I've been around the military for 20 years now plus some time outside the military. I've moved over 20 times, and I don't play well with people like that at all.
After moving to Germany, my local ISP got upset at me when I told them I would be using a router and I didn't need them to help me setup my access. They wanted me to open the router up to them (remote access) and give them the password so they could do some technical stuff. After prodding a little they threw technobabble at me (MTU, DNS - you know sir, technical stuff) and I said, "Well, opening the router up to you may expose my internal network of over 5 servers, 2 workstations and Cisco equipment to the internet. If you want access, you'll need to proove what you're doing by telling me how to open up a Cisco router for you." They tried to tell me to open my browser and go to 192.168.... "Nope, I said Cisco, not Linksys..."
They shut up and I haven't heard from them since.
Of course, now my wife is demanding that I get rid of the "portable heaters that hum all night in the office". I'll tell her their gone and just relocate them to the basement;-)
While working at a major ISP, we came up with a "Technical License". Just like a drivers license, but with technology. There where levels that you had to test for - Level A meant that you could turn your computer on, B meant you could use the mouse, keyboard and a few basic applications...
But, I've supported all kinds of crap as well, so I really do feel your pain. My worst call was Windows NT Alpha - it looked like Windows 3.1 and we couldn't find half the settings to do anything dialup (this was 2000). The guy screamed and screamed. I transferred him back into the Q on his demand. Got a call from the tech that got the guy "Yea, I just let him go - he was still screaming when I hit the Wrap-up button." I don't know why people expect the ISP to support anything they come up with.
My best support experience is a tie between blind users (they listen better than anyone else) and a 10 year old that was helping his mom fix the internet.
I'm still suprised that there weren't more lawsuits on the "Unlimited*" type crap that ISPs pulled and are still pulling. AOL was the only one that really got hit with anything big, but there where and still are ISPs out there that redefine the word "Unlimited" in their TOS to mean something like 500 hours or so. Granted, this is mainly dialup, but still, it is false advertising.
Thats actually the first thing I thought of when I saw this story. The gangs and mobs in Russia have been known to do some very interesting stuff. You add someone else in the mix that thinks they can get more money out of someone elses pocket, legal or not, its going to cause more problems.
Yea, there have been a few times where I've been frustrated at the quality of the Captchas since people think that they need to have a massive amount of lines through the text...
Well, considering the article mentions that the fine will be dackbated to Dec 15th, that would mean that if they waited this thing out and the EuroUnion decided to fine them, as of 25 Jan (last chance day), they would owe $100,800,000... Don't know about you, but I'd certainly feel that.
I'm currently designing an application where I honestly think Captchas are needed. I'm also doing email address verification as well. After thinking about this for awhile, I really don't know what to do (and I'm not the Story Parent).
At first, I thought the personal approach was best but there are a few flaws with this reasoning.
1. Anyone with programming experience can customize several responses and randomly send them out. If they're real creative, they can tell the program to pick from a list of sentences and just put them all together.
2. Site operators are notorious for being slow to read their email - if they even read it. I've been trained (the nicest way I could put it) to check my email every few minutes and respond to people as fast as I can, but many others just won't do that.
3. This is more of a specific thing with my software, but it could cause discrimination against the user. Many people have never interacted with Blind/Deaf users so they are afraid of them. When I did Technical Support, I saw a lot of techs try to pawn their calls off just because a user couldn't "see" the screen. If you've ever done TS work with a blind user, you know its just the opposite - they know their system so much better than the average person. Plus if they had their screen reader up loud enough (and reading slow enough...) you could tell them where to go or what to change without them asking whats next.
I really do agree that it is not feasible to have these people call a TTY operator to sign them up for stuff (BTW, TTY operators are generally used for the Deaf. In my experience, I've never had a blind user call in with a TTY operator) or assert the expectation that they just have someone read it for them since many blind users don't even invest in a monitor.
This whole conversation shows the need for a new product. I don't have the background to do it, but I'll throw it out there in case anyone wants to run with it...
Just like the keyloggers that you can install on "any keyboard" why not make a very simple device that remaps the keyboard? Be it USB or PS2, just a simple in-line device. All it would need to do is capture the keys in the way you're typing in and translate them into the "normal" QWERTY layout.
