Ever wondered why call center guys are paid more ?

Ever wondered why call center guys are paid more ?

You know what's scary? I've actually had conversations with clients just like these...

About a million years ago (early 90's) I worked at DAK (a consumer electronic mail order company). We sold one of $99 CD-ROM drives, serial mice, 286 then 386 computers, etc, etc.

And our target market was the general public. The same people buying Bread Makers and Ice Cream Machines...

We had a number of classic tech calls. These are real calls I had...

--------------
Mouse Pain
Customer: My mouse doesn't work well... It's hard to see where it's going.
Tech Support: Are you using a mouse pad?

Customer: How would I use a pad? I have the mouse against the screen... If I put a pad up there too I wouldn't be able to see the screen at all...

--------------
5 1/4 Floppy Fun
Customer: I can't put floppy #5 in...
Tech Support: Is there a problem with the floppy? Is it bent or anything?

Customer: No...
Tech Support: Did the other floppies go in okay?

Customer: Yeah, but #4 was a little hard to get in.
Tech Support: ...

Customer: Like the instructions say, I put in #1, #2, #3, but had to force #4 in and now there's no room for #5.

[The customer wasn't aware that the previous floppy had to be removed before the next was to be inserted]

--------------
Baked Breadmaker
When a customer would lose power in the middle of a Bread making session we would tell them to take the pan out of the machine and put it into the over to finish baking.

Well one customer didn't catch the "pan" part.

The customer took out all the shelves in their oven and put the ENTIRE machine into the over for 45 minutes @ 375... The completely melted breadmaker was a site to see.



I could go on and on...

w.bloggar 4.0 RC2 Released to the Public

My favorite full client blog posting tool has released RC2 of it's next major version, 4.0 (which I'm using to post this...)

Lots of new stuff/fix, and still pretty easy to use... The final release is just under a month away.

I'm going to have to convince my Domestic CFO that this is one "free" package that I should buy...

Update #1 11/21/2004 @ 12:40PM PST:
I need to remember that w.bloggar doesn't do Title links... Here's the link to their site.

Ghost Devices

Ghost Devices

"... Did you know that your machine probably has every device driver for every device you've ever installed or plugged in still loaded?

The most obvious proof shows up when you swap out one network card for another, but try to keep the same static IP address. Windows will alert you that the IP address is already in use by another network adapter (even though you may never use that adapter again). I finally got tired of seeing this message, so I decided to go on a web hunt for a way to remove the old network adapter once and for all.

Here is what I've found:

1. Right click on My Computer, and select properties.
2. Click the Advanced tab, and select Environment Variables.
3. Click New in System Variables.
4. Type devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices in the Variable Name field, and the number 1 in the Variable Value field.
5. Click OK.
6. Click the Hardware tab, and select Device Manager.
7. Click the View menu, and select Show Hidden Devices.

You will now see a ghost icon for any devices that are installed but not connected. ..."

Very cool tip from Joshua

I copied it here cause I KNOW I'll need this, but won't remember where I put it and wanted to make sure when I googled my blog I'd be able to find it (since my blog is my remote memory store I google it allot :)

Writing Windows SharePoint Services Server-Side controls

Writing Windows SharePoint Services Server-Side controls

This is a nice article on a writing server side Windows SharePoint Services control in VB.Net...

ClipPath

ClipPath

"As a Programmer, we are often required to set the path or classpath Environment variables. But Windows Operating does not allow us to copy the full path of a file or a folder,say, c:\temp\try.java to clipboard so that we can paste the same anywhere we require. Clip Path utility tries to solve these problems. It is a windows Shell Extension Program. Once installed, you can copy full path of a file or folder to clipboard.

New features in Version 2.1 include the Addition of one more menu item - "Create Outlook Link(s)"."

Oh man... this is cool! Read about it on Early Adopter and immediately installed it. For me, this just rocks.

I am copying file paths into Outlook/documents/etc all day it seems, and with Explorer it's been a two step process. Copy the path, then copy the file name. With this utility it's now done with one right click.

The Create Outlook Links is also VERY cool.

(via Early Adopter - A nifty utility that makes my heart sing...

Another social app to try out (Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger)

Another social app to try out (Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger)

You know the problem with social app's?

You have to be social or have friends...

