When I was a graduate student back at the University of Texas, there was a kerfuffle about the local student newspaper wanting to tack on a subscription fee to student fees. Austin at that time was more of a quality-of-life college town with the economy largely driven by college student businesses. These businesses were happy to pay the ads that fully sustained the paper's operating expenses. Why then pay extra for a free paper? The newspaper thought the fact that it was free devalued the service they were providing, that the students would appreciate them more if they were more personally vested in the paper. I don't think that they succeeded, at least while I was there.
I also have an interest since the little money I made during my high school years was running an afternoon/Sunday morning paper route, about 90 customers, mostly enlisted families and airman barracks at the Air Force base. I cleared maybe $1/day biking miles under a broiling south Texas sun. I half-apologized one day to a customer; the newspaper was bulkier than usual, stuffed with ad inserts. I told her "Not a lot of news: just ads." And she smiled and said, "We buy it for the ads."
I think during my salad days I loved newspapers, including the Gray Lady (New York Times). Local news would bore me--the latest high profile crimes, accidents, etc. I eventually got hooked on the Wall Street Journal; I'm not sure when it started, maybe seeing copies in the waiting rooms for a business appointment or job interview. It wasn't the daily stock market results but compelling news stories and editorials. There was a time I had subscribed for what turned out to be a teaser rate for print and/or digital; to be honest, I did so much road warrior work at the time, the papers would pile up unread and then a regular, much higher rate kicked in, leading to a quick cancellation.
When the Wall Street Journal started its paywall (I had to Google to verify the cost), it was $49 a year (with discounts to print subscribers). I quickly signed up; it was a bargain compared to print newspaper subscriptions. But for whatever reason, the subscription price jumped to a double or more, and I wasn't using it enough to justify the higher cost. I think if they shifted to more of a metered model of micropayments, it would make more sense (like rechargeable store or phone minute cards).
So if you don't know, typically a paywall might offer a blurb on a news story or whatever and then require you to log in or subscribe to get access to the rest of the story. Now given the fact I can usually search for a substitute story at no cost, this really only has an appeal if WSJ has an exclusive story.
But what really annoyed me was when WSJ started including op-eds in its paywall. I don't know of anybody else doing that. I don't mind ad-supported op-eds, but I'm not about to pay for the privilege of promoting WSJ content on my free political blog. I'm not sure when I became first aware of it; it may have been when George Mason economist Donald Boudreaux linked to one of his published opinions there. Whether my and/or other complaints, Boudreaux now tends to warn readers about paywalls; in some cases, authors would provide workarounds, like a draft copy on a personal website, although WSJ probably isn't happy with authors doing that and I've seen less of it lately.
Some news portals allow you a monthly quota of free views, e.g., WashPo recently messaged I had exhausted my quota when I nibbled on the clickbait on the side (a hiker in Maine who got lost off the trail and had died). But when I get dinged for looking at a Karl Rove or Peggy Noonan rant making news at WSJ, it's annoying.
There's one workaround (at the time of this post) that seems to work. WSJ had a piece trending on Twitter about GOP IL Gov. Rauner facing a supermajority Dem legislature in an epic budget battle; state unions reject Rauner's wage freeze and merit pay proposals, and the legislature is trying to give the unions an arbitration workaround to Rauner. (In addition, they want to hike taxes without any concessions on spending, pensions, etc.) I follow Illinois Policy Institute and already knew the story but I was interested to see any new twist or late developments. And I was stopped by the paywall.
What worked in this case was to copy the headline and do a Google search in a separate window. Near the top of the search page you should see an indented webpage link leading to the full webpage. Now WSJ seems to know you're a visitor and has a link at the top of the page for the latest teaser subscription rate plus maybe a pop-up ad to click out of. I dislike games, though. I almost never cite WSJ content on my blog anymore.
When I was a professor, textbook publishers often sent me complimentary copies (in fact, I got paid a nominal amount to review a few). Now granted my blogs and Twitter accounts don't attract thousands of followers or viewers that might interest vendors into providing complimentary or professional discounted paywall subscriptions, but it might motivate me into promoting their content more than the status quo.
Friday, May 27, 2016
Saturday, May 7, 2016
Dropped Mobile Calls vs. Google Voice Calls Over the Internet
For a long time I had always had wired service, even for years with mobile service. Much of that had to do with very expensive cellphone minute plans; I've often had to do things like hour-long tech interviews for my next gig. My primary use of the cellphone was for emergency purposes or for short calls away from home. Eventually, digital calls on cable Triple Play plans were very price competitive to maintaining a landline for the purpose of longer at home calls. When I moved in 2014 to West Virginia, I maintained Triple Play but I found cheaper cell minute plans and rarely used my digital voice prior to moving. Shortly after I rented my current apartment, I didn't upgrade to a high-priced Triple Play plan, especially when I discovered I found a mobile plan that basically provided unlimited calls, texting, and data for a modest premium over my old plan with a few hundred minutes.
There's only one major problem with that solution: mobile calls can be notoriously unreliable. For a number of prospective clients or employers, that's not a major issue because they set up web conferencing, which operates over the Internet, like digital calling. But just to give an example, a few weeks back, my cell call dropped 3 or 4 times over the call. What made it worse, they had a configuration issue at their end and sometimes didn't even realize I was no longer on the call.
There were 2 or 3 times over the past week where recruiters were complaining they couldn't hear me and asked me to use another phone. Finally, yesterday, a recruiter was calling to schedule an interview; for some odd reason, she didn't have voice mail and she didn't email me. She finally gave up after my return call got dropped 2 or 3 times.
So then I had to scramble. I know there are VOIP consumer vendors like Vonage and Magic Jack; certain plans require hardware, and I had put my phone in storage. Skype allows calls among fellow users, and there are certain extra-cost options for other calls, e.g., to landlines.
I had flirted with Google Voice while in WV; I intuitively felt this was the direction to go, although I had not really tested it as a substitute for digital voice calling; among other things, I didn't keep my laptop online at all hours (which is necessary for realtime phone functionality), while my cellphone and digital phone were always on. I wanted to test out Google's innovative free voicemail transcript (with its generally superlative speech to text functionality) and its use as an alternative for professional contacts. I liked the idea of having a permanent number, e.g., I wasn't sure about number portability options for my mobile or digital cable services.
I'm not sure what had happened to my earlier Google Voice setups when I went to my account for the first time in several months--I could still see obsolete messages stored. Recall one of the things I like to do is take the opportunity to study how intuitive the interface is from my experience). Part of the issue here was a number of integrated products. There is a Google Voice email-like interface, but the phone functionality operates through Gmail. Particularly relevant is the phone gadget (located with the calendar gadget along the lower left margin below the email folders). You may need to ensure your Hangout status is active. [I will say there is a call button for configured GV that enables you to search by (partial) matches of names or numbers in your Google Contacts via Hangouts; or you can simply type a number, like my recruiter's number, ad hoc. I could add the recruiter and her number in Google Contacts before making the call, of course].
You're setting up your Google Voice (GV) account (google.com/voice) in conjunction of your cellphone account. Google Voice number selection itself can be unintuitive. Initially I thought one could propose a number and see if it was available, like usernames to a website. It's better thought of as a picklist of available numbers subject to parameters you specify, like area code.
There is Google Voice integration with certain cellphone providers (but mine is not included, so I won't discuss cross-functionality between phones). A key point is that your registered cellphone number can be figured as a target for GV text messages and voicemail notifications/transcripts. And this is something which isn't necessarily obvious: Google configures things so when you dial into Google Voice via your cellphone. you go into voicemail (which you have configured with a relevant password). You can otherwise access voicemail through an asterisk when GV answers your call. The reason this was quirky to me was that I was trying to trying to emulate an outside call to be received in Gmail and my cellphone is the only phone I had; in brief, if you drill into your cellphone edit and then click on advanced settings; select voicemail access No. I think this is somewhat misleading; it really means voicemail connection by default (for mobile), asterisk for other phones to access voicemail. I personally am used to an asterisk default for all phones and prefer consistency. (I had initially inferred that I had configured something wrong, e.g., from hangout settings, and it was throwing me into voicemail.)
From within Gmail and activated Hangouts, there's a bubble/quote icon for Hangouts conversation and a phone icon: you want to choose the latter. This allows a search (as described above) from Google Contacts via name or phone number--or to specify an ad hoc number (which to me is not obvious). I was easily able to call the recruiter in question and continue the conversation with no call fidelity issues.
I've somewhat simplified the conversation; some calls (e.g., international) may require a fee/deposit. The topics of Hangout conversations (including video calls), Hangout contacts, Google+, and circles are beyond the scope of this post. It was not intended to be a step-by-step newbie introduction; my hope is that a reasonably knowledgeable PC user could learn from the general description of my configuration experience and more practical description.