Simple enough, walk around with a small device the size of some of these keyloggers are, plug it in between the keyboard and computer and you've got your layout anywhere you go. Same device, just with different programming allows for different layouts...
If someone wants to run with this, by all means go ahead, you've got my blessing.
Re:Oh, I just thought of something EEEEEEVIL...
on
Hacking Santa
·
· Score: 1
You know, the fact that he entered it into an art show was interesting, but dear lord, can you imagine some family buying one of these things and having it be drunk? I would PAY to see the reaction of that one.
Imagine the headlines over that one. "Life size Santa toy a drunk"
They did a study on costs for all departments. They found out that a phone call cost them about $14, a Live Chat Session cost $9 and an email cost $4 (These are approx figures that I'm remembering). They figured that for the cost of email, they could field phone calls.
MindSpring tried outsourcing, but started backing away from it when they had quality issues. They had only used outsourcing as an overflow option.
When Earthlink merged in, upper management changed that idea. After losing money due to various issues brought about by bad leadership, upper management was in a bind with the board. They where basically told to start making money or they would be replaced. Employees where lied to and kept in the dark on a normal basis from then on. The employees managed to piece all this info together after the fact through various BB posts on different websites.
I am a lone coder, stuck in the middle of europe looking for a telecommuting job, can you help? I can c0de like no tomorrow. I away your reply!
Seriously though, its nice to see someone in any company offering advice like this. I would have never thought about a team resume, I would have stapled all of them together. Pretty bad for someone thats attempting a startup...
Sounds almost like what Earthlink did. They've closed all their call centers and gone to india and god knows where else. Even the trainers who tried to stay on the good side of the company got let go. Now, all thats left is a management team in one lonely building.
Sure, its a US company, technically speaking, but 99% of it is outsourced and offshore.
Anyway, I was let go and suffered through 7 months of unemployment, lost 90% of what I owned and still have debt being paid off. Best of luck to ANYONE thats laid off. I lived out of my car for a week and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
This is exactly why I wait until the item has been received before leaving any type of feedback. My wife knows that when a package hits the door, I immediately rip it open to look at and test whatever I bought.
I also don't buy from anyone with low feedback (both % or quantity). I've been defrauded once for $20 by an auction my wife bid on without me watching... Since then, my wife has been very careful about who we buy from and we only buy a few things a year with eBay.
Now, I've often thought over the last few years of starting a user community to start planning the an eBay killer. Just don't have the time...
Unfortunately, Sony is such a big company, that nothing will really happen except they may claim to have lost $xxx,xxx... If you think about the company as a whole, thats nothing really. That is technically the cost of shipping & handling plus the (very) few hours of work from their programmers.
I would honestly like to see Sony taken to court for this. This is nothing but a spyware case by a large, global company who thought they could get away with it.
Even then, lyrics and all that don't sound right a lot of the times. My wife is in a professional band (ie: a real 40 piece band). Some of the stuff they buy sounds so horrible once they play it (Usually due to the arrangement), they literally give it away to the local high school.
I still can't believe the music industry honestly thinks that suing their customers is going to make them more profitable.
I can also successfully say I haven't bought more than 4 CD's in the last 5 years. I really loose respect for a lot of artists that cannot sing worth cat piss live, but the music industry has doctored them up to sound perfect. I know no one is perfect, but dear god - we have some people that are freakin tone deaf singing professionally!
"You" should always start small for testing. Granted, people normally hate change, even if its for the better.
The other thing is, I don't care who you are, not everyone uses the same tools or same packages. Your programmers aren't going to use the same tools as management and supervisors. They're sure not going to use the same hardware either.
I agree with this. Write up another proposal detailing the original concept along with what happened during testing and get all your friends to write you an email requesting the system back. Take this all to the call center manager and see what happens. If it fails again, only time lost and a few more pissed off buddies that grumble about management.
Not true... My bank has problems when dealing with Fraud because of the transaction info they receive from "Visa". I've had to cancel 2 cards over the years due to a small charge in Korea and recently one in London.
Now, with my actual credit card, I can initiate a charge back as well as start an investigation blah blah blah...
If you have a bigger bank, you might be able to do the same things. If you're like me and still support smaller banks and credit unions - you don't always get all the neat stuff involved.
"Sorry, no operators are available at the moment. Please try back later."
