Accept that I could be wrong, this is just my interpretation...
From what I read, Monsterhut established a contract with the ISP, then when the ISP provided them notification that the contract had been broken by Monsterhut, and the service was going to be terminated, Monsterhut turned around and got a lower court judge to establish an injunction against the termination of the service by the ISP.
Monsterhut's arguments were that they were not spaming, and that they had otherwise lived up to the contract.
The ISP's arguments were that the thresholds established for determining that Monsterhut had been spaming had been crossed, and that the contract was "At Will" meaning that either party could terminate the contract for any reason, or no reason at all.
The decision by the ISP to terminate the service was based upon the fact that the ISP had received more than 2% email complaining that Monsterhut was a spam source. I do not know what that 2% was of, (network trafic, number of complaints about customer spamming, total volume of e-mail to the ISP) but in my opinion that is a valid threshold. If they set the threshold lower, it is possible that anyone could get kicked off, without having sent any spam, simply because they upset some wanabe hacker who complained to the ISP. 2% of one of these levels means that more money is being spent handling this customer, than the customer is paying.
Personally I think that Monsterhut should be further delt with by making them pay for the ISP's legal bills.
Source code is like models used to create the molds that are used to manufacture parts. Whether it is a sand mold that is used to cast an engine, an extrusion mold for pipes and the like, or an injection mold used to create plastic parts, it is created as a template of the part that will be produced.
Once a person has created the model of the ultimate product, they create the mold using any of a number of tools. In computer parlance, the source code is procesed by a compiler, assembler, or interpreter. Likewise the physical model has a cast applied to it, or is used by someone to hand cut an extrusion mold, and so forth. Using modern computer equipment, a Mill can be used to cut a mold as well.
Once the mold has been made, it is used to create the end product. In software we link the code into the libraries provided by the operating system, or other software developer. In the manufacturing world, (except for engines which get new sand casts for each engine cast) the mold is used for the production run of parts.
Once the production run is complete the mold and model are shelved for re-use in making one-off parts. This is similar to putting the source code onto a floppy, cd-r, or put into a source code library.
In the manufacturing world, people at the company where the part was made, may find the mold useful in some other product. Being able to pull it off the shelf is akin to pulling the source code out of a library for re-use.
One of the differences between the manufacturing world and the software world is that it is extreamly unlikely that if I wanted to make up something new, that I could go to various companies and borrow or copy molds for my product. In the software world, it is possible to include the source code, or a library function, for a calculator in my program that someone on the other side of the world makes available.
I think that should provide you a set of analogies that you can work from to explain source code, and should segway nicely into explaining Open Source as well.
So far as I know, and I could be wrong, Replay has never collected such information. Tivo has, but has done so in an aggrigated form. I believe Tivo does so by zip code and reciever type, but I don't know that for any certainty.
While I do no own a replay, nor do I know any owners who hack their systems, I do have doubts about the reliabiliy of the data being collected.
They have 60 days to build a database that reports all clicks, skips, and passes. I.e. in less than two months, they have to construct, test and distribute bug free software.
This I would love to see.
Why bug free? Do you want to explain that the reason that the database shows all of the comercials on all of the 4000 series Replays were the only material passed from one PVR to another, and that the data shows that the viewers were watching the comercials and skipping the shows, was a bug in the software? To a Judge?
If they pull it off, I will be impressed. If they do so without making it possible that even one of the pvrs could be hacked to start reporting the lowest rated shows as the only shows being recorded, I will really be impressed.
There are two aspects of gpg integration. One is setting up/configuring gpg, the other is using gpg. While I am generally happy with the using gpg portion of this process as Evolution runs, I am not sure that I want Evolution to be the tool that sets up GPG.
For setting up gpg, I would prefer a stand alone wizard/configuration utility. It would be nice if this utility would verify with the user what applications that were installed needed GPG configuration changes made, (such as telling Evolution where the gpg files were located, as if ~/.gpg/ were not standard enough, and which secret key to use.)
