I spoke to my WOW failing friend last night and he still hasn’t got it going. But he did have a lengthy chat with a router support person in the US, so has a few things to try.

I actually feel guilty when people have problems like this. I’m almost embarressed by the IT business that we make it so tough for regular people to get a game running, ferchrissakes. He asked me how my install went and I said he doesn’t really want to know that it worked OK. How much background knowledge have I picked up over many years to make the installation and problem solving relatively easy. Loads.

WOW is great though, it’s just so beautiful to look at.

The Microsoft interview I was supposed to have last Monday, then Tuesday, then Thursday and finally Friday was canned on Thursday. I thought it sounded a bit odd. According to the agent they were just too enthusiastic and happy about it all and that the interview would be a shoe-in and done. I think somebody squirmed a bit thinking gee this guy’s resume is too good and came up with that old chesnut of an excuse about there being no budget. Yeah, right. 

I phoned an agent about a position and it was painfull getting through to her as they’d advertised a position and no doubt got a ton of resumes. When I did get through it was hard going as the agent’s English was none too hot. She hinted strongly that most of their successfull applicants had the previously mentioned HSMP visa. Well that was a turn up for the books. I got the message that even if I had emailed my resume it wouldn’t have got very far.

London tube train announcement to passengers

‘Let the passengers off the train FIRST!” (Pause .) “Oh go on then, stuff yourselves in like sardines, see if I care – I’m going home….” ‘

I was basically right re my friends World Of Warcraft problem in that his firewall wasn’t allowing incoming WOW data.

He had a Norton firewall and the XP firewall running at the same time as well as the firewall on the router so it was a miracle that any outbound WOW data got through. I don’t think AOL understand router firewalls, as they were telling him to open ports through the Norton and XP firewalls. Well that’s fine provided the router firewall is letting the data through in the first place.

I told him to disable the Norton and XP firewalls and logon to the router and open the ports that WOW wants open. I think he’s done some of them but you have to stipulate for which PC the ports are to be opened for. And of course you then have to start talking about computer names which this person has no knowledge of. As soon as you mention Control Panel, System their eyes glaze over.

He’s obviously not the only person to have this problem, bearing in mind how geeky the work around is. I don’t know if WOW can be played without an Internet connection, but if it can then I bet there’s are thousands out there playing it in a stand-alone mode.

As it was just so darn painfull helping this person from a distance, I thought I’d give WOW a shot myself. I was lucky to get the basic 5 CD box for $12. Installing that on Vista was fiddly. Then when it started, it wanted to download 500mb of data, which took a couple of hours. The download software after awhile came up with a message that I was behind a firewall so I cancelled the download so that I could solve the firewall problem right up front.

Oddly the router, which had settings for a load of games, didn’t have any for WOW, which meant I had to hand roll them, which I did. Restarted the download and this time there was no problem with it thinking I was behind a firewall, so it looks like I won’t be having my friends problem. Had other snags though, which meant I had to go into some deep PC mode when I had a whole load of hacking to do to get the darn thing installed and which was ultimately successful, I think. When I have to go into hack mode I can never remember afterwards what I did to get it to work, I just remember thrashing about for awhile.

This morning I had a play of WOW and it’s great. The graphics and music are superb and it is very playable. You could lose your life playing this thing, you just don’t want to do anything else. 

I was talking to an agent that specialises in testing work and he mentioned something called the HSMP, which stands for Highly Skilled Migrant Program, a visa allowing qualifying people to work in the UK.

He said that Cap Gemini take on a load of these people from Asia and pay them a pittance, whilst the company charge them out at very high rates no doubt. He then said that after a couple of years these visa workers get wise to the market place and decide to jump ship and go contract, thinking they will earn a fortune. Apparently every position this agent advertises he receives about 60 resumes from these guys but there is invariably a communication problem as their English isn’t too good. Though that obviously didn’t stop them doing some sterling work for Cap Gemini.

I did some checking about the HSMP visa which was interesting. Stick HSMP into Google and the first two results, which are paid for, are for a couple of companies that specialise in helping people get the required visa. There is even an online test you can take to determine whether you qualify for the visa. You get points based on your answers and provided your total points was sufficient then you were eligible for a visa. But there is a gotcha. One of the companies charged £400 for some kind of document checking process. Why would it be so expensive to check that someone has filled out a form correctly?

I took the test myself and it was a bit wonky. They asked questions like ‘What is the highest level of education you had finished?’, ‘Do you speak good English?’, ‘Which university did you attend?’, ‘How much did you earn in the last twelve months?’ and strangely ‘What is your earnings power?’. Not many highly skilled questions there then. Based on your answers to these questions, points were awarded.

I took the test myself and to the question about education selected the option for no university education at all. I selected under 27 for the age question. For the question about earnings power, what has that got to do with anything, I selected a very modest expected earnings. I clicked on the calculate control and you guessed it, I had passed. No doubt the £400 for the document checking service will round out all of the rough edges.

You are displayed a page where it shows you the number of points awarded for each of your answers. For me, where I had entered the lowest education level, I got 30 points. Uh! I got 20 points for my age and 40 points for my potential earnings, which I’d said was very modest. This was a test that you could not fail. Obviously at this stage I did not need to prove any of my answers, no doubt I would get the chance to do that at the document checking process time.

As you can see most points were awarded for potential earnings, something that you cannot prove. If you stipulate no university education, so there’s nothing to prove there either, you still get a load of points, so that was not a hindrance. And if you say you are under 27 then you have enough points to qualify for a HSMP visa, and the visa help companies make a load of money for filling out some forms for you.

There was no mention of any skill at all on one of the tests I took. On another test it did ask what job I would be applying for, but you didn’t need to select from a drop down list box of essential skills required in the UK or anything relevant like that. I entered ‘Farmer’ and there was no problem with that.

Is this right?