Between the bandwidth bill for their websites, email and live chat plus phone costs and later (I'm going to assume here) his mail stop complaining of the volume of snail mail THEN add in the BBB reports and NYAG complaints - I'd say they didn't know who they where dealing with. I'm guessing this one customer caused well over 10k worth of immediate damage and many times over that in future lost revenue.
Without quotation marks I get 5.2M results. With marks, I get 706k and the top 100 results (ok, so I scanned the top 100) are all news sites printing or reprinting stories.
I have to agree here. It appears that someone coined the term and something happened. I'd love to see the historical data off some of the larger E-tailers to see if the term increased sales. If so, I'm predicting that retailers will start naming different days in the year to try to get more sales.
BTW, in case no one knew this Black Friday is historically a day when something bad happens.
Oh - and it looks like "Cyber Monday" is now on Wikipedia as well. Oddly enough, its pending deletion...
The term Cyber Monday is a fairly recent term which refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Similar to Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year when retail stores often offer great deals, "Cyber Monday" has in recent years been a busy day for online retailers, and one in which online stores offer similarly low prices. [edit]
Origin of term
The term "Cyber Monday" is a neologism invented by the National Retail Federation, and was never in common use within the ecommerce community. According to shop.org, Scott Silverman, the Executive Director of the company, coined the term during a meeting in August or September 2005 to describe an emerging trend first noticed on the Monday after Thanksgiving, 2004.
This is pretty much what I've done with my network, except I used http://www.sveasoft.com/">Sveasoft.
I currently have 2 Linksys WRTs attached at the hip (wirelessly) as well as a Linksys B (the newest firmware for B's supports lazy WDS). The G's perform flawlessly, but the B has its days. I can seperate everything on their own Subnets, choose NAT paths, etc...
I think between something like this and adding a firewall package like ZoneAlarm, that should keep the in-law out.
Either that or update her privilidges in (I assume) Windows so almost nothing can be installed... Ok, thats harder than what I first suggested - never mind.
Slashdot Mirror
Yea, I could see someone decking their entire case out with LEDs. That'd make the case look like the house on the Griswolds Christmas vacation...
Talk about *Bling*
"Um, yea - I need root access to your laptop..."
;-)
No, you may leave now.
I've been around the military for 20 years now plus some time outside the military. I've moved over 20 times, and I don't play well with people like that at all.
After moving to Germany, my local ISP got upset at me when I told them I would be using a router and I didn't need them to help me setup my access. They wanted me to open the router up to them (remote access) and give them the password so they could do some technical stuff. After prodding a little they threw technobabble at me (MTU, DNS - you know sir, technical stuff) and I said, "Well, opening the router up to you may expose my internal network of over 5 servers, 2 workstations and Cisco equipment to the internet. If you want access, you'll need to proove what you're doing by telling me how to open up a Cisco router for you." They tried to tell me to open my browser and go to 192.168.... "Nope, I said Cisco, not Linksys..."
They shut up and I haven't heard from them since.
Of course, now my wife is demanding that I get rid of the "portable heaters that hum all night in the office". I'll tell her their gone and just relocate them to the basement
While working at a major ISP, we came up with a "Technical License". Just like a drivers license, but with technology. There where levels that you had to test for - Level A meant that you could turn your computer on, B meant you could use the mouse, keyboard and a few basic applications...
But, I've supported all kinds of crap as well, so I really do feel your pain. My worst call was Windows NT Alpha - it looked like Windows 3.1 and we couldn't find half the settings to do anything dialup (this was 2000). The guy screamed and screamed. I transferred him back into the Q on his demand. Got a call from the tech that got the guy "Yea, I just let him go - he was still screaming when I hit the Wrap-up button." I don't know why people expect the ISP to support anything they come up with.
My best support experience is a tie between blind users (they listen better than anyone else) and a 10 year old that was helping his mom fix the internet.
I'm still suprised that there weren't more lawsuits on the "Unlimited*" type crap that ISPs pulled and are still pulling. AOL was the only one that really got hit with anything big, but there where and still are ISPs out there that redefine the word "Unlimited" in their TOS to mean something like 500 hours or so. Granted, this is mainly dialup, but still, it is false advertising.
Thats actually the first thing I thought of when I saw this story. The gangs and mobs in Russia have been known to do some very interesting stuff. You add someone else in the mix that thinks they can get more money out of someone elses pocket, legal or not, its going to cause more problems.
