Posts from 2005

I use Telewest Broadband and today I received an email informing me that my broadband service had been upgraded to from 1MB to 4Mb free of charge. As I am currently paying 25 GBP per month for the broadband connection, it is really a case of Telewest trying to keep up with the competition to avoid customers switching provider rather than a spontaneous act of goodwill.

And as if that wasn't enough excitement for one day, I then noticed that 'Teleport' (TV and video on demand) had appeared on my digital TV service as well. This promised me the chance to pause/rewind any of my favourite TV programs I had missed on the first showing. However, when I scanned the list, the choice was quite limited and fairly uninspiring

• BBC News
• Booze Britain
• EastEnders
• Most Haunted.

In fact, the only two TV programs I would want replayed are 'Lost' and 'Early Doors' so I guess I will stick with the old video recorder technology, record those on to tape and still be able to use those pause/rewind facilities.

Teleport Movies just seemed like FrontRow re-branded but with slightly more films available and the fact that you can choose the start time and view the film over an extended time period.

A lot of people make a lot of money out of customer relationship management (CRM) but here is a real-life example of how customer service affects the relationship with the customer.

A few weeks ago I ordered a wireless USB card and a CD (Antics by Interpol) from Amazon. I received the normal 'Your order has been dispatched' email within 24 hours. I waited for 10 days but nothing turned up which was unusual because normally Amazon deliver pretty promptly (even with the SuperSaver option).

I know the package hasn't been left on my doorstep in the pouring rain by the postman and subsequently stolen as I specified the delivery address as my place of work, specifically, to avoid this.

So I send Amazon a polite email informing them of the problem and asking what can be done.

Amazon replied promptly, helpfully confirming when the package was dispatched and that, unfortunately, there was no way of tracking the item.

Please note that we take full responsibility should any item become lost or damaged while being delivered, and we are more than happy to replace these items at a cost to ourselves. If your package does not arrive by September 23, 2005, please contact us to confirm that it has not been received and that your delivery address is correct for your order, so we can investigate and take the appropriate action.

Now what was interesting about this reply was:

• Amazon actually read my email and answered my specific questions. It was not a standard form letter.
• If, after waiting two weeks and checking the delivery address was correct, the package still did not turn up, Amazon were prepared to send me the goods free of charge for a second time.

Anyway, this story had a happy ending as the package was actually sitting in the post room at work and they had simply forgotten to inform me.

Now, after I made the initial order I discovered I could have got the identical wireless USB card off the shelf for the same price, without any delay in Tesco and I could have saved a whole three pounds (33%) on the CD (at CD-WOW!).

However this excellent customer service gives me a increased level of confidence of buying goods from Amazon. Could I be guaranteed the same response if another, more expensive package from another retailer went missing ?

According to Technorati, a new Web log is created every second which is an amazing statistic and about 55% remain active which is even more staggering.

The creation of my blog was actually a little experiment to see what all the fuss was about and, secondly, to see how long it would take for someone to wander along and be motivated enough to add a comment to the blog.

I did not publicise the blog in any way (mainly because I haven't got any friends) apart from adding it to blogger listing and I was curious to see if it would ever generate any traffic or interest.

So today, one month and eleven days after I created this blog, I received the first comment from someone in Germany. My life is complete - almost.

Recently, I was watching my daughter doing some homework on the PC and noticed that she was listening to music from a radio stream over the Internet, talking to her friends in real-time using Instant Messenger, uploading photos of her holiday to her Web page, ripping music from a CD ready to copy on to an MP3 player and integrating an chart from Excel spreadsheet into a Word document.

A couple of things struck me:-

• Females are indeed better at multi-tasking than men.
• Where was the homework ?

There was an interesting program on ITV last night called The Shot That Shook The World about photographs of historic moments.

9/11¶

Mesmeric, tragic, horrific and yet somehow those images are always compelling. I guess this was the JFK moment for my generation where everyone can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing.

I was working for a small Internet company and a colleague was idly surfing and memorably announced 'A plane has just hit the World Trade Centre'. The internet soon ground to a halt and we watched the tragedy unfold on portable TV in disbelief.

