Customer Service – HP Style

Dear HP

Thanks for calling me today to say my laptop – that you have had 20 working days is still awaiting parts. Also thanks for transferring me to complaints, who kindly pointed out that HP aims to repair new hardware within 7-10 working days. Finally thanks HP for telling me that you would not even consider a replacement until the new laptop has not been repaired for 10 weeks! Now that’s customer service.

Security – after the horse has bolted!

So I had my laptop and bag stolen in a restaurant last week.  It is amazing what a trauma that turns out to be – especially when you discover that your clever system to take back-up using Windows Live Sync stopped working 2 months ago.

The amount of ones life now reliant upon what is stored on a computer becomes clear when it is gone.  So plenty of time for regret and frustration at so much data lost.  So here are a few “notes to self” about what I need to do properly on my next bag full of technology:

1. Set power on passwords on all devices (laptop, cellphone, pda, etc.)
2. Set a password for Outlook personal folders
3. Set Encrypt folders for this user in Windows  (user accounts admin)
4. Ensure you have windows set to user account and password – not simply direct access without a password.  (I had this set up, which will slow someone down or foil the casual thief,  but without step 3 (above) it’s possible to get around this and access your data.
5. Take regular back-up’s and CHECK THAT THEY WORKED!  I was confident that all was well with my data strategy till I got home to find that the PC that was linked to my laptop by Windows Live Sync had not actually succeeded in syncing since April.  I still don’t know why this failed – it was working so well!   p.s. Outlook .pst files don’t do well on Live Sync – so find another way to copy them.
6. Don’t store passwords on your computer.  (I don’t, but see note 7, below).
7. Change all your passwords if you do lose your computer.  Remember that your browser probably saves most passwords to web-sites and the like, that Outlook and other email programs store your email account details.

My Nokia E71 (not in the bag that was stolen, fortunately) has some neat security features BTW, including a remote lock option.  If you lose the phone, simply text it with the remote lock code – and then no one can use it without the unlock code.

Now going to spend the rest of the day following my own advice on all the other devices I own.

LinkedIn Groups

Over the years I have found LinkedIn to be a useful business orientated “social” networking site.  In the past year LinkedIn has had to up its game quite a lot as more networking and peer reputation sites have appeared, often with new and interesting innovations.

One of the improvements LinkedIn made was the groups, where motivated individuals could expend their time and energy building affinity and shared interest groups.  (Disclosure – I have built several groups on LinkedIn – but am not part of the activists I mention here).  When someone joined a group they exposed their email details to the group owner and LinkedIn provided functionality to upload and download contact details.

About a month ago LinkedIn withdrew the ability for group managers to see and contact group members via email.  This has caused a lot of consternation for some group managers, who feel their efforts at building and communicating with their groups has been hijacked.  More they feel that the way the change was imposed without notice was wrong and all attempts to protest and discuss with LinkedIn have been ignored.

Now, some group owners have started an online petition to have their rights to manage the group as they did initially reinstated.   Some of the comments on this site seem reasonable.

This week a number of the groups have effectively closed themselves down, asking members to re-join a new group (some on other platforms, some on LinkedIn) – it remains to see how sucessful a plea to migrate will be with the usually conservative majority.

Video over IP

I was pleased to renew my acquaintance with Dan Cordingley of Teradici last week.  Dan and I caught up over dinner during his visit to London to launch some specialist bank trading floor products with partner Amulet-Hotkey.

The Amulet product is a very neat trading desk solution that does the KVM for the entire desk (4 screens or more) including the complex stuff like Reuters or Bloomberg – but with the new product the actual PC’s in a remote location – and no limitation on the distance.  It’s all carried over IP.  This is where Teradici’s PCoIP  chip technology is leveraged (in the Amulet solution they have embedded their and Teradici’s chips into a Dell blade).  I sat in on demonstrations with a number of investment banks, all of whom were extremely enthusiastic.  Think secure, managed data centre environment rather than chaotic under desk.  Then think how much heat and power drain just moved off your trading floor.  Interesting.

But Teradici have not stopped there, they also demonstrated their chips embedded in a flat screen with build in ethernet – linked via IP to a VM Ware host.  Are you getting excited yet?  If not I should also mention this is the tip of the iceberg for what Dan plans for his product set over the coming years.

One to watch.

Mobiles get interesting again

IPhones’ have become the jewelry of choice for many and rightly so, they are attractive and supremely use-able.  They have also introduced real world smart phones to a generation of mobile users who never had a reason to have one before.  What was once the domain of “business users” is now a mainstream expectation for the trend following majority.  Disclosure – I come from the UK, where the culture of changing phones as often as you buy new clothes has developed the way the mobile carriers price and retain customers.