There's only one major problem with that solution: mobile calls can be notoriously unreliable. For a number of prospective clients or employers, that's not a major issue because they set up web conferencing, which operates over the Internet, like digital calling. But just to give an example, a few weeks back, my cell call dropped 3 or 4 times over the call. What made it worse, they had a configuration issue at their end and sometimes didn't even realize I was no longer on the call.
There were 2 or 3 times over the past week where recruiters were complaining they couldn't hear me and asked me to use another phone. Finally, yesterday, a recruiter was calling to schedule an interview; for some odd reason, she didn't have voice mail and she didn't email me. She finally gave up after my return call got dropped 2 or 3 times.
So then I had to scramble. I know there are VOIP consumer vendors like Vonage and Magic Jack; certain plans require hardware, and I had put my phone in storage. Skype allows calls among fellow users, and there are certain extra-cost options for other calls, e.g., to landlines.
I had flirted with Google Voice while in WV; I intuitively felt this was the direction to go, although I had not really tested it as a substitute for digital voice calling; among other things, I didn't keep my laptop online at all hours (which is necessary for realtime phone functionality), while my cellphone and digital phone were always on. I wanted to test out Google's innovative free voicemail transcript (with its generally superlative speech to text functionality) and its use as an alternative for professional contacts. I liked the idea of having a permanent number, e.g., I wasn't sure about number portability options for my mobile or digital cable services.
I'm not sure what had happened to my earlier Google Voice setups when I went to my account for the first time in several months--I could still see obsolete messages stored. Recall one of the things I like to do is take the opportunity to study how intuitive the interface is from my experience). Part of the issue here was a number of integrated products. There is a Google Voice email-like interface, but the phone functionality operates through Gmail. Particularly relevant is the phone gadget (located with the calendar gadget along the lower left margin below the email folders). You may need to ensure your Hangout status is active. [I will say there is a call button for configured GV that enables you to search by (partial) matches of names or numbers in your Google Contacts via Hangouts; or you can simply type a number, like my recruiter's number, ad hoc. I could add the recruiter and her number in Google Contacts before making the call, of course].
You're setting up your Google Voice (GV) account (google.com/voice) in conjunction of your cellphone account. Google Voice number selection itself can be unintuitive. Initially I thought one could propose a number and see if it was available, like usernames to a website. It's better thought of as a picklist of available numbers subject to parameters you specify, like area code.
From within Gmail and activated Hangouts, there's a bubble/quote icon for Hangouts conversation and a phone icon: you want to choose the latter. This allows a search (as described above) from Google Contacts via name or phone number--or to specify an ad hoc number (which to me is not obvious). I was easily able to call the recruiter in question and continue the conversation with no call fidelity issues.
I've somewhat simplified the conversation; some calls (e.g., international) may require a fee/deposit. The topics of Hangout conversations (including video calls), Hangout contacts, Google+, and circles are beyond the scope of this post. It was not intended to be a step-by-step newbie introduction; my hope is that a reasonably knowledgeable PC user could learn from the general description of my configuration experience and more practical description.
Friday, May 6, 2016
Tech Support Chat Sessions, Norton and Windows Defender
[* last updated 5/18/16]
As someone with a PhD in MIS, not to mention over 20 years of professional IT experience, I have a pet peeve against the frequently patronizing, incompetent help desk personnel I've had to deal with. They usually can't cope with anything that doesn't fit in their solution scripts and want direct access to one's PC.
One experience was when I worked at an IBM business unit. I had to install some software which had to be downloaded from a server. I couldn't access the source file and reported the issue. The help desk person assumed it was due to something like a misspecified scp/sftp command. I repeatedly asked him, "Are you sure the source file is available on the server?", and he sidestepped the question. I was getting nowhere as he basically threatened to end the call if I didn't give him access to my PC. It was more trouble than it was worth to fight the issue, so I finally let him take the session, when, of course, he discovered I was right; he couldn't find the source file, even with a privileged session connection. He laughed nervously, annoyingly, "I guess it's not there. Ha, ha. Let me go find out where I can find a copy." This is just unprofessional; as a DBA, I've always tried to replicate a user's reported problem, not through a privileged session but a test user account. In this case, I had to work unpaid overtime for 2 hours (I had a good hour's drive commute home) over something he should have checked from the get-go.
A second fond memory involved a software publisher employer just over a year later. I had gone to Malvern, PA for new employee training (the job allowed me to work from home or at client sites depending on account preferences). We had VPN connections to our company's servers. In any event, I ran into an issue at home after bringing my work notebook home, finding on my first time use of the corporate licensed Microsoft Office product that I was getting timeouts trying to get the product registered. I suspected an issue with the standard VPN connection. Basically the desktop help desk people were in a typical state of denial (e.g., nobody else has experienced the problem; maybe it's an issue with your ISP). He wanted to remaster my PC; I refused, because I needed the PC for training in Memphis the following Monday. Long story short, there were a couple of other VPN options, and after the phone call, I discovered I could get the software to register in an alternate mode. I reported back to the help desk how I got the problem resolved; they were in a state of denial insisting I should have been able to register through standard mode and changing the mode wouldn't have a difference. Facts are stubborn things. The help desk analyst complained to his boss I was difficult to work with (he was still trying to remaster my PC even though the issue was resolved), and his boss escalated to my non-supportive boss.
In the particular scenario for this post, I have Norton software protecting a backup notebook PC. I use the PC on an irregular basis, and so usually I need to update my security software, various applications, and check Microsoft Update for any interim patches. (Yes, I know it eventually checks on default but at an unspecified interval.) In this case, it found Windows Defender needed an update and seemed to stall about 6% of the way through a download.
An important relevant note: Defender is freeware security, and Norton's software provides similar functionality. Moreover, there's usually a performance hit running redundant functional security software, and Norton basically transparently shuts down Windows Firewall and Defender.
Now just a side note here; at least in Windows 10, there's a Windows Defender setup under tab Settings for Windows Update. In my case, there are toggle switches basically greyed out and stuck on, presumably an artifact of the Norton software install. My inference is that whatever Norton does to micromanage Defender is impacting Defender updates, but Microsoft will attempt to update Defender if it thinks Defender is in use. It's not immediately clear why the Norton install would have effectively frozen Defender toggle switches in an on position.
I did some searching on issues of Norton with Defender and saw on a user thread a relevant discussion, that it's a known issue between Norton and Microsoft that will be resolved any day now. One tip I saw in response to an issue like mine was to the effect that one needs to uninstall Norton which should release the toggle switches, turn the Defender switches off, and then reinstall Norton.
I think the original discussion involved running the Norton removal software to deinstall Norton, and there's when I ran into an issue, because the links to download the removal tool didn't seem to work.
So this is the context for my doing a Norton chat session where I got connected (surprise, surprise) to an Indian agent. This isn't intended to be a rant about Indian help desk people; the previous two examples were both Americans. I've also had my share of issues with non-Indian Oracle tech support in an operational setting. Senior analysts could resolve my issues within 5 minutes, but rookies were very difficult to work with. Oracle maintains a knowledge base of reported problems and possible resolutions. It's difficult to explain it except to note that I typically didn't have access to this knowledge base (Oracle would claim I did--maybe when I used to work for Oracle). So what would happen is the junior analyst might draw a list of say 15 possible solutions--and inevitably decide to make me jump through hoops in their process of elimination; I could usually tell from context almost immediately that the proposed solution wasn't relevant and want him or her to skip down to the next scenario. The analyst would be inflexible and argue that if I didn't comply to his satisfaction with his prescribed sequence, he would close the TAR (problem ticket). I would then escalate the TAR to a senior analyst, which of course duty managers hated but I didn't care. Maintenance costs are nontrivial, and I was a customer: time is money, and my time was important to my employer or client. I didn't exist for convenience of Oracle's training purposes. It was the responsibility of the senior analysts to mentor junior colleagues.
So one of my pet peeves is dealing with what I call scripts or protocols, and Indian help desk personnel are heavily scripted. They don't respond well from deviations from their script. (I'm not going to transcribe the script, but first they will take down parameters for filling out their ticket--your phone number, etc., ask you to remember their ticket number, and so forth. There's typically a gratuitous "I'm sorry you're experiencing this problem", "I can surely fix your problem", etc.) More or less, I discussed the Window update issue, the frozen Defender switches, the user thread solution I summarized above. At no time did he even acknowledge any Defender issues with Norton. He seemed to pick up on my reported issue with the removal tool download. He sends me a URL link. There's a DNS issue (no such webpage). I report back to him. He says try another browser; I'm saying, "Dude, do you understand what I mean by a DNS issue?" (I did pull up Firefox just to humor him.) He eventually sent me a couple of other links, one of which seemed to connect, but no download. I'm asking "Are you sure that FTP services are up on the server?" Again, no response. He's trying to get me to allow access to my machine; that's not going to happen. I'm irritated that his scripts include invalid URLs and such; he's not even trying to explain why the download isn't happening. At that point, I was done with the call.