As there are many different e-mail clients that could use gpg, as well as other types of applications where gpg could be handier, (such as VPNs, personal file encryption, and encrypted partitions) any of which could be added as a module to a stand alone gpg management program, I do not think tightly integrating the key generation to Evolution, or any other specific e-mail client would be a particularly good idea.
The Brass in the Pentagon, and other leadership positions all know at some level that it is human butts on the line. That does not mean that they are always the ones in control. I am less worried about the Brass thinking of this as a game, than I am the politicians thinking of this as a game.
One point of observation with respect to simulators in military training. My recollection (which is subject to errors) of military history has it that the Japanese observed our military training methods after WWI, and noted that many trainees were being taught rifle marksmanship with a broomstick. As a result, they felt that we were going to be a pushover, because our troops had "no experience".
Some people may be saying that all this money being spent on game simulation training does not give one the required experience. My own feeling is that game simulation training is used as an adjunct to common combat skills training. Pilots use flight simulators to keep their skills sharp, and to train for situations which you and I hope never happen. If you spend the time required, driving simulator games can improve your driving skills. First Person Simulator combat games can help you become a better soldier. However one thing to remember is that none of the simulators on their own will provide you with all the necesary skills. Unless you have some practical experience with the skill in question, (flying, driving or combat) you will not be as good as someone who has done that skill for a living but has had no simulation experience.
As far as the 5 to 8 screens in combat helicopters, I suspect that we will see three low cost medium resolution screens in cars in the next couple of years, (flir-heads up for night driving, GPS mapping screen to keep track of where you have been and where you are going, and the video screen for the kids in the back seat to watch dvds, videos, tv, or play games.
Now if you could tie the systems together, and add additional screens in the back seat, so that each kid could have their own center. Then find some way to tie the systems in cars together, you could play rolling Car Wars.....
The portions of the SMB tree that these pattents apply to have been abandoned by Microsoft because they have a flaw in their design.
Conjecture is that the flaw affected the naming of files, or possibly handling the case of file names, though with Unix/POSIX I am not entirely certain. For all I know the flaw or flaws affected how a directory was identified.
I tend to doubt that there is anything preventing a port of SAMBA to Win32, other than demand. As SMB is installed by default, the only reason that a user would look for an alternative is that there is a bug that prevents the user from accomplishing whatever task SMB/Samba is required to accomplish.
While I as a network maintenance person may feel the security threats built into the Win32 implemntations of SMB from Microsoft are sufficient reason to migrate to some other solution, I tend to suspect that most CIO and other upper management personell are not so inclined.
As I recall, there are alternative protocols available, including IPX over IP, as well as IBM's APPN that could provide some of the same services, however it would surprise me if any business switched to any of those at this point in their history either. If you wish to investigate, open your network control pannel, and "Add a protocol". I belive that you will find protocols from Banyon, IBM, Microsoft and Novell.
Considering the target market of TechTV, which is people who buy computers at superstores or from major online retailers (Dell, Gateway2000, etc.) I happen to think that they are very open minded.
They regularly let people know that Windows is not the only operating system available to them. They have interviewed a large number of very influential non-windows oriented people. While they do not have any programing specifically oriented at Apple, Linux, BSD, or Palm, they do include bits oriented towards letting people see the power of the alternative OS's, as well as providing some usefull tips on some of the newer capabilities available.
Hey, they even disassembled an iPod on the air the day it was anounced. They have shown case mods for Apple poroducts, done complete Linux OS installs live on the air, and so on. The news programming is tech oriented, but you will probably read about it here on/. first. The CyberCrime show has done in depth coverage on a number of online scams and illegal activities. FreshGear is more hardware oriented than software, though there are a few pices on new software.
To get an idea of what is covered, take a look at the show "The Screen Savers" portion of the site, and go through the show notes for the past couple of weeks. While it is predominatly Windows oriented, you will find the threads to show you that it is not all Windows. One of the hosts, and another of the major show participants are primarly Macintosh people. The other host has no problem with taking a sledghammer to hardware that is not operating as designed.
Paul Allen may have co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates, but he is not Bill Gates. He still holds a substantial stake in the company, but is not an active participant. He has diversified his finances quite well and Vulcan Venturs Inc. is not beholden to Bill Gates in any way that I am aware of.