:|

Julia Lerman Blog - Don't Be Iffy... - Designing Crystal reports - from a database vs. from ADO.NET

Julia Lerman Blog - Don't Be Iffy... - Designing Crystal reports - from a database vs. from ADO.NET

Nice tip from Julia on designing reports in Crystal Reports without directly connecting to a database to get the schema...

Unused CPU/Bandwidth ? [World Community Grid]

Unused CPU/Bandwidth ?

"Do you have PC's just sitting around connected to the internet or corporate network just spinning CPU cycles, doing the computing equivalent of twiddling their thumbs ? - I have three PC's on my desk which are running 24x7, during the night they are typically not doing a lot, so what can I do with the spare CPU cycles and internet bandwidth ?

Huge amounts of data exist that can identify the role of individual proteins, but it must be analyzed to be useful. This analysis could take years to complete on super computers. World Community Grid hopes to shrink this time to months.

...

So, how about donating some of your CPU time to a good cause ? - How about donating some of those CPU cycles to the World Community Grid - You can install an application (that also runs as a screen saver) that will pull down data for analysis and chew on the data while you're not using your PC."

A family matter this week has hightened my need to help disease research. I do have a number of machines that are idle much of the day and it's been a long time since I've taken part in a Grid.

Now seems like a perfect time to join the World Community Grid (http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/).

Saurabh's Believe It Or Not : Home Computer for 2004

Saurabh's Believe It Or Not : Home Computer for 2004

Wow... How did they know 50 years ago that my home PC would look just like this? ;)

My son really likes the steering wheel that I added to play Nascar...

PDF for Lawyers: Acrobat 7.0 Introduced

PDF for Lawyers: Acrobat 7.0 Introduced

Sigh... and I've not had a chance to roll out 6.0...

Oh well, time to leap frog. :)

The Code Project - World Clock and the TimeZoneInformation class - .NET

The Code Project - World Clock and the TimeZoneInformation class - .NET

"...This article is an attempt to provide code that is useful for converting a time stamp into the end-user's own time zone.

Another group of users also need to deal with time zones: travellers wishing to know the time at their destination, or the time at home - for example, when trying to call relatives or colleagues. The accompanying application, a demonstration of the TimeZoneInformation class, is useful here.

Different countries and locations around the world use different time zones - to match the time shown on a clock with the approximate local time observed. The simplest description is as an offset from UTC - Universal Time (Coordinated) - although often erroneously described as an offset from GMT - Greenwich Mean Time. GMT can describe the time zone used in Britain, or a specific offset (UTC+0). The issue is complicated by Daylight Savings Time; some locations observe Daylight Savings whereas others do not. Even when they do, they do not agree on the dates and times at which the changes to and from Daylight Savings occur.

Keeping an accurate record of the time zones used around the world is a hard task. Local administrations make rules about the local offset from UTC, and about whether to observe Daylight Savings, and if so, when. Fortunately, Windows has a database of time zone information installed on every system. Unfortunately, Microsoft failed to provide an API for querying this database.

In addition, Windows provides APIs for discovering the currently selected time zone, for converting from UTC to a specified time zone's local time, and (Windows XP and Server 2003 only) for converting from local time, in a specified zone, to UTC.


.NET's Base Class Library offers the System.TimeZone class. This class offers information about the current time zone. However, it does not offer any information about other time zones - what their names are, their offsets, or their daylight savings rules. This class is abstract, so could be extended. I have not yet done so as some features (GetDaylightChanges, IsDaylightSavingTime) will be difficult to implement, while others (ToUniversalTime) can be implemented with OS support, but only on newer operating systems...."


I'll need this ...

I already have a VB6 Time Zone API wrapper class, but when we move to all .Net I would like to replace it with a better implementation.

USysWare DPack Home (1.3.2 Released)

USysWare DPack Home

"Welcome to USysWare DPack web site! DPack is a FREE collection of Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 add-ins. DPack includes:

Code Browser add-in (screenshot, updated)
File Browser add-in (screenshot)
Framework Browser add-in (screenshot)
Code Navigation add-in (screenshot)
Bookmarks add-in (screenshot)
Surround With add-in (screenshot)
Delphi Keyboard Mapping Scheme

DPack 1.3.2, 376Kb, Free (released on November 14, 2004, updated)"

"...here's what's new in this release:

Code Browser add-in - introduced new member access visibility buttons to Code Browser add-in dialog. New buttons allow for additional member list filtering based on member access level visibility (Public, Internal, Protected and Private)."

The cool DPack has been updated to 1.3.2...