I knew that I could uninstall Norton from Control Panel/Programs. As I hypothesized, the Defender toggle switches were released. I toggled them off and then reinstalled Norton. At that point, I went to Windows Update and manually checked for updates. This time there were no hanging Defender downloads, and Update reported no new patches to download. [Of course, if and when Norton isn't available, I'll need to update Defender or install other security software.] At some point in the future, I'll try testing again whether I can download the Norton removal tool.
[* updated 5/18/16]
A similar problem occurred today on my backup notebook PC. It had a different nuance, because in fact Defender settings were off. In this case, a Defender patch seemed to lead a handful of other, major updates, like a cumulative Windows 10 patch, and the update process seems to stall with Defender. Whatever Norton is doing to micromanage Defender does not seem to be controllable (earlier I had tried turning off the firewall and/or antivirus, but that didn't restore Defender functionality). So I uninstalled Norton and was able to update Defender and complete the other updates. I rebooted and reinstalled Norton.
I tried to do a trouble ticket with Norton, because this is getting to be ridiculous. I shouldn't have to uninstall and reinstall Norton every time I have a queue of Window Updates. Once again, I had to deal with one of their Indian helpdesk analysts, and two times during a chat session where I told him I had resolved my issue, he wanted to remote session my PC. Idiot! He told me Defender was a Windows 10 default security application. DUH! Just do a Google search, and you'll find posts of Norton users reporting Defender issues. As I recall, one post was from 2013, where Norton and/or Microsoft were expected to have a solution "any day now". Now you don't get nice functionality of the type as MS saying "we're having problems with Defender, so let's put it aside for the time being, and work on your other patches." I know it started with Defender and 2-3 hours later it was still apparently at ground zero. I thought perhaps the software distribution folder was corrupted; but that didn't fix the issue. Finally, I uninstalled Norton, manually updated Defender, finished my patching, and then reinstalled Norton after the patch reboot and checking Windows Update to ensure it was current. The Indian helpdesk guy had zero to say about known Defender issues and/or workarounds; he was totally useless.
As someone with a PhD in MIS, not to mention over 20 years of professional IT experience, I have a pet peeve against the frequently patronizing, incompetent help desk personnel I've had to deal with. They usually can't cope with anything that doesn't fit in their solution scripts and want direct access to one's PC.
One experience was when I worked at an IBM business unit. I had to install some software which had to be downloaded from a server. I couldn't access the source file and reported the issue. The help desk person assumed it was due to something like a misspecified scp/sftp command. I repeatedly asked him, "Are you sure the source file is available on the server?", and he sidestepped the question. I was getting nowhere as he basically threatened to end the call if I didn't give him access to my PC. It was more trouble than it was worth to fight the issue, so I finally let him take the session, when, of course, he discovered I was right; he couldn't find the source file, even with a privileged session connection. He laughed nervously, annoyingly, "I guess it's not there. Ha, ha. Let me go find out where I can find a copy." This is just unprofessional; as a DBA, I've always tried to replicate a user's reported problem, not through a privileged session but a test user account. In this case, I had to work unpaid overtime for 2 hours (I had a good hour's drive commute home) over something he should have checked from the get-go.
A second fond memory involved a software publisher employer just over a year later. I had gone to Malvern, PA for new employee training (the job allowed me to work from home or at client sites depending on account preferences). We had VPN connections to our company's servers. In any event, I ran into an issue at home after bringing my work notebook home, finding on my first time use of the corporate licensed Microsoft Office product that I was getting timeouts trying to get the product registered. I suspected an issue with the standard VPN connection. Basically the desktop help desk people were in a typical state of denial (e.g., nobody else has experienced the problem; maybe it's an issue with your ISP). He wanted to remaster my PC; I refused, because I needed the PC for training in Memphis the following Monday. Long story short, there were a couple of other VPN options, and after the phone call, I discovered I could get the software to register in an alternate mode. I reported back to the help desk how I got the problem resolved; they were in a state of denial insisting I should have been able to register through standard mode and changing the mode wouldn't have a difference. Facts are stubborn things. The help desk analyst complained to his boss I was difficult to work with (he was still trying to remaster my PC even though the issue was resolved), and his boss escalated to my non-supportive boss.
In the particular scenario for this post, I have Norton software protecting a backup notebook PC. I use the PC on an irregular basis, and so usually I need to update my security software, various applications, and check Microsoft Update for any interim patches. (Yes, I know it eventually checks on default but at an unspecified interval.) In this case, it found Windows Defender needed an update and seemed to stall about 6% of the way through a download.
An important relevant note: Defender is freeware security, and Norton's software provides similar functionality. Moreover, there's usually a performance hit running redundant functional security software, and Norton basically transparently shuts down Windows Firewall and Defender.
Now just a side note here; at least in Windows 10, there's a Windows Defender setup under tab Settings for Windows Update. In my case, there are toggle switches basically greyed out and stuck on, presumably an artifact of the Norton software install. My inference is that whatever Norton does to micromanage Defender is impacting Defender updates, but Microsoft will attempt to update Defender if it thinks Defender is in use. It's not immediately clear why the Norton install would have effectively frozen Defender toggle switches in an on position.
I did some searching on issues of Norton with Defender and saw on a user thread a relevant discussion, that it's a known issue between Norton and Microsoft that will be resolved any day now. One tip I saw in response to an issue like mine was to the effect that one needs to uninstall Norton which should release the toggle switches, turn the Defender switches off, and then reinstall Norton.
I think the original discussion involved running the Norton removal software to deinstall Norton, and there's when I ran into an issue, because the links to download the removal tool didn't seem to work.
So this is the context for my doing a Norton chat session where I got connected (surprise, surprise) to an Indian agent. This isn't intended to be a rant about Indian help desk people; the previous two examples were both Americans. I've also had my share of issues with non-Indian Oracle tech support in an operational setting. Senior analysts could resolve my issues within 5 minutes, but rookies were very difficult to work with. Oracle maintains a knowledge base of reported problems and possible resolutions. It's difficult to explain it except to note that I typically didn't have access to this knowledge base (Oracle would claim I did--maybe when I used to work for Oracle). So what would happen is the junior analyst might draw a list of say 15 possible solutions--and inevitably decide to make me jump through hoops in their process of elimination; I could usually tell from context almost immediately that the proposed solution wasn't relevant and want him or her to skip down to the next scenario. The analyst would be inflexible and argue that if I didn't comply to his satisfaction with his prescribed sequence, he would close the TAR (problem ticket). I would then escalate the TAR to a senior analyst, which of course duty managers hated but I didn't care. Maintenance costs are nontrivial, and I was a customer: time is money, and my time was important to my employer or client. I didn't exist for convenience of Oracle's training purposes. It was the responsibility of the senior analysts to mentor junior colleagues.
So one of my pet peeves is dealing with what I call scripts or protocols, and Indian help desk personnel are heavily scripted. They don't respond well from deviations from their script. (I'm not going to transcribe the script, but first they will take down parameters for filling out their ticket--your phone number, etc., ask you to remember their ticket number, and so forth. There's typically a gratuitous "I'm sorry you're experiencing this problem", "I can surely fix your problem", etc.) More or less, I discussed the Window update issue, the frozen Defender switches, the user thread solution I summarized above. At no time did he even acknowledge any Defender issues with Norton. He seemed to pick up on my reported issue with the removal tool download. He sends me a URL link. There's a DNS issue (no such webpage). I report back to him. He says try another browser; I'm saying, "Dude, do you understand what I mean by a DNS issue?" (I did pull up Firefox just to humor him.) He eventually sent me a couple of other links, one of which seemed to connect, but no download. I'm asking "Are you sure that FTP services are up on the server?" Again, no response. He's trying to get me to allow access to my machine; that's not going to happen. I'm irritated that his scripts include invalid URLs and such; he's not even trying to explain why the download isn't happening. At that point, I was done with the call.
I knew that I could uninstall Norton from Control Panel/Programs. As I hypothesized, the Defender toggle switches were released. I toggled them off and then reinstalled Norton. At that point, I went to Windows Update and manually checked for updates. This time there were no hanging Defender downloads, and Update reported no new patches to download. [Of course, if and when Norton isn't available, I'll need to update Defender or install other security software.] At some point in the future, I'll try testing again whether I can download the Norton removal tool.
[* updated 5/18/16]
A similar problem occurred today on my backup notebook PC. It had a different nuance, because in fact Defender settings were off. In this case, a Defender patch seemed to lead a handful of other, major updates, like a cumulative Windows 10 patch, and the update process seems to stall with Defender. Whatever Norton is doing to micromanage Defender does not seem to be controllable (earlier I had tried turning off the firewall and/or antivirus, but that didn't restore Defender functionality). So I uninstalled Norton and was able to update Defender and complete the other updates. I rebooted and reinstalled Norton.