I remember early editions of an English newspaper carried photographs of two people holding hands jumping to their deaths that were subsequently pulled when they realised that this was real people in real life with real mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters.

Sport¶

The Brazil goal against Italy in the 1970 World Cup. My favourite goal of all time. The way Pele flicks the ball to Carlos Alberto. Pure art.

Moon Landing (1969)¶

I remember the whole school being assembled in the hall to watch these grainy images on a black and white TV.

Challenger disaster¶

I visited the Kennedy Centre a few years ago and there is a nice, simple, understated black memorial to all the astronauts who have lost their lives during the space program. Ironically, one was killed in a car crash.

Concorde crash¶

Interesting as this footage was shot by a member of the public from a moving car. This is much more prevalent now with the widespread use camera phones which provided almost immediate access to photos of the London bombings in July 2005.

Hillsborough¶

This wasn't actually featured but those photographs on the front page of The Independent newspaper of ordinary people dying, squashed against the railings in the Leppings Lane terrace at a football match in Sheffield had a big effect on me.

Just submitted my tax return online which was pretty painless and quick. On the final page, I entered some additional information with a minor query. When I submitted the form, there was a data validation error. When I read the error message more carefully, I realised that the carriage return character is not allowed in the free form text box so I removed all of them. However, the form was still rejected until I realised that the question mark character '?' is also not permitted.

So, rather like Tom Kyte, the Inland Revenue is not currently accepting questions.

Well I was finally forced to join the masses and download Firefox and ditch Internet Explorer. Yes - my nickname is Johnny Come Lately.

I had been aware of the Firefox browser for a while but my previous experience was with a very early version of Mozilla that had a few problems with a couple of the Web sites I was using at the time.

The final straw came that pushed me over the edge was when my children downloaded some invasive spyware that commandeered the Web browser and implanted a 'Web Search' toolbar. As you can not de-configure this toolbar without completely removing the product, I found myself uninstalling it, my kids would reinstall it for some whizzy colourful cursors. Repeat ad-infinitum. Life is simply too short.

The immediate benefit of Firefox is the tabbed browsing which lets you keep multiple Web sites open and visible at the same time. After you have used this feature for a while, it is indispensable and you wonder how you ever lived without it.

Then I experimented with RSS feeds from the BBC and elsewhere. Instead of having to periodically check a range of Web sites for any new content, I wanted automatic notification of when new content was available. However, while the 'Live bookmarks' feature in Firefox was pretty good, I really wanted something like a pseudo newsgroup that would list new articles on a Website just like articles in a newsgroup. So, I downloaded Thunderbird which seamlessly and painlessly converted all my email messages and contacts from Outlook Express and I was finished.

I have been using Firefox for a week now and so far, the only Web sites that I have encountered problems with is Sony's SonicStage download page (which insists on Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0) and Blueyonder's selfcare home page (which is gloriously blank). However, this probably says more about the authors of these Web sites rather than any deficiencies in Firefox.

Returned from holiday to find correspondence lying on my doorstep from two internet companies. Both were big names and continually in the news during the internet boom in 1999.

Firstly, two cheques resulting from travelocity's takeover of lastminute.com. Back in 2000, I applied to buy shares in lastminute.com for me, my wife, my auntie and my dog. Thankfully, the share offering was massively oversubscribed and I only received the minimum allocation which reduced my subsequent losses five years later. In fact, the lastminute takeover was very timely as I had two separate, small shareholdings which I was stuck with as dealing costs would have swallowed up most of the proceeds.

Secondly, a thick wad of legalese all the way from the United States of America regarding a class action by shareholders (and corporate lawyers) against Amazon. I couldn't be bothered to read all the twenty seven pages of small print but the gist appeared to be that people bought shares expecting to become dollar millionaires overnight and, unsurprisingly, were bitterly disappointed when this failed to materialise. Remember, people, the price of shares can go down as well as up. If you want to become a dollar millionaire, don't buy shares become a corporate lawyer.