file under: poor customer service and planning

i'm sure you've all had the infamous 'cable guy' scheduling thrown at you by your actual cable company or another vendor...you know the "between 8am and 12pm" type stuff?  yeah, basically the "we'll get there at some point" mentality.

my dishwasher broke.  we called for a service appointment (still under warranty).  this particular service company only services my area on thursdays...no problem, i can schedule around that.  the appointment time they give me?  between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM.  ouch, that hurts.  that is double-worse.  "we'll get to you at some point, but block out your whole day for us and in the off chance we can't make it, we'll be sure to let you know at about 4:45 PM."

seriously, that bites.  what is even worse is that wednesday evening (night before 'appointment') we get an automated reminder.  yeah, the ones that repeat the appointment details.  seriously hearing the computer repeat 'between 8 am and 5 pm' (with the pauses in between indicating it is pulling the voice bits based on the appointment data being retrieved) seemed like a complete waste of my time and data across the telephony wires...

nothing more, just a rant and a plea to fix the appointment scheduling problem for these companies.  on a side note the guy showed up at 8:30am and was done in < 1 hour so it worked out for me.

so i saw that firefox released v2.  i always have firefox on my machine as i think it is good to check pages i'm working on in multiple browsers (or at least multiple browsers that make up the market share).  i think it wouldn't surprise anyone that i use ie7 primarily (not because i bleed microsoft blue -- i do though -- but i think it is a great browserserves my needs completely), but i had to use firefox when ie7 was released because my online bank put up the big 'you aren't using a supported browser' wallpaper when i tried to use online banking.

anyhow, so i had ie7 (default) and firefox 1.5 installed on my box.  i downloaded and installed firefox 2.  after installing, i launched it and noticed that it had taken over as the default browser.  nope, i didn't get the popup asking me if i wanted it to (both browsers have that popup if they aren't), just made itself default.  not sure if it was a weird config with v1.5 on their first, but i thought it was sneaky.

and while we're at it -- my online bank doesn't (and didn't during beta/RC) have the big wallpaper that firefox wasn't supported even though IT was in beta...how do you respond Wells Fargo???

found another annoyance of gmail -- gmail mobile.  since gmail isn't doing a good job of flagging obvious spam for me, then i get heavy use out of the 'report spam' feature.  guess what's not available on gmail mobile?  trash/trash conversation available, but no report spam.

argh.

due to a last minute change, the venue for the seattle code camp this weekend has been moved.  please update your calendars appropriately and please help spread the word!

it has been moved to DigiPen (which actually might be quite better):

DigiPen is located at 5001 150th Ave NE, Redmond, WA 98052

i'm on a few conference calls today and planned on doing some peripheral learning.  there were a few interesting things over at scobleshow.com lately that i found intriguing and wanted to watch.  i went to the site and was disappointed.  why...well let me phrase this appropriately :-)

i have a brand new windows vista machine.  loaded (fill-in-your-favorite-browser) on it.  visited scobleshow and clicked on a "watch now" link.  this is what it looked like:

why did i get this?  because scobleshow only enables MOV format (arguably the intended viewer is Quicktime format -- which i hate).  so as a user i'm unable to view this unless i download quicktime (or another plugin that isn't recognized automatically).  i should note that when viewed in firefox, there was at least a message indicating that i have missing plugins.  the size of the missing "plugin" (aka quicktime) is 18MB according to the quicktime player link i clicked on.  ouch...flash plugin?  i have no idea but it loaded in about 4 seconds for me (loaded = dowloaded+installed+started working).  this is why i hate quicktime -- it isn't a plugin -- it's a friggin application and a hog.

of course i could download a quicktime plugin that is light-weight, but that's me -- i'm a power user...i know about it.  my mother-in-law doesn't know any better and will always accept the default.  this is who we need to design for--the least common denominator.  okay, sure my mother-in-law then is likely not viewing scobleshow, but what if i find something interesting (ahem, scrapblog) that she might like and send her a link...now she is a consumer.

so why am i picking on scoble?

from a post "Why I don't use Flash":

"I have a brand new Windows Vista machine. Loaded Firefox on it. And visited PodShow (a podcasting competitor of PodTech’s).

This is what it looked like. Now, if a “normal” person (non geek) hit this site, what would they do? I’ll tell you what they’ll do. They’ll hit back and get out of there. Note the title tag. Be Patient? No, I click that little green back button and leave before I get hurt. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.

Lesson: always have HTML first before you get to Flash content."

:-)  sooo robert?  what are you going to do?  what could the site have done better?  offer options?  offer some html about the viewer needed?  if so, can you please ask yourself those questions and change your way of thinking for scobleshow?  why not use a flash viewer -- it's almost default installed.  oh you want higher quality and that's why you use MOV format?  hmmm...soapbox seems to have gotten it right.  oh, you want widescreen format?  why?  is your content "widescreen-capable" (meaning: is there a reason for widescreen?  i mean, apologies and all, but i'm not watching scobleshow on my 60" HDTV with surround sound -- so i don't need it)?  oh you want to deliver HD content?  hmm...okay, but what about those who wouldn't be able to consume it -- again, give me options.

so scoble, i beg of you: 1) fix the page to show some warning; 2) give me a default player for the "watch now"; 3) show me options (look at how your previous employer gives me download options on each show); 4) do something to reach the masses.  right now i'm unable to enjoy the content.