I tried to do a trouble ticket with Norton, because this is getting to be ridiculous. I shouldn't have to uninstall and reinstall Norton every time I have a queue of Window Updates. Once again, I had to deal with one of their Indian helpdesk analysts, and two times during a chat session where I told him I had resolved my issue, he wanted to remote session my PC. Idiot! He told me Defender was a Windows 10 default security application. DUH! Just do a Google search, and you'll find posts of Norton users reporting Defender issues. As I recall, one post was from 2013, where Norton and/or Microsoft were expected to have a solution "any day now". Now you don't get nice functionality of the type as MS saying "we're having problems with Defender, so let's put it aside for the time being, and work on your other patches." I know it started with Defender and 2-3 hours later it was still apparently at ground zero. I thought perhaps the software distribution folder was corrupted; but that didn't fix the issue. Finally, I uninstalled Norton, manually updated Defender, finished my patching, and then reinstalled Norton after the patch reboot and checking Windows Update to ensure it was current. The Indian helpdesk guy had zero to say about known Defender issues and/or workarounds; he was totally useless.
Saturday, April 30, 2016
The Wonderful World of Google Part I
As I write this post, I am anticipating that I may write more on this topic in the future. I don't have in mind, say, a 6-post series. One of the problems of writing on the topic of Google is that I don't really have a window on planned changes and enhancements on Google products and services. I use so many (just to start, Google Docs, Sheets, Gmail, Calendar, Maps, Keep, Blogger, Youtube, etc.), not to mention my first smartphone, which is an Android model.
It may sound unusual for an IT academic to admit being late to the game of smartphones. Part of that was based on budget constraints, and I saw cellphones as mostly functional devices. Familiar readers may know that I finally got my first cellphone after a major tire blowout in I-5 heading down to LA from Silicon Valley. I had had a couple of work-related cellphones before then. I don't really make a lot of calls, and minutes were expensive, so I might do tech interviews, etc., via a wired, later digital line at home. As time went on, there were restrictions on the use of client PC's and Internet services (especially with the government). I often might not have access to the cellphone at work for security reasons (e.g., recording functionality), but I might be able to take a break from work (e.g., lunch). There was some functionality I wanted beyond calls, say, for example, a stock or mutual fund transaction in my retirement account during market hours. (One prior employer vendor, for instance, Fidelity Investments, will process an exchange at the next end of the trading day. So if I was building a position in biotech stocks, I might look at a down day to build my position. If I waited until I got home and placed the order, biotech stocks might have a good day tomorrow, meaning more expensive shares.)
Substitutes also deferred my decision. For example, a while back, I wrote a piece on a Garmin device. This has some nice functionality that goes beyond GPS-guided directions; for example, I can get directions to the nearest post office, fast food places, gas stations, hotels, etc. Before that, I would go online and print out directions and plan stopping places.
A few things happened in the interim. While I lived in West Virginia, I realized one day I was never using my digital phone, which was probably $30-40 of my monthly triple play cable bill. Whereas the latest iPhone or Galaxy might set you back a few hundred dollars, you could buy a decent quality phone for about $100, and some mobile vendors started offering virtually unlimited talk, messaging, and data for $35-50/month. (Granted, only a certain threshold of data was guaranteed high speed, but then I really wasn't planning to use my smartphone for A/V feeds.)
So I've owned my SmartPhone for just over a year now. As a human factors researcher, I was absolutely thrilled with the idea of studying what types of usability problems I would encounter, false inferences or expectations, natural interface gaps/Procrustean technology, etc. I've found myself using the device in unexpected ways.
I'll give a few examples to illustrate salient concepts. I happen to have short, stubbier fingers, which don't always work well given limited size touchscreens. I don't do a lot of messaging, but I realized the other day, I could utilize Google's excellent voice-to-text technology to dictate my text message.
The voice interface is pervasive through the technology. For example, I could use the Google search screen to request "Show me Mom's phone number." I was pleasantly surprised to see Google correctly typed out our surname when I asked the same question for one of my brothers. (The English pronounciation is "Gill met"; in fact, Dad used to sign into restaurants with that spelling.) Depending on the question, I might get a spoken response, e.g., "How old is Donald Trump?". On the other hand, when I asked, "What was Elton John's last American #1 hit?", I didn't get a vocal response, but I did get the link of a Wikipedia page for Elton John's discography.
I recently started playing around with building shopping lists, which you can do if you download the Google Keep app. So I can activate my Google voice functionality ("OK, Google"), and say "Add 2 cartons of eggs to my shopping list", "Add a half-gallon of almond milk to my shopping list', etc. And then the next time I'm in WalMart, I can simply say, "Show me my shopping list" and check off items as I do my shopping.
One of the first times I used the browser voice functionality was on a visit home over the holidays. Most of the times I had visited in the past, I had used a barber shop at the nearby military base. Mom used to work at the base exchange (Dad used to bring me to the NCO Club); there was a large barbershop at the exchange with a DMV queue type system, with the exception that active military preempted people in the queue. Long story short, Mom finished shopping and I was still in the queue. She decided it wasn't worth the wait. The base is across from a town where the family used to live, but since my Dad and brothers never used the town's barbers, we didn't know where to go. I used my cellphone to find relevant barbers along the main drag of the town. The main issue is that I got street numbers which weren't legible from the road. It would have helped if we had better signposts on location (which may have been an artifact of my search). I quickly inferred it was in a smaller strip mall across from a larger strip mall we had entered to check street numbers. (In hindsight, I may have been able to use the Google Maps app already loaded on my phone to get turn-by-turn instructions like for my Garmin; I may test out the functionality for a local barber shop in my area.) But it certainly beat the old school way of checking the Yellow Pages at home.
Another thing I wanted to check was the handling of sounds, ringtones, etc. Now what I brought into the configuration was experiences like the use and installation of fonts. For example, I use an email signature software called Qliner Quotes (described in an earlier post). I wanted to use some Old English calligraphy for my Quote of the Day section heading. My Windows TrueFonts did not come bundled with a relevant font so I had to search for a freeware font and installation.
Now, of course my Android device came with relevant configuration defaults, and I could tell some notifications were available via a flashing green light at the top of the phone. I was rather annoyed at my limited selection of available ringtones, etc., and I might get silent notifications. I might hear or feel my cellphone vibrate, say, if I got a message someone had retweeted one of my Twitter tweets, but what if I got a notification while taking a shower: I might have to check if my phone had a blinking light; an audible sound was harder to ignore,
Similarly, just like I could add items to my shopping list, I might want to set an alarm. Now here's a situation where I ran into an expectations problem. If I say "set the timer for 1 minute" on my notebook PC Chrome browser (toggling on the microphone icon), I will hear an audible alarm of beeps, but if I do this through the Google search window, it results in a vibrate alarm. (I will point out that if I launch Chrome on the smartphone and use the voice input, I will get a similar audible beep.)
I had figured out how to load one of my music tracks, e.g., "Love is Blue" onto my SD card I had installed on the phone (which was a "fun", unintuitive experience) and set it as the ringtone. But I just wanted to configure something classic, like desk phone rings, maybe a classic email tone for notifications or some buzz, beep, or bell for alarms. I experimented with a couple of ringtone apps like Zedge and picked up on how to select, download and configure the relevant sound. What was confusing was that when I configured an alarm manually through the alarm apps, it used the configured app default, but when I created an alarm through the Google search box, it created an alarm in the alarm app--and showed the configured default sound, but when the alarm was triggered, it was on vibrate and did not use the configured sound. (Perhaps the phone needs to be restarted?) It's not a big deal because I have a couple of ways of setting a usable audible alarm, but it comes across to me as confusing.
Finally, I've sometimes experienced a concept often fleshed out in Japanese quality control, e.g., the Kano model: the attractive quality, e.g., something unexpectedly pleasing that you never realized you always wanted in making a transaction. (Hotels often do this in various ways: maybe it's a complimentary newspaper, chocolates, fruit or warm chocolate chip cookies.)
Google products often have this. Let me give a simple. Google Calendar, in addition to configuring your own personal calendar of events, allows you to subscribe to any of a number of special-purpose calendars, including sports calendars. In my case, I add calendars for the UH Cougars, UT Longhorns, San Antonio Spurs, and the Minnesota Twins and Vikings. (Long story on the latter two; the first three deal with my college experience.) Now I did see the upcoming games and times on my calendar. I later began noticing that updated game scores showed up on my calendar (not to mention the next round of NBA playoff games for the Spurs).
The Google search engine in Chrome can be used not just to query for content but to extract for various information items, e.g., "what is the temperature in Atlanta, Georgia?' If I find a difficult word or wonder how to pronounce it properly I can query "define xxxx"; there is a speaker phone icon click on to hear the word and its definition. If I want today's GOP primary results or delegate count for my political blog, I query those descriptions; similarly I can query for the MLB Scoreboard or NBA Playoff Reaults. If I query Elton John songs, I get links to over a dozen Elton John videos, a short biography, even upcoming concert dates. When I recently baked a ham, I told my browser, "set timer to 200 minutes" If I land on a webpage from Germany, Russia or China, Google allows for quick, easy translations. I recently got a Word document questionnaire over a professional gig and easily loaded it into Google Docs. It was integrated with voice input, so all I had to do was point after each descriptive entry and dictate my response (with remarkably good translation). I read a recent post which suggested you could translate text from scanned business cards.