Then again, I have been known to be wrong, and I accept the prospect that it has happened again.
Tilda may be, or was the primary animated character for TechTV/ZDTV, but she was not the only such character. There was a male counterpart named Dash. Also one of the cameramen/artists on the show would film himself then animate a cube where his head would be. I think his character was called Blockhead.
that we get a new slew of "New Coke" comercials as well?
Re:Isn't this the point of the Cybiko?
on
PDAs For Kids
·
· Score: 4, Informative
This looks like it is aimed at an even younger generation. Cybiko appears to me to be aimed at kids who can already read and write. This appears to be aimed at kids who can't yet.
As there appears to be a modular software interface, I would suspect that this will be a toy that will grow with the kid until he or she decides that it is time to move up to a more powerful PDA, like a Cybiko.
Also with the modular interface, I expect that a pc interface will be developed within the next year, if for nothing more than to be able to send grandma and grandpa the pictures that little tyke has drawn.
I have worked tech support, at one level or another, for my entire career. By that I mean everything from on site, or in shop repair of electroincs in the military and civilian life, through outsourced customer help desk for a still major PC vendor, through building suppportable updates to corporate systems, through global reach network support for a major bank.
My experience is not comprehensive, but I do have a few insights.
Don't make your first line customer support center into a profit center. I know, it costs money to run a fl customer support center, especially when you consider the hardware involved, but also payroll. Consider that a help desk generally hires temporary employees at $10-15/hr, (I suspect that they are paying the temp companies $20-30 per hour for these people) and for a large PC vendor, there are between 100 and 200 people taking calls 24 hours a day. It does add up quickly. On the other hand I have seen fl techs bill people for 10 different incidents in a single 20 min call, each incident costing $35 or more.
Scripts (when written correctly) should help a fl either help you solve the problem, or get you to the right people. Howerver these scripts are written by people, who generally get their information by talking to the engineer of whatever project installed the piece that is to be supported. As a result, they are specific to that component, and rarely take into considerations interactions with other system components or even other software that a user may be working with. A good tech will recognize this, and be flexible enough to come up with his or her own set of questions to add to those in the scripts. However it is a rare tech support organization that will set up tools that such a tech support person can use in this way. On top of that if the tech is good, he or she is often promoted out of the tech pool to manage the lesser techs, or occasionally teach them. What happens when you pull the cream of the crop out of the interface to your customers? Your customers get the dregs as their first contact.
Let your tech support become name recognized by your customers. Note that is not a "force" that is a 'Let'. Customers generally feel better when they "know" who will be at the other end of the line. As a customer, I am far more forgiving of my tech support person not knowing the answere to a problem I have if I can identify with them. If you have a policy that allows your tech support people to be asked for by name, or who are assigned to your customer's ticket while they are on shift, customers will not feel like they are getting the run around.
I have yet to see a ticketing system that has built in data mining tools that will help a tech support person find similar problems and what their solutions were. In almost every case I have ever seen, a ticketing system has been a management tool used to see who is taking the most calls, and who is closing their tickets in the least amount of time. If you mean for the tool to be useful to the tech, on an other than individual ticket by ticket basis, that tool has got to have some built in help for the tech.
Lastly follow through on support. Just because the customer claims that the problem appears to be solved, does not mean that it has been resolved. Schedule some time, or some people to follow up on a high percentage of tickets, and find out if the customer is satisfied. You don't have to ask page of questions on how the problem was handled. Start with the question, "Is the problem you encountered solved to your satisfaction?". Listen to the response. If the response is anything less than a hearty and happy "Yes." then you should start asking how the process can be improved, and so on.
One problem when it comes to problem tickets, and escalations, is that no-one in a tech support queue types as fast as the customer speaks. If you recite off an error message, or a dozen field headers that are coming back with garbage, your tech support person will probably not be able to include them in the ticket. As a result, if the ticket is escalated to second level support, they probably will not have the data. If it is important to you that the data get into the ticket, take your time and make sure that the fl tech gets the informaiton completely in the ticket.