Yea, there have been a few times where I've been frustrated at the quality of the Captchas since people think that they need to have a massive amount of lines through the text...
Well, considering the article mentions that the fine will be dackbated to Dec 15th, that would mean that if they waited this thing out and the EuroUnion decided to fine them, as of 25 Jan (last chance day), they would owe $100,800,000... Don't know about you, but I'd certainly feel that.
I'm currently designing an application where I honestly think Captchas are needed. I'm also doing email address verification as well. After thinking about this for awhile, I really don't know what to do (and I'm not the Story Parent).
At first, I thought the personal approach was best but there are a few flaws with this reasoning.
1. Anyone with programming experience can customize several responses and randomly send them out. If they're real creative, they can tell the program to pick from a list of sentences and just put them all together.
2. Site operators are notorious for being slow to read their email - if they even read it. I've been trained (the nicest way I could put it) to check my email every few minutes and respond to people as fast as I can, but many others just won't do that.
3. This is more of a specific thing with my software, but it could cause discrimination against the user. Many people have never interacted with Blind/Deaf users so they are afraid of them. When I did Technical Support, I saw a lot of techs try to pawn their calls off just because a user couldn't "see" the screen. If you've ever done TS work with a blind user, you know its just the opposite - they know their system so much better than the average person. Plus if they had their screen reader up loud enough (and reading slow enough...) you could tell them where to go or what to change without them asking whats next.
I really do agree that it is not feasible to have these people call a TTY operator to sign them up for stuff (BTW, TTY operators are generally used for the Deaf. In my experience, I've never had a blind user call in with a TTY operator) or assert the expectation that they just have someone read it for them since many blind users don't even invest in a monitor.
This whole conversation shows the need for a new product. I don't have the background to do it, but I'll throw it out there in case anyone wants to run with it...
Just like the keyloggers that you can install on "any keyboard" why not make a very simple device that remaps the keyboard? Be it USB or PS2, just a simple in-line device. All it would need to do is capture the keys in the way you're typing in and translate them into the "normal" QWERTY layout.
Simple enough, walk around with a small device the size of some of these keyloggers are, plug it in between the keyboard and computer and you've got your layout anywhere you go. Same device, just with different programming allows for different layouts...
If someone wants to run with this, by all means go ahead, you've got my blessing.
You know, the fact that he entered it into an art show was interesting, but dear lord, can you imagine some family buying one of these things and having it be drunk? I would PAY to see the reaction of that one.
Imagine the headlines over that one. "Life size Santa toy a drunk"
Nope...
They did a study on costs for all departments. They found out that a phone call cost them about $14, a Live Chat Session cost $9 and an email cost $4 (These are approx figures that I'm remembering). They figured that for the cost of email, they could field phone calls.
MindSpring tried outsourcing, but started backing away from it when they had quality issues. They had only used outsourcing as an overflow option.
When Earthlink merged in, upper management changed that idea. After losing money due to various issues brought about by bad leadership, upper management was in a bind with the board. They where basically told to start making money or they would be replaced. Employees where lied to and kept in the dark on a normal basis from then on. The employees managed to piece all this info together after the fact through various BB posts on different websites.
Yes, hello sir!
I am a lone coder, stuck in the middle of europe looking for a telecommuting job, can you help? I can c0de like no tomorrow. I away your reply!
Seriously though, its nice to see someone in any company offering advice like this. I would have never thought about a team resume, I would have stapled all of them together. Pretty bad for someone thats attempting a startup...
Sounds almost like what Earthlink did. They've closed all their call centers and gone to india and god knows where else. Even the trainers who tried to stay on the good side of the company got let go. Now, all thats left is a management team in one lonely building.
Sure, its a US company, technically speaking, but 99% of it is outsourced and offshore.
Anyway, I was let go and suffered through 7 months of unemployment, lost 90% of what I owned and still have debt being paid off. Best of luck to ANYONE thats laid off. I lived out of my car for a week and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
This is exactly why I wait until the item has been received before leaving any type of feedback. My wife knows that when a package hits the door, I immediately rip it open to look at and test whatever I bought.
I also don't buy from anyone with low feedback (both % or quantity). I've been defrauded once for $20 by an auction my wife bid on without me watching... Since then, my wife has been very careful about who we buy from and we only buy a few things a year with eBay.