There are some minor things which I felt would improve the usability of products for my purposes. For example, I was trying the other day to save a Google Maps search, e.g., for directions to nearby Dan's Barber Shop into Google Keep (see above discussion of shopping lists). It would have been nice if I could have extracted information into a Keep note, e.g., right-click, Save to Google Keep. I could copy and paste the directions into a new note, and Keep has image-import functionality, but I couldn't transfer the image directly. I could save the map image to my download folder and then import the map image into the note. It seems to me that there should be a way of piping the image directly than resorting to a workaround. There may be a Google tool for this or related purposes.
I have come to a natural breaking point for the conclusion of this first post. For many Google power users, much of what I've described here is well-known but may not be obvious for new or occasional users of relevant tools. I stumbled into a lot of this not through tutorials but by playing around with the search engine and other tools. If other people find these tips interesting or useful, this post has served its purpose.
It may sound unusual for an IT academic to admit being late to the game of smartphones. Part of that was based on budget constraints, and I saw cellphones as mostly functional devices. Familiar readers may know that I finally got my first cellphone after a major tire blowout in I-5 heading down to LA from Silicon Valley. I had had a couple of work-related cellphones before then. I don't really make a lot of calls, and minutes were expensive, so I might do tech interviews, etc., via a wired, later digital line at home. As time went on, there were restrictions on the use of client PC's and Internet services (especially with the government). I often might not have access to the cellphone at work for security reasons (e.g., recording functionality), but I might be able to take a break from work (e.g., lunch). There was some functionality I wanted beyond calls, say, for example, a stock or mutual fund transaction in my retirement account during market hours. (One prior employer vendor, for instance, Fidelity Investments, will process an exchange at the next end of the trading day. So if I was building a position in biotech stocks, I might look at a down day to build my position. If I waited until I got home and placed the order, biotech stocks might have a good day tomorrow, meaning more expensive shares.)
Substitutes also deferred my decision. For example, a while back, I wrote a piece on a Garmin device. This has some nice functionality that goes beyond GPS-guided directions; for example, I can get directions to the nearest post office, fast food places, gas stations, hotels, etc. Before that, I would go online and print out directions and plan stopping places.
A few things happened in the interim. While I lived in West Virginia, I realized one day I was never using my digital phone, which was probably $30-40 of my monthly triple play cable bill. Whereas the latest iPhone or Galaxy might set you back a few hundred dollars, you could buy a decent quality phone for about $100, and some mobile vendors started offering virtually unlimited talk, messaging, and data for $35-50/month. (Granted, only a certain threshold of data was guaranteed high speed, but then I really wasn't planning to use my smartphone for A/V feeds.)
So I've owned my SmartPhone for just over a year now. As a human factors researcher, I was absolutely thrilled with the idea of studying what types of usability problems I would encounter, false inferences or expectations, natural interface gaps/Procrustean technology, etc. I've found myself using the device in unexpected ways.
I'll give a few examples to illustrate salient concepts. I happen to have short, stubbier fingers, which don't always work well given limited size touchscreens. I don't do a lot of messaging, but I realized the other day, I could utilize Google's excellent voice-to-text technology to dictate my text message.
The voice interface is pervasive through the technology. For example, I could use the Google search screen to request "Show me Mom's phone number." I was pleasantly surprised to see Google correctly typed out our surname when I asked the same question for one of my brothers. (The English pronounciation is "Gill met"; in fact, Dad used to sign into restaurants with that spelling.) Depending on the question, I might get a spoken response, e.g., "How old is Donald Trump?". On the other hand, when I asked, "What was Elton John's last American #1 hit?", I didn't get a vocal response, but I did get the link of a Wikipedia page for Elton John's discography.
I recently started playing around with building shopping lists, which you can do if you download the Google Keep app. So I can activate my Google voice functionality ("OK, Google"), and say "Add 2 cartons of eggs to my shopping list", "Add a half-gallon of almond milk to my shopping list', etc. And then the next time I'm in WalMart, I can simply say, "Show me my shopping list" and check off items as I do my shopping.
One of the first times I used the browser voice functionality was on a visit home over the holidays. Most of the times I had visited in the past, I had used a barber shop at the nearby military base. Mom used to work at the base exchange (Dad used to bring me to the NCO Club); there was a large barbershop at the exchange with a DMV queue type system, with the exception that active military preempted people in the queue. Long story short, Mom finished shopping and I was still in the queue. She decided it wasn't worth the wait. The base is across from a town where the family used to live, but since my Dad and brothers never used the town's barbers, we didn't know where to go. I used my cellphone to find relevant barbers along the main drag of the town. The main issue is that I got street numbers which weren't legible from the road. It would have helped if we had better signposts on location (which may have been an artifact of my search). I quickly inferred it was in a smaller strip mall across from a larger strip mall we had entered to check street numbers. (In hindsight, I may have been able to use the Google Maps app already loaded on my phone to get turn-by-turn instructions like for my Garmin; I may test out the functionality for a local barber shop in my area.) But it certainly beat the old school way of checking the Yellow Pages at home.
Another thing I wanted to check was the handling of sounds, ringtones, etc. Now what I brought into the configuration was experiences like the use and installation of fonts. For example, I use an email signature software called Qliner Quotes (described in an earlier post). I wanted to use some Old English calligraphy for my Quote of the Day section heading. My Windows TrueFonts did not come bundled with a relevant font so I had to search for a freeware font and installation.
Now, of course my Android device came with relevant configuration defaults, and I could tell some notifications were available via a flashing green light at the top of the phone. I was rather annoyed at my limited selection of available ringtones, etc., and I might get silent notifications. I might hear or feel my cellphone vibrate, say, if I got a message someone had retweeted one of my Twitter tweets, but what if I got a notification while taking a shower: I might have to check if my phone had a blinking light; an audible sound was harder to ignore,
Similarly, just like I could add items to my shopping list, I might want to set an alarm. Now here's a situation where I ran into an expectations problem. If I say "set the timer for 1 minute" on my notebook PC Chrome browser (toggling on the microphone icon), I will hear an audible alarm of beeps, but if I do this through the Google search window, it results in a vibrate alarm. (I will point out that if I launch Chrome on the smartphone and use the voice input, I will get a similar audible beep.)
I had figured out how to load one of my music tracks, e.g., "Love is Blue" onto my SD card I had installed on the phone (which was a "fun", unintuitive experience) and set it as the ringtone. But I just wanted to configure something classic, like desk phone rings, maybe a classic email tone for notifications or some buzz, beep, or bell for alarms. I experimented with a couple of ringtone apps like Zedge and picked up on how to select, download and configure the relevant sound. What was confusing was that when I configured an alarm manually through the alarm apps, it used the configured app default, but when I created an alarm through the Google search box, it created an alarm in the alarm app--and showed the configured default sound, but when the alarm was triggered, it was on vibrate and did not use the configured sound. (Perhaps the phone needs to be restarted?) It's not a big deal because I have a couple of ways of setting a usable audible alarm, but it comes across to me as confusing.
Finally, I've sometimes experienced a concept often fleshed out in Japanese quality control, e.g., the Kano model: the attractive quality, e.g., something unexpectedly pleasing that you never realized you always wanted in making a transaction. (Hotels often do this in various ways: maybe it's a complimentary newspaper, chocolates, fruit or warm chocolate chip cookies.)
Google products often have this. Let me give a simple. Google Calendar, in addition to configuring your own personal calendar of events, allows you to subscribe to any of a number of special-purpose calendars, including sports calendars. In my case, I add calendars for the UH Cougars, UT Longhorns, San Antonio Spurs, and the Minnesota Twins and Vikings. (Long story on the latter two; the first three deal with my college experience.) Now I did see the upcoming games and times on my calendar. I later began noticing that updated game scores showed up on my calendar (not to mention the next round of NBA playoff games for the Spurs).
The Google search engine in Chrome can be used not just to query for content but to extract for various information items, e.g., "what is the temperature in Atlanta, Georgia?' If I find a difficult word or wonder how to pronounce it properly I can query "define xxxx"; there is a speaker phone icon click on to hear the word and its definition. If I want today's GOP primary results or delegate count for my political blog, I query those descriptions; similarly I can query for the MLB Scoreboard or NBA Playoff Reaults. If I query Elton John songs, I get links to over a dozen Elton John videos, a short biography, even upcoming concert dates. When I recently baked a ham, I told my browser, "set timer to 200 minutes" If I land on a webpage from Germany, Russia or China, Google allows for quick, easy translations. I recently got a Word document questionnaire over a professional gig and easily loaded it into Google Docs. It was integrated with voice input, so all I had to do was point after each descriptive entry and dictate my response (with remarkably good translation). I read a recent post which suggested you could translate text from scanned business cards.