This should be the tech support mantra I think: "I understand that for you, this problem is very important. It is preventing you from doing your job right now, and very well may be preventing your company from earning the revenue that is paying me. I also understand that not everyone that you have spoken with in the past has held this view. I also understand that the fact that you were on hold for one or more hours has made you feel that we do not take your problem seriously. I want you to know that the perceptions you have had in the past are not the perceptions I would like you to have going forward."
A nano-tube is what you get when you start with a bucky ball, split it in half, add carbon atoms between the hemispheres to build a cylinder with a hemisphere at each end. that would be a Bucky-tube. Taking the hemisphere's off then end will make an open Bucky-tube.
You could also take a one atom thick sheet of carbon atoms (graphite is multiple layers of these sheets) and roll it so that one edge bonds to the other edge. This would give you a tube of arbitrary radius. An open Bucky-tube is a special case.
Further trivia, a bucky ball is a sphere of 60 carbon atoms formed in a shape similar to a socker ball.
Actually royalties paid for playing performances on radio, in stores, etc. are paid to the song writer, not the performer. Part of the DMCA was designed to allow the performer to get a royalty as well, off internet performances, CARP (in my opinion) mistakenly set the royalty payments too high.
I will accept that the label rather than the publisher is getting money from the sale.
Out of a $16 cd, the artist is lucky to get $1. I say lucky, because until the artist pays for the studio time, and the expenses of actually building the master, and paying for the press run on the CD, the artist's $1 per cd goes to the production run.
The remaining $15 is used to pay for advertizing, copyright management, lawyers, and profit for the publishers.
The problem with this argument is that if I as an unsigned artist puts out multiple music tracks, music vidios, documentaries, or movies that I personally produce, you are branding me or the people who decide to review my work a thief.
You are taking the opportunity for artists who are aspiring to become great, away from them. You should be thrown in gael.
Or has the host carrier gone and crashed for the night? I mean I would hate to think that someone/.'ed a wearable computer. Wouldn't that make it luggable?
Sorry to say this, but the Lottery is not a tax on idiocy. It is a tax on people who don't understand probability.
There are three rules to understand when playing the lottery. 1) If you buy up all permutations, you won't get out what you put in. Rare instances provide possible counterexamples, howerver by the time the lottery jackpot gets to the point where you can potentially recoup your losses, other players will have an equally likely chance of winning. This is why big buisness does not play.
2) If you buy tickets at "reasonable" volumes, less than a thousand tickets, your odds of winning are not appreciably better than if you buy one ticket.
3) If you don't play, you can't win. When taken into consideration with the earlier rules means that the purchase of an occasional ticket is reasonable so long as it does not prevent you from having a life. To me it means that the jump from no chance of winning, to one in 80million, is significantly more than the jump from 1 in 80million to 1 in 80thousand. (1000 lottery tickets, potentially).
Then again, these are my oppinions, I could be wrong.
I stoped at my local Toys-R-Us, and they were out of the microscope. However I remember seeing one a couple of months back at my local Target. So on my way home I stopped by and they had four at 24.99 each. I only bought one, but if you are interested in putting some up on e-bay, or something like that, and you are in the mpls-stpl area, check your local Target. They can even check with the other Targets in the region and see if there are any others available.
Works for me. My Phillups Tivo rcvr does have a coax in for antena/cable, however it does not have a pair of lugs for a uhf antena. Neither does my TV, and it recieves UHF just fine, so I won't eliminate that as a possibility.
Dish does have a PVR reciever, I was under the impression from ads I saw a year or so ago that it was a Tivo PVR, but I accept that I am probably wrong.
It would annoy me to no end if I was not able to continue to use my Tivo under the merged network. Then again, it would give me a free licence to hack my Tivo, so we shall see.
Slashdot Mirror
Accept that I could be wrong, this is just my interpretation...
From what I read, Monsterhut established a contract with the ISP, then when the ISP provided them notification that the contract had been broken by Monsterhut, and the service was going to be terminated, Monsterhut turned around and got a lower court judge to establish an injunction against the termination of the service by the ISP.
Monsterhut's arguments were that they were not spaming, and that they had otherwise lived up to the contract.
