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18 April 2007

The Sun No Longer Shines For BlueSoleil

Being a Nokia phone owner I have come to rely on being able to synchronise my phone with my PC as an easy way of keeping my contacts and calendar up-to-date. When I got my first bluetooth phone this job was made even easier once I purchased and installed a bluetooth adapter or dongle on my PC. The dongle came with BlueSoleil software which I installed (I didn't know it at the time but with Windows xp I didn't require this driver as it has it's own but hey, hindsight is great). All worked well and every so often the Bluesoleil software would prompt me that there was a newer driver that I should upgrade to. Nothing strange about that and the upgrades were easy enough until last week. Once again I had a prompt when I turned on my PC that there was a newer version of the Bluesoliel driver available that I should download. I did. So far nothing different from before until I go to run the software. I get a pop-up window that tells me that the licence cannot be verified so the software will only run in evaluation mode with a limit of 5mb of data transfer. Initially I ignore it thinking it will go away next time I start my PC. It didn't and the pop-up returns each time I log on. I hate anything not working properly on my PC and I especially hate unhelpful pop-ups. I go to the web site which initially appears to be accusing me of using a counterfeit dongle. Digging further reveals my dongle insn't counterfeit (I knew that) so I send the company an e-mail asking what the problem is. The reply in a nutshell was that this upgrade isn't free but has to be purchased! There was nothing to warn me of this when I upgraded. I was then told that I could simply go back to the old version if I didn't want to pay £14 to upgrade so that's what I did. The result...everytime I logged on I got prompted to upgrade! There was no obvious way to stop this pop-up. As I said, I hate unhelpful pop-ups. This is my PC and I want to be in control of it. So enough was enough. I have now removed Bluesoleil completely and have re-installed the dongle using the Windows driver which works fine. No pop-ups and no fees! "BluSoleil...you may have been considered to have had the best bluetooth software but you've shot yourself in the foot on this one as I'm sure I won't be alone."

2 comments:

A Margarita said...

Haha, that’s devilish. My inner sadist likes it. Can you imagine the power surges we would have around January 1st? All those New Year’s resolutions could be put to good use. What a novel concept. Such a great idea - Gyms producing so much energy that they can be used as power grids. Instead of depleting energy, the gyms would be self-sufficient while providing extra energy for the surrounding city. The gyms could market themselves as environmentally friendly. Work Out, Be Green!

I hate sneaky software; it's one of my pet peeves.

Sally T said...

For any of you reading this and wondering what a margarita is on about it is in response to a comment I made on her blog entitles "I'm Ruined(for the gym)" http://smoresandmargaritas.blogspot.com/2007/04/im-ruined-for-other-gyms.html