There are some minor things which I felt would improve the usability of products for my purposes. For example, I was trying the other day to save a Google Maps search, e.g., for directions to nearby Dan's Barber Shop into Google Keep (see above discussion of shopping lists). It would have been nice if I could have extracted information into a Keep note, e.g., right-click, Save to Google Keep. I could copy and paste the directions into a new note, and Keep has image-import functionality, but I couldn't transfer the image directly. I could save the map image to my download folder and then import the map image into the note. It seems to me that there should be a way of piping the image directly than resorting to a workaround. There may be a Google tool for this or related purposes.
I have come to a natural breaking point for the conclusion of this first post. For many Google power users, much of what I've described here is well-known but may not be obvious for new or occasional users of relevant tools. I stumbled into a lot of this not through tutorials but by playing around with the search engine and other tools. If other people find these tips interesting or useful, this post has served its purpose.
Monday, January 11, 2016
My Initial Uber Experiences
A familiar reader of my libertarian-leaning political blog knows that I have championed competition for consumer transportation in the form of Uber and Lyft services. Basically, these networks recruit drivers using their own vehicles as virtual taxicabs; typically as a customer/passenger, you first register a new account online and provide payment information (i.e., credit card details); you then download the service's app on your smartphone and log into the app, which uses GPS and functionality in the phone to pinpoint your pickup location for Uber drivers. There is an Uber services menu at the bottom, of up to 5 services, including the budget UberX option; after you select the service, you select/confirm the pickup location (the default location may be set by GPS) and you may also specify your target destination. (For a more detailed discussion, see here. You can also query Youtube video clips.) There are nuances from the use of taxis which I've used during my road warrior days (when I worked for Oracle Consulting they would only let me commute home every other week); for example, drivers and passengers rate each other.
As a car owner, I usually don't use taxis. I moved from WV to the Southeast US around springtime last year. Uber had started serving the local city a year before. I was planning an extended Christmas break; I live fairly close to the airport (I consider less than a half hour drive or so close). Normally I would consider airport-area parking, but I got sticker shock from a nearly $100 estimate. A local taxi company estimated a $25 fare one way. In the interim, I had checked with apartment management for their suggestions, and they didn't really have any recommendations other than to point out Uber operates locally although they hadn't personally used them.
I decided it might be a good way to try Uber, although I was more worried about my return trip due to arrive near midnight. The initial ride was a good experience; it took about 10 minutes from requesting a ride for the driver to arrive. The app didn't seem to let me enter my apartment building number and perhaps I needed to finetune the pin/pickup location. He wasn't quite sure where I was in the complex but he called while circling the complex and found me while calling me. The ride was pleasant, and the price significantly below the taxi estimate. (I had not come across an incentive for a first Uber ride credit of up to $20, which I think I saw at one of the airports during my holiday travel.)
I got an email notification for my transaction by the time I checked my luggage and went through security. I found doing the rating portion was not usable via my cellphone and somehow the rating was lower than I intended to score. Being unfamiliar with the process to modify a mistaken rating, I dashed off a message through Uber Support, which made the change and included some boilerplate for how to do it myself.
I'm not going to rant about TSA here other than to recall how I had taken my first plane ride after 9/11 and the shoe bomber incident; I guess the TSA had just implemented the shoe screening, and I was quickly surrounded by agents who got my shoes. I remember being in a state of confusion wondering what the hell they had done with my shoes. This time I got disoriented by something innocuous in one of my pockets, plus I also got pulled aside for a post-screen pat down. By the time I got to my trays I found my notebook PC missing; had another passenger stolen it? Another TSA employee eventually guessed what I was looking for and told me they did an extra security check on my PC, which they had left at another location. One might think they would have told me that in the interim.
The biggest issue I had on the trip to Texas was a connecting flight through Charlotte; I had an hour between flights, except the plane had to taxi for a half hour, and it turned out my flight to DFW was in a different concourse--not pleasant for an obese passenger. The flight was already boarding--including a 10-minute delay--when I got to the gate.
The reason I mention that was because I had a direct early evening flight home from DFW on my return due in (including time change) at 11:30 PM. I had similar concerns when I flew into a different concourse with a tighter flight schedule. But with the Skyway, it turned out I got to the gate with enough time to spare before boarding, I halfway flirted with the idea of grabbing a light dinner at the nearby McDonald's. We then ran into an exasperating series of delays starting with crew members and then a mechanical issue. By 'maintenance' I thought they were referring to cleaning the cabin, but eventually we got briefed on a part on the way to the plane; at some point, they decided to substitute planes, and I recall the cumulative delay was something like 2 hours or so; I got a long series of flight-related text messages pushing out our arrival on the East Coast.. In the interim, there were rumors from other passengers that our target airport would be closed before our rescheduled arrival time, and the flight could be scrubbed.
I wrote the above on my flights just to provide a context for my unexpectedly long delay back to the East Coast, now pushed well after midnight. I had no idea whether any Uber drivers might be available at 2 AM near the airport, especially if the airport usually closed by midnight or so. Uber, at least to the best of my knowledge, doesn't accept reservations. There isn't anything like a taxi dispatcher I could check on status or availability.
When the plane finally came in and I retrieved my luggage, I started up the Uber app. The airport seemed deserted except for a small group of construction workers. The interface seemed to suggest drivers were available anywhere from 4-10 minutes away. (My cellphone was also complaining about the need for a recharge.) I'm fairly sure I submitted my request as per the above process; I recall I got a much higher fare estimate for UberX--not much different from the earlier taxi estimate. But I got no popup of an assigned driver. That process is not transparent. It's possible I got blackballed by my first driver over the rating mistake, and any available drivers declined the business, but I had contacted the driver to tell him that the rating would be fixed and to let me know if it was still a problem.
I was confused because I hadn't gotten a driver identification, but the time remaining for the vehicle seemed to go down from 6 to 4 minutes; a taxi agent asked if I had a ride coming or he would let a couple of remaining taxis go for the evening. Soon after they left, I noticed the minutes counter spike from 4 to 10 minutes away. There were no obvious status indicators, e.g., 'no pending request', 'request in process', 'driver en route', 'no driver available; try again later'. I have seen some reports that indicate the Uber app sometimes provides misleading information (e.g., here).
It's possible, but unlikely, in my tired state that I had not submitted a request correctly, but I think it's more likely there wasn't an Uber driver available at 2-3 AM in the morning--what bothered me is not so much Uber not having drivers available but the lack of closure; I would have looked at my alternatives sooner than later. Eventually I gave up and contacted the 24-hour taxi service I had gotten an earlier estimate but it took probably took another 30-40 minutes before a taxi finally arrived (which I felt confirmed my hypothesis about a lack of available drivers). The dispatcher had made a shorter estimate, but I was able to call back for a status.
I was motivated enough to contact Uber Support. They were basically evasive on the point of what happens if drivers are not available. They basically apologized for the inconvenience and argued that they were trying to recruit more drivers in my metropolis. But when I approach usability of an interface, I want transparency and closure. One of the rumors I read on the web is that Uber might want to defer a customer's decision to consider another mode until a driver becomes available. I'm not sure that allegation is correct, but I would have felt better if I would have known sooner than later Uber couldn't provide a driver.
I'm sure that there are some readers who want to say, "Cry me a river"--a 2-3 hour delay is nothing compared to the recent winter storm knocking out thousands of flights with stranded passengers. True enough--but I will point out that the weather conditions were generally known in advance. I do not know if I would have run into an Uber issue if the flight had arrived on schedule.
In conclusion, I still see my Uber experience as positive, a win/win for drivers and customers. Furthermore, Uber has been an innovative service, with additional niches like alternate spins on taxis, carpooling, and delivery services; they are looking at Google's work with driverless cars. Nevertheless, I see room for improvements in the user interface.
As a car owner, I usually don't use taxis. I moved from WV to the Southeast US around springtime last year. Uber had started serving the local city a year before. I was planning an extended Christmas break; I live fairly close to the airport (I consider less than a half hour drive or so close). Normally I would consider airport-area parking, but I got sticker shock from a nearly $100 estimate. A local taxi company estimated a $25 fare one way. In the interim, I had checked with apartment management for their suggestions, and they didn't really have any recommendations other than to point out Uber operates locally although they hadn't personally used them.
I decided it might be a good way to try Uber, although I was more worried about my return trip due to arrive near midnight. The initial ride was a good experience; it took about 10 minutes from requesting a ride for the driver to arrive. The app didn't seem to let me enter my apartment building number and perhaps I needed to finetune the pin/pickup location. He wasn't quite sure where I was in the complex but he called while circling the complex and found me while calling me. The ride was pleasant, and the price significantly below the taxi estimate. (I had not come across an incentive for a first Uber ride credit of up to $20, which I think I saw at one of the airports during my holiday travel.)
I got an email notification for my transaction by the time I checked my luggage and went through security. I found doing the rating portion was not usable via my cellphone and somehow the rating was lower than I intended to score. Being unfamiliar with the process to modify a mistaken rating, I dashed off a message through Uber Support, which made the change and included some boilerplate for how to do it myself.