The ISP's arguments were that the thresholds established for determining that Monsterhut had been spaming had been crossed, and that the contract was "At Will" meaning that either party could terminate the contract for any reason, or no reason at all.
The decision by the ISP to terminate the service was based upon the fact that the ISP had received more than 2% email complaining that Monsterhut was a spam source. I do not know what that 2% was of, (network trafic, number of complaints about customer spamming, total volume of e-mail to the ISP) but in my opinion that is a valid threshold. If they set the threshold lower, it is possible that anyone could get kicked off, without having sent any spam, simply because they upset some wanabe hacker who complained to the ISP. 2% of one of these levels means that more money is being spent handling this customer, than the customer is paying.
Personally I think that Monsterhut should be further delt with by making them pay for the ISP's legal bills.
-Rusty
And of course the window that pops up after you click [cancel] is "2 l8!"
-Rusty
Source code is like models used to create the molds that are used to manufacture parts. Whether it is a sand mold that is used to cast an engine, an extrusion mold for pipes and the like, or an injection mold used to create plastic parts, it is created as a template of the part that will be produced.
Once a person has created the model of the ultimate product, they create the mold using any of a number of tools. In computer parlance, the source code is procesed by a compiler, assembler, or interpreter. Likewise the physical model has a cast applied to it, or is used by someone to hand cut an extrusion mold, and so forth. Using modern computer equipment, a Mill can be used to cut a mold as well.
Once the mold has been made, it is used to create the end product. In software we link the code into the libraries provided by the operating system, or other software developer. In the manufacturing world, (except for engines which get new sand casts for each engine cast) the mold is used for the production run of parts.
Once the production run is complete the mold and model are shelved for re-use in making one-off parts. This is similar to putting the source code onto a floppy, cd-r, or put into a source code library.
In the manufacturing world, people at the company where the part was made, may find the mold useful in some other product. Being able to pull it off the shelf is akin to pulling the source code out of a library for re-use.
One of the differences between the manufacturing world and the software world is that it is extreamly unlikely that if I wanted to make up something new, that I could go to various companies and borrow or copy molds for my product. In the software world, it is possible to include the source code, or a library function, for a calculator in my program that someone on the other side of the world makes available.
I think that should provide you a set of analogies that you can work from to explain source code, and should segway nicely into explaining Open Source as well.
So far as I know, and I could be wrong, Replay has never collected such information. Tivo has, but has done so in an aggrigated form. I believe Tivo does so by zip code and reciever type, but I don't know that for any certainty.
Then again, I could be wrong.
-Rusty
While I do no own a replay, nor do I know any owners who hack their systems, I do have doubts about the reliabiliy of the data being collected.
They have 60 days to build a database that reports all clicks, skips, and passes. I.e. in less than two months, they have to construct, test and distribute bug free software.
This I would love to see.
Why bug free? Do you want to explain that the reason that the database shows all of the comercials on all of the 4000 series Replays were the only material passed from one PVR to another, and that the data shows that the viewers were watching the comercials and skipping the shows, was a bug in the software? To a Judge?
If they pull it off, I will be impressed. If they do so without making it possible that even one of the pvrs could be hacked to start reporting the lowest rated shows as the only shows being recorded, I will really be impressed.
-Rusty
There are two aspects of gpg integration. One is setting up/configuring gpg, the other is using gpg. While I am generally happy with the using gpg portion of this process as Evolution runs, I am not sure that I want Evolution to be the tool that sets up GPG.
For setting up gpg, I would prefer a stand alone wizard/configuration utility. It would be nice if this utility would verify with the user what applications that were installed needed GPG configuration changes made, (such as telling Evolution where the gpg files were located, as if ~/.gpg/ were not standard enough, and which secret key to use.)
As there are many different e-mail clients that could use gpg, as well as other types of applications where gpg could be handier, (such as VPNs, personal file encryption, and encrypted partitions) any of which could be added as a module to a stand alone gpg management program, I do not think tightly integrating the key generation to Evolution, or any other specific e-mail client would be a particularly good idea.
Then again, I could be wrong.
Two ways have been mentioned so far.
