TECH SERVICE: An unnamed service has a bug

Saturday, April 14, 2007

FROM AN EXCHANGE OF EMAILS WITH A DEVELOPER

***Begin Quote***

From: A DEVELOPER
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 10:49 PM
To: r @ reinke
Subject: RE: Where did my name go?

Try clearing your cache and cookies and then restarting your browser (I see “reinke” within the green badge and after “Profile:..”.

If that doesn’t work, please reply back.

*** and ***

vs: Still the same. Wanna try sacrificing some chickens next? ;-) Like I hadn’t tried that or seen at a different computer. Why does every PC support person insist on a cold reboot? BTW, since last night was my night to do “microsoft maintenance”, I was forced to do a cold restart. So, perhaps there’s some crud in a table somewhere on your side of the wire?

***End Quote***

If I have learned one thing in testing software (which I think is “fun”), it is don’t annoy users with obvious stuff that has no hope of solving the problem. Or, at least ask it, or propose it in a way that is “softer”. Remember I am unpaid help, or worse I’ve paid for this mistake. At least with “free software”, you haven’t paid to debug someone else’s code.

It’s like that nameless isp that always wants you to power cycle your setup when it’s obvious to the world that they have a dns problem.

About the only thing worse is having paid no support at all. Buying a product and getting no support like IBM, Nuance, Microsoft, and that ilk! (There’s special circle in hell for them.)

Sometimes it would be better to have no support than long phone queues, “dumb” people (Yeah, I know they are working from scripts!), or autobots that just fire back meaningless canned answers.

At least with the new web20s services, you can usually get to SOMEONE.

Argh!

The next round of email I included a screen shot where I MSPAINTed three big orange circles about the problem. (I’m getting pretty handy with that tactic!) That exchange ended with “we have a bug”! Yeah, DUH, you do! I think I said that. Double Argh.

I deliberately didn’t name the SERVICE since they are trying. Let’s give them some time to work before we award them a negative review. Fair is fair.

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH SERVICE: HIGHRISE a crm solution from 37signals

Friday, April 13, 2007

http://www.highrisehq.com/

Highrise

Your address book doesn’t do enough. Traditional CRM software tries to do too much. Highrise is the just-right solution.

***Begin Quote***

Your address book doesn’t do enough. Traditional CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software tries to do too much. That’s why we built Highrise. It’s the just-right, more thoughtful way to keep track of the people, conversations, and tasks that are the lifelines of your business.

***End Quote***

Well it ain’t cheap that’s for sure. Too steep for me.

I gave it a quick look and though that only VCFs in would be a problem.

But what do I know.

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH SERVICE: A dynamic blogroll

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

http://feevy.com

A dynamic blogroll

***Begin Quote***

Replace static, boring blogrolls with dynamic content and transform your blog into a web portal for your network of friends

***End Quote***

Bzzzz! Can’t use javascript on the free version of wordpress. Is there a workaround? It’s a neat idea.

UPDATE 12APR07

One thing I love about the Web20 paradigm is that you actual hear back from real people. Try that with Nuance, IBM,  ScanSoft; Microsoft, Dell, or any big company. Here’s feevy’s response.FROM: Alexandre Girard
Re: [Feevy Problem] Signed on but get “down squirrel”

 We’re testing a sidebar widget to include your Feevy on free version of wordpress, we will tell you as soon as WordPress Team include it on their website admin.

Current workaround is to use RSS widget, and give it your Feevy RSS url:

http://www.feeyv.com/code/your_code/rss.xml

This will not display the proper Feevy, just an updated blogroll of your Feevy Feed.

Cheers,

Alex

Ain’t that terrific! Real people with a real solution in under a lifetime!

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH SERVICE: JOTT (a Voice Phone Call to email service)

Monday, April 9, 2007

http://jott.com/

Voice Phone Call to email
a public beta

***Begin Quote***

Have you ever …

… felt like you don’t remember things you should? Gifts to buy, a stroke of genius, a song to download, a cab fare?

… wanted to send an email or text message to somebody while in your car (and not take your eye off the road)?

… needed to get a message to a group of people, but couldn’t (or didn’t want to) make a bunch of separate calls.

At Jott, we’re simply trying to give you more access: to your ideas, to people, and more.

We do it using things you trust that are already in your life: an ordinary cell phone and your voice.

To Jott, just make a phone call.

The way we figure it, if Jott gives you time back, let’s you connect or get more done, we’ve done our job.

***End Quote***

I heard about this. Tried it. And thought that it might be very useful to have sometime. While it probably will switch to some non-free mode, it might be “handy” to have in reserve. Especially if it is cheap.

From using real dictation to a steno and things like ViaVoice, I know one can dictate much faster than type. And, in some circumstances all you might have access to is a quick phone call. Given that the input is the basic voice phone call, it could be a real “saving shot at the buzzer” sometime.

FWIW

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH SERVICE: WORDPRESS wouldn’t let me put my code fragment in a recent post

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Reference:

https://reinkefj.wordpress.com/2007/04/07/
tech-website-edit-your-jpeg-on-the-web/

In this post, I was trying to show how I went from idea to execution. The last part of the post was supposed to be a WORDPRESS text widget code fragment. (Other WORDPRESS bloggers might be amused at my stumbling attempts and those further back on the learning curve may be able to jump over my blind spot.) Interesting was that although I can see what I put in, it didn’t get echoed in the feed.

Here’s the code as a jpeg. You should be able to see it, but not cut ‘n’ past it.

Interesting?

TEXWIDGETCODE

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Posted by reinkefj

(web, word, or excel) 2 PDF (for free)

Thursday, February 16, 2006

http://www.expresspdf.com/ConvertWordToPdf.aspx

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Posted by reinkefj

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