Now, I've often thought over the last few years of starting a user community to start planning the an eBay killer. Just don't have the time...
Ok, Ok... Its the end of the day here in Germany and I'm drunk (really!) I don't claim responsibilty for anything I write today...
Unfortunately, Sony is such a big company, that nothing will really happen except they may claim to have lost $xxx,xxx... If you think about the company as a whole, thats nothing really. That is technically the cost of shipping & handling plus the (very) few hours of work from their programmers.
I would honestly like to see Sony taken to court for this. This is nothing but a spyware case by a large, global company who thought they could get away with it.
Even then, lyrics and all that don't sound right a lot of the times. My wife is in a professional band (ie: a real 40 piece band). Some of the stuff they buy sounds so horrible once they play it (Usually due to the arrangement), they literally give it away to the local high school.
I still can't believe the music industry honestly thinks that suing their customers is going to make them more profitable.
I can also successfully say I haven't bought more than 4 CD's in the last 5 years. I really loose respect for a lot of artists that cannot sing worth cat piss live, but the music industry has doctored them up to sound perfect. I know no one is perfect, but dear god - we have some people that are freakin tone deaf singing professionally!
Just turn on or go to a registrar who has privacy filters.
I have it activated on my domain and I don't get all the crap you're talking about...
I agree with your disagreement...
"You" should always start small for testing. Granted, people normally hate change, even if its for the better.
The other thing is, I don't care who you are, not everyone uses the same tools or same packages. Your programmers aren't going to use the same tools as management and supervisors. They're sure not going to use the same hardware either.
I agree with this. Write up another proposal detailing the original concept along with what happened during testing and get all your friends to write you an email requesting the system back. Take this all to the call center manager and see what happens. If it fails again, only time lost and a few more pissed off buddies that grumble about management.
Not true... My bank has problems when dealing with Fraud because of the transaction info they receive from "Visa". I've had to cancel 2 cards over the years due to a small charge in Korea and recently one in London.
Now, with my actual credit card, I can initiate a charge back as well as start an investigation blah blah blah...
If you have a bigger bank, you might be able to do the same things. If you're like me and still support smaller banks and credit unions - you don't always get all the neat stuff involved.
"Sorry, no operators are available at the moment. Please try back later."
Between the bandwidth bill for their websites, email and live chat plus phone costs and later (I'm going to assume here) his mail stop complaining of the volume of snail mail THEN add in the BBB reports and NYAG complaints - I'd say they didn't know who they where dealing with. I'm guessing this one customer caused well over 10k worth of immediate damage and many times over that in future lost revenue.
Yes, but this isn't the original definition of it...
It all depends on how you search...
Without quotation marks I get 5.2M results. With marks, I get 706k and the top 100 results (ok, so I scanned the top 100) are all news sites printing or reprinting stories.
I have to agree here. It appears that someone coined the term and something happened. I'd love to see the historical data off some of the larger E-tailers to see if the term increased sales. If so, I'm predicting that retailers will start naming different days in the year to try to get more sales.
BTW, in case no one knew this Black Friday is historically a day when something bad happens.
Oh - and it looks like "Cyber Monday" is now on Wikipedia as well. Oddly enough, its pending deletion...
The term Cyber Monday is a fairly recent term which refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Similar to Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year when retail stores often offer great deals, "Cyber Monday" has in recent years been a busy day for online retailers, and one in which online stores offer similarly low prices.
[edit]
Origin of term
The term "Cyber Monday" is a neologism invented by the National Retail Federation, and was never in common use within the ecommerce community. According to shop.org, Scott Silverman, the Executive Director of the company, coined the term during a meeting in August or September 2005 to describe an emerging trend first noticed on the Monday after Thanksgiving, 2004.
This is pretty much what I've done with my network, except I used http://www.sveasoft.com/">Sveasoft.
I currently have 2 Linksys WRTs attached at the hip (wirelessly) as well as a Linksys B (the newest firmware for B's supports lazy WDS). The G's perform flawlessly, but the B has its days. I can seperate everything on their own Subnets, choose NAT paths, etc...
I think between something like this and adding a firewall package like ZoneAlarm, that should keep the in-law out.
Either that or update her privilidges in (I assume) Windows so almost nothing can be installed... Ok, thats harder than what I first suggested - never mind.