.pst folders to mbox folders, then import the mbox folders into Evolution.
The client only method is to use Mozilla to convert your
If you have access to an imap server, then transfer your outlook folders to the imap server, then pull them down in evolution.
There may be other methods, but these are the two I am aware of.
-Rusty
The Brass in the Pentagon, and other leadership positions all know at some level that it is human butts on the line. That does not mean that they are always the ones in control. I am less worried about the Brass thinking of this as a game, than I am the politicians thinking of this as a game.
One point of observation with respect to simulators in military training. My recollection (which is subject to errors) of military history has it that the Japanese observed our military training methods after WWI, and noted that many trainees were being taught rifle marksmanship with a broomstick. As a result, they felt that we were going to be a pushover, because our troops had "no experience".
Some people may be saying that all this money being spent on game simulation training does not give one the required experience. My own feeling is that game simulation training is used as an adjunct to common combat skills training. Pilots use flight simulators to keep their skills sharp, and to train for situations which you and I hope never happen. If you spend the time required, driving simulator games can improve your driving skills. First Person Simulator combat games can help you become a better soldier. However one thing to remember is that none of the simulators on their own will provide you with all the necesary skills. Unless you have some practical experience with the skill in question, (flying, driving or combat) you will not be as good as someone who has done that skill for a living but has had no simulation experience.
As far as the 5 to 8 screens in combat helicopters, I suspect that we will see three low cost medium resolution screens in cars in the next couple of years, (flir-heads up for night driving, GPS mapping screen to keep track of where you have been and where you are going, and the video screen for the kids in the back seat to watch dvds, videos, tv, or play games.
Now if you could tie the systems together, and add additional screens in the back seat, so that each kid could have their own center. Then find some way to tie the systems in cars together, you could play rolling Car Wars.....
-Rusty
The portions of the SMB tree that these pattents apply to have been abandoned by Microsoft because they have a flaw in their design.
Conjecture is that the flaw affected the naming of files, or possibly handling the case of file names, though with Unix/POSIX I am not entirely certain. For all I know the flaw or flaws affected how a directory was identified.
I tend to doubt that there is anything preventing a port of SAMBA to Win32, other than demand. As SMB is installed by default, the only reason that a user would look for an alternative is that there is a bug that prevents the user from accomplishing whatever task SMB/Samba is required to accomplish.
While I as a network maintenance person may feel the security threats built into the Win32 implemntations of SMB from Microsoft are sufficient reason to migrate to some other solution, I tend to suspect that most CIO and other upper management personell are not so inclined.
As I recall, there are alternative protocols available, including IPX over IP, as well as IBM's APPN that could provide some of the same services, however it would surprise me if any business switched to any of those at this point in their history either. If you wish to investigate, open your network control pannel, and "Add a protocol". I belive that you will find protocols from Banyon, IBM, Microsoft and Novell.
Then again, I could be wrong.
-Rusty
Considering the target market of TechTV, which is people who buy computers at superstores or from major online retailers (Dell, Gateway2000, etc.) I happen to think that they are very open minded.
/. first. The CyberCrime show has done in depth coverage on a number of online scams and illegal activities. FreshGear is more hardware oriented than software, though there are a few pices on new software.
They regularly let people know that Windows is not the only operating system available to them. They have interviewed a large number of very influential non-windows oriented people. While they do not have any programing specifically oriented at Apple, Linux, BSD, or Palm, they do include bits oriented towards letting people see the power of the alternative OS's, as well as providing some usefull tips on some of the newer capabilities available.
Hey, they even disassembled an iPod on the air the day it was anounced. They have shown case mods for Apple poroducts, done complete Linux OS installs live on the air, and so on. The news programming is tech oriented, but you will probably read about it here on
To get an idea of what is covered, take a look at the show "The Screen Savers" portion of the site, and go through the show notes for the past couple of weeks. While it is predominatly Windows oriented, you will find the threads to show you that it is not all Windows. One of the hosts, and another of the major show participants are primarly Macintosh people. The other host has no problem with taking a sledghammer to hardware that is not operating as designed.