I'm not going to rant about TSA here other than to recall how I had taken my first plane ride after 9/11 and the shoe bomber incident; I guess the TSA had just implemented the shoe screening, and I was quickly surrounded by agents who got my shoes. I remember being in a state of confusion wondering what the hell they had done with my shoes. This time I got disoriented by something innocuous in one of my pockets, plus I also got pulled aside for a post-screen pat down. By the time I got to my trays I found my notebook PC missing; had another passenger stolen it? Another TSA employee eventually guessed what I was looking for and told me they did an extra security check on my PC, which they had left at another location. One might think they would have told me that in the interim.
The biggest issue I had on the trip to Texas was a connecting flight through Charlotte; I had an hour between flights, except the plane had to taxi for a half hour, and it turned out my flight to DFW was in a different concourse--not pleasant for an obese passenger. The flight was already boarding--including a 10-minute delay--when I got to the gate.
The reason I mention that was because I had a direct early evening flight home from DFW on my return due in (including time change) at 11:30 PM. I had similar concerns when I flew into a different concourse with a tighter flight schedule. But with the Skyway, it turned out I got to the gate with enough time to spare before boarding, I halfway flirted with the idea of grabbing a light dinner at the nearby McDonald's. We then ran into an exasperating series of delays starting with crew members and then a mechanical issue. By 'maintenance' I thought they were referring to cleaning the cabin, but eventually we got briefed on a part on the way to the plane; at some point, they decided to substitute planes, and I recall the cumulative delay was something like 2 hours or so; I got a long series of flight-related text messages pushing out our arrival on the East Coast.. In the interim, there were rumors from other passengers that our target airport would be closed before our rescheduled arrival time, and the flight could be scrubbed.
I wrote the above on my flights just to provide a context for my unexpectedly long delay back to the East Coast, now pushed well after midnight. I had no idea whether any Uber drivers might be available at 2 AM near the airport, especially if the airport usually closed by midnight or so. Uber, at least to the best of my knowledge, doesn't accept reservations. There isn't anything like a taxi dispatcher I could check on status or availability.
When the plane finally came in and I retrieved my luggage, I started up the Uber app. The airport seemed deserted except for a small group of construction workers. The interface seemed to suggest drivers were available anywhere from 4-10 minutes away. (My cellphone was also complaining about the need for a recharge.) I'm fairly sure I submitted my request as per the above process; I recall I got a much higher fare estimate for UberX--not much different from the earlier taxi estimate. But I got no popup of an assigned driver. That process is not transparent. It's possible I got blackballed by my first driver over the rating mistake, and any available drivers declined the business, but I had contacted the driver to tell him that the rating would be fixed and to let me know if it was still a problem.
I was confused because I hadn't gotten a driver identification, but the time remaining for the vehicle seemed to go down from 6 to 4 minutes; a taxi agent asked if I had a ride coming or he would let a couple of remaining taxis go for the evening. Soon after they left, I noticed the minutes counter spike from 4 to 10 minutes away. There were no obvious status indicators, e.g., 'no pending request', 'request in process', 'driver en route', 'no driver available; try again later'. I have seen some reports that indicate the Uber app sometimes provides misleading information (e.g., here).
It's possible, but unlikely, in my tired state that I had not submitted a request correctly, but I think it's more likely there wasn't an Uber driver available at 2-3 AM in the morning--what bothered me is not so much Uber not having drivers available but the lack of closure; I would have looked at my alternatives sooner than later. Eventually I gave up and contacted the 24-hour taxi service I had gotten an earlier estimate but it took probably took another 30-40 minutes before a taxi finally arrived (which I felt confirmed my hypothesis about a lack of available drivers). The dispatcher had made a shorter estimate, but I was able to call back for a status.
I was motivated enough to contact Uber Support. They were basically evasive on the point of what happens if drivers are not available. They basically apologized for the inconvenience and argued that they were trying to recruit more drivers in my metropolis. But when I approach usability of an interface, I want transparency and closure. One of the rumors I read on the web is that Uber might want to defer a customer's decision to consider another mode until a driver becomes available. I'm not sure that allegation is correct, but I would have felt better if I would have known sooner than later Uber couldn't provide a driver.
I'm sure that there are some readers who want to say, "Cry me a river"--a 2-3 hour delay is nothing compared to the recent winter storm knocking out thousands of flights with stranded passengers. True enough--but I will point out that the weather conditions were generally known in advance. I do not know if I would have run into an Uber issue if the flight had arrived on schedule.
In conclusion, I still see my Uber experience as positive, a win/win for drivers and customers. Furthermore, Uber has been an innovative service, with additional niches like alternate spins on taxis, carpooling, and delivery services; they are looking at Google's work with driverless cars. Nevertheless, I see room for improvements in the user interface.
Friday, January 8, 2016
My Favorite Windows File Manager Program
[ed. 4/3/16. I recently found Lopesoft FileMenu Tools uninstalled, which may be similar to the file corruption issue I discussed below. I have since switched antivirus vendors and the new software also didn't want to download/install. Interested readers may want to check other utilities, like Free Commander, a dual pane utility, which includes folder sizes, and Eraser, which provides secure file/folder deletion.]
Let me define what I'm describing here: a Swiss knife utility to handling file operations. For example, you might want to create, duplicate, synchronize, move or securely delete a folder/directory of files, modify or capture file attributes (e.g., date, rename, full path), or manipulate or transform files (split/join, encrypt, find and replace text).
Now how are these functions useful beyond default Windows features? Let me give a couple of examples. I might decide to aggregate image files in a consolidated directory I'll eventually write to a DVD. But the source image name may not be distinct. For instance, someone may email me a photo 1.jpg. I may later download an image from my browser, also named 1.jpg. If I regularly sweep my new image files to the virtual DVD folders, I might be prompted on whether I want to overwrite the existing 1.jpg. Rather than risk such collisions, I could rename source files with a unique tag at the beginning or end of the filename, e.g., 1_16jan08a.jpg, before moving them to the target.
Another useful function is a size of folders chart. For example, I may want to store a DVD image of roughly 4.38 GB. My video, music, image, software, and ebook directories may range from hundreds of megabytes to 2-3 GB. It may well be that the aggregate exceeds my DVD capacity, but I have a 600MB video which I can set aside for a future DVD data disk.
I have used two software products over the last few years in this category: FilerFrog and Lopesoft FileMenu Tools. (There are a number of features in common, but also some nuanced differences. For example, FilerFrog has encryption and file splitting features, while FileMenu has size of folder and folder synchronization features.) The way you use these products after installation is by using the right-click context menu (e.g., in Windows Explorer or an alternative like Q-Dir (see my earlier post)) after selecting relevant files or folders. There is a top-item menu bearing the name of the product in the context menu and you look in a first- or second-level menu for desired features. FileMenu Tools also allows you to reconfigure its menu through configuration options.
I recently had to reinstall FileMenu Tools because of a corruption issue (I had noticed the menu item had disappeared from the context menu). Lopesoft had recently republished a product version and my security software didn't want to download it. This is speculative on my part, but I did find a note on the website that it had a relationship with Open Candy, a known adware vendor. Lopesoft does offer an adware-free version for a suggested minimum donation. I will say that downloading the portable version on the download page did not seem to result in the same security software issue.
However, I ran into another issue with the portable version. After running the executable, I did not see FileMenu in my right context menu. What seemed to resolve my problem was to launch the configure FileMenu window and check under the Options menu. I found the (first) Enable FileMenu Tools option (supposedly) enabled. I toggle-switched the option off and on and got a Windows pop-up to verify the option. After I approved the change, I found the FileMenu menu in my right context menu.
Let me define what I'm describing here: a Swiss knife utility to handling file operations. For example, you might want to create, duplicate, synchronize, move or securely delete a folder/directory of files, modify or capture file attributes (e.g., date, rename, full path), or manipulate or transform files (split/join, encrypt, find and replace text).
Now how are these functions useful beyond default Windows features? Let me give a couple of examples. I might decide to aggregate image files in a consolidated directory I'll eventually write to a DVD. But the source image name may not be distinct. For instance, someone may email me a photo 1.jpg. I may later download an image from my browser, also named 1.jpg. If I regularly sweep my new image files to the virtual DVD folders, I might be prompted on whether I want to overwrite the existing 1.jpg. Rather than risk such collisions, I could rename source files with a unique tag at the beginning or end of the filename, e.g., 1_16jan08a.jpg, before moving them to the target.
Another useful function is a size of folders chart. For example, I may want to store a DVD image of roughly 4.38 GB. My video, music, image, software, and ebook directories may range from hundreds of megabytes to 2-3 GB. It may well be that the aggregate exceeds my DVD capacity, but I have a 600MB video which I can set aside for a future DVD data disk.
