from the BOQ account and put it into overdraft, admittedly a bit higher than it is normally, -$49.63. This was on a Thursday. On Friday the PayPal transaction was reversed automatically instead of being put through anyway like BOQ have done previously. The BOQ then charged me a $40 overdraft fee and immediately charged me interest at what appears to be roughly 15%. I realised first thing on the Monday morning and transferred more than enough money to cover it.

The fact I have to pay a fee for overdrawing is fine, I understand that, but $40 is a bit rich, and then interest on top of that? I’ve paid them more in one days worth of interest than they have paid me in interest in 3 years, and that account usually has plenty of money in it, it’s only occasionally when I am away and not really keeping on top of it that the automatic transactions bring it down a lot. The most annoying thing about it is that they have never charged this fee before, and I was immediately charged interest. Seriously, wouldn’t it be polite or respectful to charge the fee, notify you, and then charge you interest at the end of the month if the account was overdrawn for more than say 2 weeks?

Here are some more comparisons for the hell of it:

• The BOQ charge $1 a month to have a Visa debit card whether you are a student or not. It is free with the Greater on both business and personal accounts.
• The BOQ fee to send payments to other banks used to be $2 (their current fee schedule indicates it is now free but I’m not going to try). The Greater has always been free on both business and personal accounts.
• BOQ Account Maintenance Fee - $4 per month if the balance is under $2000, free if over or if a student/pensioner. The Greater - Free unless you use more than your included free transactions (I never do).

I tell you what, the moment I’m no longer a student I’ll be leaving the Bank of Queensland, their fees are just too high and they charge for anything and everything. Their new advertising campaign uses the slogan “Your own personal bank”, but I tell ya what, it’s anything but! If it wasn’t for the fact that the Greater don’t have any ATM’s up here, I wouldn’t bother with the BOQ at all anymore.

The result, I will not be leaving any more money in the BOQ account than absolutely necessary and money will only be transferred to it for the purpose of withdrawing it as soon as possible. I’d personally prefer to leave my money with a bank that actually treats me with respect. That’s why the Greater hold 2 of my personal accounts and 1 business account, and I will soon be opening another business account with them, even though it’s a 45 minute drive to the closest branch, or a 2 hour drive to the branch that actually holds my accounts. It’s cheaper to drive the 45 minutes there and back the times I occasionally need to deposit a cheque or do something that requires the branch than to hold an account with the Bank of Queensland, and considering the price of fuel at the moment, that’s saying something!!

Ok, I’m done ranting. I could change my BOQ to another bank that’s up here I suppose, but I mean, I’m only a student for a bit longer, I’ll just pull my money out of their accounts except what I need to withdraw, if I can’t trust them, which I can’t, then I’ll keep as little money with them as possible and have a look at other banks so that by the time I’m no longer a student I’ve figured out another bank that’s in Brisbane that is better, and not Westpac.

I took this screenshot a while ago and totally forgot about it. I thought it was amusing then and I found it amusing a couple minutes ago when I came across it again on my hard drive.

Firefox has determined that the following add-ons are known to cause security or stability problems

Firefox has determined that the following add-ons are known to cause security or stability problems:

• Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant 1.1
• Windows Presentation Foundation 3.5.30729.1

These add-ons have a high risk of causing stability or security problems and have been blocked, but a restart is required to disable them completely.