Paul Allen may have co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates, but he is not Bill Gates. He still holds a substantial stake in the company, but is not an active participant. He has diversified his finances quite well and Vulcan Venturs Inc. is not beholden to Bill Gates in any way that I am aware of.
Then again, I have been known to be wrong, and I accept the prospect that it has happened again.
-Rusty
Tilda may be, or was the primary animated character for TechTV/ZDTV, but she was not the only such character. There was a male counterpart named Dash. Also one of the cameramen/artists on the show would film himself then animate a cube where his head would be. I think his character was called Blockhead.
-Rusty
that we get a new slew of "New Coke" comercials as well?
This looks like it is aimed at an even younger generation. Cybiko appears to me to be aimed at kids who can already read and write. This appears to be aimed at kids who can't yet.
As there appears to be a modular software interface, I would suspect that this will be a toy that will grow with the kid until he or she decides that it is time to move up to a more powerful PDA, like a Cybiko.
Also with the modular interface, I expect that a pc interface will be developed within the next year, if for nothing more than to be able to send grandma and grandpa the pictures that little tyke has drawn.
-Rusty
I have worked tech support, at one level or another, for my entire career. By that I mean everything from on site, or in shop repair of electroincs in the military and civilian life, through outsourced customer help desk for a still major PC vendor, through building suppportable updates to corporate systems, through global reach network support for a major bank.
My experience is not comprehensive, but I do have a few insights.
Don't make your first line customer support center into a profit center. I know, it costs money to run a fl customer support center, especially when you consider the hardware involved, but also payroll. Consider that a help desk generally hires temporary employees at $10-15/hr, (I suspect that they are paying the temp companies $20-30 per hour for these people) and for a large PC vendor, there are between 100 and 200 people taking calls 24 hours a day. It does add up quickly. On the other hand I have seen fl techs bill people for 10 different incidents in a single 20 min call, each incident costing $35 or more.
Scripts (when written correctly) should help a fl either help you solve the problem, or get you to the right people. Howerver these scripts are written by people, who generally get their information by talking to the engineer of whatever project installed the piece that is to be supported. As a result, they are specific to that component, and rarely take into considerations interactions with other system components or even other software that a user may be working with. A good tech will recognize this, and be flexible enough to come up with his or her own set of questions to add to those in the scripts. However it is a rare tech support organization that will set up tools that such a tech support person can use in this way. On top of that if the tech is good, he or she is often promoted out of the tech pool to manage the lesser techs, or occasionally teach them. What happens when you pull the cream of the crop out of the interface to your customers? Your customers get the dregs as their first contact.
Let your tech support become name recognized by your customers. Note that is not a "force" that is a 'Let'. Customers generally feel better when they "know" who will be at the other end of the line. As a customer, I am far more forgiving of my tech support person not knowing the answere to a problem I have if I can identify with them. If you have a policy that allows your tech support people to be asked for by name, or who are assigned to your customer's ticket while they are on shift, customers will not feel like they are getting the run around.
I have yet to see a ticketing system that has built in data mining tools that will help a tech support person find similar problems and what their solutions were. In almost every case I have ever seen, a ticketing system has been a management tool used to see who is taking the most calls, and who is closing their tickets in the least amount of time. If you mean for the tool to be useful to the tech, on an other than individual ticket by ticket basis, that tool has got to have some built in help for the tech.
Lastly follow through on support. Just because the customer claims that the problem appears to be solved, does not mean that it has been resolved. Schedule some time, or some people to follow up on a high percentage of tickets, and find out if the customer is satisfied. You don't have to ask page of questions on how the problem was handled. Start with the question, "Is the problem you encountered solved to your satisfaction?". Listen to the response. If the response is anything less than a hearty and happy "Yes." then you should start asking how the process can be improved, and so on.
One problem when it comes to problem tickets, and escalations, is that no-one in a tech support queue types as fast as the customer speaks. If you recite off an error message, or a dozen field headers that are coming back with garbage, your tech support person will probably not be able to include them in the ticket. As a result, if the ticket is escalated to second level support, they probably will not have the data. If it is important to you that the data get into the ticket, take your time and make sure that the fl tech gets the informaiton completely in the ticket.
