Category: Uncategorized

Spiceworks combines everything you need to manage IT in one easy-to-use application:

• Software inventory, network inventory, PC inventory. Inventory every IT thing you manage.
• Network monitoring, Exchange monitoring, license monitoring and more. Stay alert!
• Asset reporting, inventory reporting… share a report. Report to your heart’s content!
• Helpdesk & IT Portal. Let ’em submit a ticket! Now you can track every IT task and project.

Looks great. Windows only. Shame.

Today is the last day that I’m buying anything from MountCharles down in the Science Park.

It’ll just require a bit more preparation.

Unpossible eh? It’s not as if this sort of thing is the exception.

A tale of woe in dealing with the carrier network providers and their stores.

This note goes out to all service providers, not just Three. What makes you think the Sale of Goods Act doesn’t apply to you? Under what circumstance is a three month old phone refusing to make calls fit for purpose? And if your customer is willing to accept a repair, what makes you think that depriving him of service for five days is a good move? How hard is it to provide a loan handset? What other piece of consumer electronics would I not get a replacement for if it failed after three months?

So, no joy at all. I leave the Three shop a very unhappy camper. At this point, I’m seething, and prepared to cancel my contract and go with someone else. I walk past CPW and into the Vodafone store. Astonishingly, they don’t seem to want my business. Some free advice for Vodafone retail employee trainers: smugness is not an attractive quality in in-store staff.

This isn’t just limited to Three or Vodafone. In fact, it seems to be a job requirement to be an insufferable prick. Which is why it’s so refreshing to find people who are nice, enthused and generally helpful (Colin and Christina from O2 in Ards, Shona and ‘Trainee’ from O2 on Main street, Bangor).

My experiences with Three and Orange have been less than stellar when asking about their 3G USB dongles. They just have no clue. I have come in just waiting to be sold something. Tell me why your product is better than the competition – don’t just pick up a datasheet and start reading because, you know what, I already read it. And the Wikipedia pages on your coverage which I’ve already checked out for my area. Know your product for God’s sake.

That’s why my visit to O2 in Bangor was pretty good. The two people there were enthused about their phones, had recent phones on them and took the time to demo cool features. They also didn’t lie to me when I asked questions about them or try to gloss over things. We did speed tests on the applications, especially the browser which helped me help my partner make educated decisions about future handsets.

Gizmodo writes on why we should give credit to Microsoft for some things:

1. Windows is on the vast majority of the world’s computers, creating a virtually ubiquitous platform that anyone can develop for.

Ummm, okay, but this was a ‘business’ thing and not a ‘technology’ thing. The hard work was done by other people like PARC, Apple, Spyglass, Digital Research.

2. Microsoft is basically responsible for the two-button mouse.

Well, the Unixen had the three button mouse and the Mac had the one button mouse. Well done Microsoft for finding the middle ground and putting on the mouse a second button that still inspires fear in novice computer users.

3. Microsoft popularized the concept that software has value and is worth paying for it.

You’d think that no-one bought software before Microsoft. Nonsense.

4. Microsoft’s intimidation leads to innovation

The theory that their failure to provide anything other than shareholder value contributed to innovation is an interesting stance. I’m sure the top men at Microsoft are happy enough but I think that when your contribution to innovation comes from uninspiring software foisted on millions of the ignorant unwashed which forces innovators to work around you or replace you – then that’s not a lot to be proud of.

And with all the Microsoft coverage recently, undoubtedly spurred on by BillG’s departure, does anyone else think it sounds like a series of Obits?

Steve posted this on Twitter

http://blip.tv/file/1015028

“Every time I call you tech support people, every fucking time, you do something entirely different. You don’t fix the problem I call about. You know, all I wanted was just to get the web site back, that’s all I needed.”

Man….

According to ENN

BT has launched what it calls a ‘Tech Mass Index’ calculator, to enable SMEs to work out the health of their IT spending. The Tech Mass Index works on similar principles to a Body mass Index, according to BT, which says the tool helps SMEs check if their IT performance is ‘obese’ or ‘underweight’. At www.itcalculator.bt.com, users enter the amount of time and money they are spending on IT, their size, the sector they are in and their location, and they will then be e-mailed a ‘fitness assessment’ specific to their business.

I had a go and encountered this:

Note the compulsory field. And the requirement to agree to be contacted by BT. Is this a service or is this a cynical advertising ploy to get you called by BT’s Managed IT services? Oh, I think the latter.
If you do submit, the next screen offers to email the report or you can read it. If I can read it online, why do you need my telephone number?

Seems like a service. Is actually a turd.