Equally interesting was an afternoon I spent with a couple of CTO’s from a computer behemoth and an innovative Internet player.  Both of them had IPhone’s and in  a sad “my toy is better than yours” session I found myself learning lots about my Nokia E71 that I had never taken the time to explore.  The (unanimous) conclusion was that the E71 had better features and functionality than the IPhone.   I was pleased that I hadn’t bought a “pup” but it didn’t stop me from being envious of the touch screen and it’s usability.  Now the (Apple) countdown is moving towards the announcement of the details of  IPhone 3.0 (today US time) where some of the things that forced techie IPhone friends to accept defeat may well be fixed (cut and paste, tethering, MMS for example) – lets see what the day brings.

My long time fave Palm are also making UK news with speculation on which carrier will have the exclusive rights to sell the forthcoming Palm Pre.  By all accounts (including mine) the Pre will offer genuine competition to the IPhone at all levels including the business user.

Still to rise to it’s full potential is Google’s Android, and announcements on O/S updates and new hardware will keep this on the boil too.

This is great – technology (and technology choice) that can be used effectively and intuitively and kill off some of our legacy tethers – am I being too optimistic?

UPDATE – Apple detailed their 3.0 IPhone software features.  As widely predicted Cut and Paste will feature along with MMS, Systemwide search, push notifications and P2P communications.  So all the things a good smartphone should have then – except still no support for Adobe Flash.

Blogs on Blogs

It’s a Saturday, perhaps that is a no news day, but the BBC spent sometime this morning discussing a complaint that their blogs were opinionated.  Effectively the point was that blogging “officially” requires the same level of factual accuracy and balance that the journalist is expected and required to use “On air”.

Actually I am happy to read subversive and opinionated blogs, perhaps offering insight to what is behind the scenes.  In my opinion ”official” blogs should simply categorise a blog as “Opinion”  “Biased old bloke” or whatever in order to stray off the corporate line – and entertain us all, especially when it generates debate.

Innovation for (a) Change

I am working with a stealth start up at the moment, and innovation is what it is all about.  Their product is neither ground breaking or market creating but it is innovating in areas where the competition are not.  In these challenging times it’s more than a little refreshing to see great brains working on problems that can be “re-solved” to business advantage.   So I was pleased to see McKinsey have published their interviews with Judy Estrin, veteran guru of Silicone Valley on “how to fix the innovation gap” – well worth 10 minutes of your time to get you thinking about how you can innovate for change.

Two innovations that caught my attention yesterday that  I want to mention:

The first is leadership innovation.  Behemoth HP announce quarterly product revenues down 18%, the first bad quarter since Mark Hurd took over.  The response many expect is sweeping redundancies, in fact he implements a top down wage cutting programme.  In a company already in the midst of restructuring  this sends a steadying message and retains the skills necessary for recovery and growth. 

The second (and much smaller in the global mill pond) is UK mobile phone reseller Carphone Warehouse, who seem to have dipped there toes into revolution, with some senior support staff taking it upon themselves to initiate a new support model via Twitter.   Hmmm now that does make me think!

Interesting links for 21 Feb

“The number of people and skill sets required to run computing is an increasing burden on corporate IT.”  In a thought provoking article first written for SNS News and republished on Infrastructure 2.0 Cisco’s James Urquhart talks about the new data centre culture.

Finding the right price for Commercial Open Source is the topic of Dave Rosenberg’s post on Negative Approach.  There are thought provoking comments about the subject on Michael Coté’s People Over Process pages at Red Monk.

Palm OS 1996-2009 – RIP

I am moved to say a few words on the passsing of the late, great Palm OS.  Palm’s CEO Ed Coligan confirmed it’s demise on an investor call this week.

Innovative, mould breaking and intuitive the Palm OS on the palm pilot and other platforms from brick size to usefully pocket size, introduced a whole generation to the PDA, touch screens  and later smart phone’s.  Like many before it, it joins the great past-technolgy- in-the-sky.

With fond memories (and a cupboard full of different palm devices) – I salute you!  RIP.

Cool things

Two cool things this week – that is things that I have just come across that do something I need today:

Windows Live Sync – I find myself travelling quite a bit at the moment, this free and simple to use software is keeping my files up to date and where I need them, in my case a server, a laptop, a netbook and a mac.  At last software that does what I want at a price I like.

Just Fix It – I am not usually a Redmund groupie, but this is another item that caught my attention, then a day later it presented itsself to fix on a problem on one of our laptops.  This is Microsoft’s new button called (funnily enough) “Fix It”.   In certain cases when you find yourself looking for help for a problem with MS software you will now find a Fix It button.  Basically a bit of active-X later and hopefully your problem is fixed without you working through the fix manually.  By chance having read this C-Net Beyond Binary  one of our laptops developed a problem, and being Vista volunteered a fix to the problem the next morning, clicking the link gave the usual (or unusual) explanation of what caused the problem and the new Fix It button.  So I try it and it works, offers a test to ensure the problem is fixed (it is) and then asks for feedback.  I like it!  Lets see if it gains momentum…