This should be the tech support mantra I think:
"I understand that for you, this problem is very important. It is preventing you from doing your job right now, and very well may be preventing your company from earning the revenue that is paying me. I also understand that not everyone that you have spoken with in the past has held this view. I also understand that the fact that you were on hold for one or more hours has made you feel that we do not take your problem seriously. I want you to know that the perceptions you have had in the past are not the perceptions I would like you to have going forward."
Then again, I could be wrong.
-Rusty
A nano-tube is what you get when you start with a bucky ball, split it in half, add carbon atoms between the hemispheres to build a cylinder with a hemisphere at each end. that would be a Bucky-tube. Taking the hemisphere's off then end will make an open Bucky-tube.
You could also take a one atom thick sheet of carbon atoms (graphite is multiple layers of these sheets) and roll it so that one edge bonds to the other edge. This would give you a tube of arbitrary radius. An open Bucky-tube is a special case.
Further trivia, a bucky ball is a sphere of 60 carbon atoms formed in a shape similar to a socker ball.
-Rusty
Actually royalties paid for playing performances on radio, in stores, etc. are paid to the song writer, not the performer. Part of the DMCA was designed to allow the performer to get a royalty as well, off internet performances, CARP (in my opinion) mistakenly set the royalty payments too high.
I will accept that the label rather than the publisher is getting money from the sale.
-Rusty
Out of a $16 cd, the artist is lucky to get $1. I say lucky, because until the artist pays for the studio time, and the expenses of actually building the master, and paying for the press run on the CD, the artist's $1 per cd goes to the production run.
The remaining $15 is used to pay for advertizing, copyright management, lawyers, and profit for the publishers.
-Rusty
The problem with this argument is that if I as an unsigned artist puts out multiple music tracks, music vidios, documentaries, or movies that I personally produce, you are branding me or the people who decide to review my work a thief.
You are taking the opportunity for artists who are aspiring to become great, away from them. You should be thrown in gael.
-Rusty
and it invoices the item as beer...
Minnetonka, near Ridgedale.
Or has the host carrier gone and crashed for the night? I mean I would hate to think that someone /.'ed a wearable computer. Wouldn't that make it luggable?
-Rusty
Sorry to say this, but the Lottery is not a tax on idiocy. It is a tax on people who don't understand probability.
There are three rules to understand when playing the lottery.
1) If you buy up all permutations, you won't get out what you put in. Rare instances provide possible counterexamples, howerver by the time the lottery jackpot gets to the point where you can potentially recoup your losses, other players will have an equally likely chance of winning. This is why big buisness does not play.
2) If you buy tickets at "reasonable" volumes, less than a thousand tickets, your odds of winning are not appreciably better than if you buy one ticket.
3) If you don't play, you can't win. When taken into consideration with the earlier rules means that the purchase of an occasional ticket is reasonable so long as it does not prevent you from having a life. To me it means that the jump from no chance of winning, to one in 80million, is significantly more than the jump from 1 in 80million to 1 in 80thousand. (1000 lottery tickets, potentially).
Then again, these are my oppinions, I could be wrong.
-Rusty
I stoped at my local Toys-R-Us, and they were out of the microscope. However I remember seeing one a couple of months back at my local Target. So on my way home I stopped by and they had four at 24.99 each. I only bought one, but if you are interested in putting some up on e-bay, or something like that, and you are in the mpls-stpl area, check your local Target. They can even check with the other Targets in the region and see if there are any others available.
Good luck.
-Rusty
TAR BBY
-Rusty
Works for me. My Phillups Tivo rcvr does have a coax in for antena/cable, however it does not have a pair of lugs for a uhf antena. Neither does my TV, and it recieves UHF just fine, so I won't eliminate that as a possibility.
Dish does have a PVR reciever, I was under the impression from ads I saw a year or so ago that it was a Tivo PVR, but I accept that I am probably wrong.
It would annoy me to no end if I was not able to continue to use my Tivo under the merged network. Then again, it would give me a free licence to hack my Tivo, so we shall see.
-Rusty