I have used two software products over the last few years in this category: FilerFrog and Lopesoft FileMenu Tools. (There are a number of features in common, but also some nuanced differences. For example, FilerFrog has encryption and file splitting features, while FileMenu has size of folder and folder synchronization features.) The way you use these products after installation is by using the right-click context menu (e.g., in Windows Explorer or an alternative like Q-Dir (see my earlier post)) after selecting relevant files or folders. There is a top-item menu bearing the name of the product in the context menu and you look in a first- or second-level menu for desired features. FileMenu Tools also allows you to reconfigure its menu through configuration options.
I recently had to reinstall FileMenu Tools because of a corruption issue (I had noticed the menu item had disappeared from the context menu). Lopesoft had recently republished a product version and my security software didn't want to download it. This is speculative on my part, but I did find a note on the website that it had a relationship with Open Candy, a known adware vendor. Lopesoft does offer an adware-free version for a suggested minimum donation. I will say that downloading the portable version on the download page did not seem to result in the same security software issue.
However, I ran into another issue with the portable version. After running the executable, I did not see FileMenu in my right context menu. What seemed to resolve my problem was to launch the configure FileMenu window and check under the Options menu. I found the (first) Enable FileMenu Tools option (supposedly) enabled. I toggle-switched the option off and on and got a Windows pop-up to verify the option. After I approved the change, I found the FileMenu menu in my right context menu.
Monday, December 14, 2015
My Experience with Martian Notifier
This is a potentially modifiable post, and I will time-date my entries accordingly as I gain experience with the device. The original post is dated 12/14/15; any latest update will be tagged at the end of this opening paragraph.
[12/14/15]. Ironically my last post hinted at the current topic. I know I'm hardly the first one to buy a smartwatch. In some cases, I've been an early adopter of technology (e.g., I owned one of the first VCR's at a time they started at over $1000, and I remember demoing to classes at ISU pen computing with a DOS spreadsheet), but in other cases I've been later (e.g., I started my CD collection only after I found it difficult to buy new albums on vinyl, and I got my first smartphone last year). I had zero interest in spending hundreds of dollars for the latest incarnation of an iPhone like many of my colleagues; I had alternatives for multimedia content, a Garmin device for GPS, etc. I could buy a decent laptop for less money. What changed my mind? Limited personal access to the Internet at work (e.g., filtered external email portals); I might want to check the weather, news or my brokerage accounts, status on a shipment, operating hours for a restaurant, etc. during work breaks or on the road. Lower prices for functional smartphones (the one I own now cost under $100); lower bundled services (e.g., I now have unlimited voice, text and data for just a modest increase over a plain vanilla 300-minutes/month cellphone plan I've had in recent years: granted, only a certain level of data usage is available at higher speeds). None of this is unusual but it reflects my personal pragmatism; I still recall my first graduate MIS course when my professor mocked people buying a PC for thousands of dollars to do something like store recipes when a 99-cent plastic recipe box would do.
One of the reasons I was interested in buying a smartwatch was its integration with my smartphone platform. True, I can always tell the time by checking my cellphone, but a smartwatch can be a stylish, more functional alternative to your standard watch, with convenient access (a few button clicks) to key information from your smartphone like local weather conditions. Now I haven't worn a watch for years; as a kid, I had mechanical watches I had to manually wind--which I vastly preferred over your typical battery-operated modern watch. My Mom once asked me about gift ideas for Christmas or my birthday (I've mostly lived in other states since 1993, and I usually buy what I want or need without telling her). I suggested a mechanical watch, specifically noting I hated the hassle of replacing modern watch batteries. She got me a battery-operated watch, dismissing my pet peeve. (It ended up in an unpacked moving box.) Now like a smartphone, a smartwatch runs on a rechargeable battery; in this case I need to recharge the watch once or twice a week and it's fairly easy to check the watch's battery status.
There were 2 things that led me to choose a Martian Notifier in particular. First, I wanted a smartwatch that looked like a watch, and the Martian Notifier looks like a stylish traditional watch (mine is black). The scroll line is discreetly along the bottom of the watch face; the design is well-done. While I've been writing this post, I tested integrating the Martian Notifier with the gmail account I use with my smartphone, and a test message scrolled beautifully on the watch. Second, just as I didn't want to pay a high price for my smartphone, the same held true for a smartwatch. A Martian Notifier sells for a decent price, under $50. I didn't place my order with the problem vendor described in an earlier post but through another prominent Internet vendor.
As someone who has written articles and book chapters on usability, I often judge a natural interface by what I sometimes refer to as a "toaster test". By that I mean I know how to power and use a new toaster without reading some enclosed instruction booklet or consulting others. There were a couple of minor issues I experienced. The first was the USB cable connection to the watch for the initial 3-hour charge. There's a small door in front of the female connection in the upper right quadrant of the watch rim which can be difficult to open without good fingernails. (This video, published by the vendor, is helpful.) The second was the pair (watch/phone) connection (cf. a relevant video here). I had gotten to a point of waiting for connection. I expected something to happen, like a pop-up launched on the smartphone, something like at the 2:10 mark of the clip. (I did see a 6-digit code appear on the watch scroll line, but it wasn't clear what I was supposed to do with it.) The connection eventually timed out. However, the Bluetooth pop-up in the video led me to drill down into the Bluetooth system setting on my phone where I found a prompt asking me to confirm the code appearing on the watch.
[12/14/15]. Ironically my last post hinted at the current topic. I know I'm hardly the first one to buy a smartwatch. In some cases, I've been an early adopter of technology (e.g., I owned one of the first VCR's at a time they started at over $1000, and I remember demoing to classes at ISU pen computing with a DOS spreadsheet), but in other cases I've been later (e.g., I started my CD collection only after I found it difficult to buy new albums on vinyl, and I got my first smartphone last year). I had zero interest in spending hundreds of dollars for the latest incarnation of an iPhone like many of my colleagues; I had alternatives for multimedia content, a Garmin device for GPS, etc. I could buy a decent laptop for less money. What changed my mind? Limited personal access to the Internet at work (e.g., filtered external email portals); I might want to check the weather, news or my brokerage accounts, status on a shipment, operating hours for a restaurant, etc. during work breaks or on the road. Lower prices for functional smartphones (the one I own now cost under $100); lower bundled services (e.g., I now have unlimited voice, text and data for just a modest increase over a plain vanilla 300-minutes/month cellphone plan I've had in recent years: granted, only a certain level of data usage is available at higher speeds). None of this is unusual but it reflects my personal pragmatism; I still recall my first graduate MIS course when my professor mocked people buying a PC for thousands of dollars to do something like store recipes when a 99-cent plastic recipe box would do.
One of the reasons I was interested in buying a smartwatch was its integration with my smartphone platform. True, I can always tell the time by checking my cellphone, but a smartwatch can be a stylish, more functional alternative to your standard watch, with convenient access (a few button clicks) to key information from your smartphone like local weather conditions. Now I haven't worn a watch for years; as a kid, I had mechanical watches I had to manually wind--which I vastly preferred over your typical battery-operated modern watch. My Mom once asked me about gift ideas for Christmas or my birthday (I've mostly lived in other states since 1993, and I usually buy what I want or need without telling her). I suggested a mechanical watch, specifically noting I hated the hassle of replacing modern watch batteries. She got me a battery-operated watch, dismissing my pet peeve. (It ended up in an unpacked moving box.) Now like a smartphone, a smartwatch runs on a rechargeable battery; in this case I need to recharge the watch once or twice a week and it's fairly easy to check the watch's battery status.
There were 2 things that led me to choose a Martian Notifier in particular. First, I wanted a smartwatch that looked like a watch, and the Martian Notifier looks like a stylish traditional watch (mine is black). The scroll line is discreetly along the bottom of the watch face; the design is well-done. While I've been writing this post, I tested integrating the Martian Notifier with the gmail account I use with my smartphone, and a test message scrolled beautifully on the watch. Second, just as I didn't want to pay a high price for my smartphone, the same held true for a smartwatch. A Martian Notifier sells for a decent price, under $50. I didn't place my order with the problem vendor described in an earlier post but through another prominent Internet vendor.
As someone who has written articles and book chapters on usability, I often judge a natural interface by what I sometimes refer to as a "toaster test". By that I mean I know how to power and use a new toaster without reading some enclosed instruction booklet or consulting others. There were a couple of minor issues I experienced. The first was the USB cable connection to the watch for the initial 3-hour charge. There's a small door in front of the female connection in the upper right quadrant of the watch rim which can be difficult to open without good fingernails. (This video, published by the vendor, is helpful.) The second was the pair (watch/phone) connection (cf. a relevant video here). I had gotten to a point of waiting for connection. I expected something to happen, like a pop-up launched on the smartphone, something like at the 2:10 mark of the clip. (I did see a 6-digit code appear on the watch scroll line, but it wasn't clear what I was supposed to do with it.) The connection eventually timed out. However, the Bluetooth pop-up in the video led me to drill down into the Bluetooth system setting on my phone where I found a prompt asking me to confirm the code appearing on the watch.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)