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Crusader August 27, 2008

Posted by Dale in : Funny Pictures , Comments

Saw this ad for Crusader weed killer in the Weekly Times, which is an agricultural paper published here.

No, we don’t have many Muslim farmers in Australia, strange that.

You’ve outsourced the helpdesk WHERE? August 25, 2008

Posted by Dale in : Last Job, Stories , Comments

Like many companies, my former employer offshored their Intranet helpdesk to India. First I knew of this was when I received an email

We’ve reset your password to abcd1234, and we’ll now close your Help Desk ticket

"WHAT HELP DESK TICKET!?!?!", I exclaimed to myself.

So I ring the Help Desk

CSC India, how can I be helping you?

"You’ve reset the wrong user account". A point which took 15 minutes to sink in with the bone headed Help Desk jockey. My password was finally reset but it took the best part of the day before I could log in (password had to replicate around the world).

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but a few days later, the Intranet logon page had a new option "I’ve forgotten my password", which eliminates the need to ever speak to the Help Desk ever again.

The morals of the story are:

Offshoring your helpdesk because it’s cheaper and "everyone’s doing it" should not be your primarily motivation.
The ability of users to fix their own problems ("I’ve forgotten my password") is a good idea.
If your Help Desk offer such crummy service internally, what will your external customers think of them?

Made my day - ABC 774 Sundays with Helen Razer August 24, 2008

Posted by Dale in : Would Like To Meet , Comments

Sport, sport and more sport.

Which means that when there’s sport is on, you don’t get your normal broadcasts.

Which sucks.

Checked the ABC website to find out if Helen had jetted off on another holiday, but no, Helen was streaming live.

Yeah!

SMS’d my displeasure, and Rodney rang up. Would I go on the radio?

Eek!

But I got to converse with Helen, and that’s made my day.

What I love about "Sundays with Helen Razer" is Helen’s turn of phrase. Which makes Helen worth listening to.

Thanks Helen & Rodney.

Converting audio & video files - I recommend Super! August 23, 2008

Posted by Dale in : AudioVisual, Utilities , Comments

Want to convert from one audio or video file format to another?

Have a look at Super. I’m really impressed with this utility as I needed to convert some AVI files into a format suitable for my PDA.

Other reasons you might use it? Convert from the strange OGG for a more mainstream MP3 or WMV format.

The colors I see on my screen are not the same as what prints out! August 18, 2008

Posted by Dale in : Printing, Psychic Troubleshooting , Comments

So you have a nice new shiny printer which can use CMYK color processing. CMYK is also known as four color processing.

And you wonder why:

The colors I see on my screen are not the same as what prints out.

Here are four reasons why:

You’re using an application which only supports RGB colors (typical application: Microsoft Word/Publisher/Excel/Visio).
Your printer needs to convert the colors from RGB to CMYK. This color conversion is not always accurate.
How your computer display (CRT/LCD) is setup.
Ever wondered why your display screen manufacturer shipped color card(s) with your monitor? Color print matching is a reason.
Your using a PCL print driver, and not the Postscript driver.
Postscript printer drivers are more accurate at page/color rendering.
PCL is faster, and not so good at page/color rendering.
Paper being used
Photographic-type paper behaves differently (better) to normal paper.

Solutions:

Use RGB if your printer driver supports it.
Match application colour types to output color process type (CMYK to CMYK, RGB to RGB)
Calibrate your computer display to the correct colors.
Use a Postscript driver if you have it.
Use RGB. Seriously. Use this color option if your printer supports it (almost most do).
Get a printing consultant in.
If you need to do this you’re likely to be a graphic designer, and know all about things like four color processing & PANTONE colors.

Reference(s)

Digital Expert - Color Space Fundamentals
Dry Creek Photo - Monitor Calibration and Profiling

“Web delivers new worry for parents: Digital drugs” August 15, 2008

Posted by Dale in : AudioVisual, Podcast , Comments

Queue the IT news beat-up:

We all know that music can alter your mood. Sad songs can make you cry. Upbeat songs may give you an energy boost. But can music create the same effects as illegal drugs?
This seems like a ridiculous question. But websites are targeting your children with so-called digital drugs. These are audio files designed to induce drug-like effects.

All your child needs is a music player and headphones.

Readers will remember I wrote about binaural tones here.

Benefits of Six Sigma August 13, 2008

Posted by Dale in : Last Job , Comments

They say that Six Sigma was created by a Motorola engineer, who ended up dying in the company cafeteria.

It’s all about cost-cutting. Sure, there are other benefits such as:

Cost reduction (duh!)
Culture charge
Customer retention
Cycle-time reduction
Defect reduction
Market-share growth
Product/service development
Productivity improvements

Now I think Six Sigma can work for you, but the two things I personally don’t like about it?

takes too long to run a Six Sigma project.
Six Sigma practitioners are known as "Belts", as in "I’m a Six Sigma Master Black Belt".
Yes, you do get a martial arts belt.
All too much wankery for me.

Tax checklist. August 12, 2008

Posted by Dale in : Personal , Comments

This is the checklist I use each year for my Australian Tax Return, in a handy Microsoft Word 97 format.

Drop me a line if you think of anything else to add.

Lessons from Scoble - why PodTech failed. August 10, 2008

Posted by Dale in : Business Etiquette, Other Blogs, People, Quotations , Comments

I used to think Robert Scoble SUCKED. I found his work at Microsoft Channel 9 sucked because it was all Microsoft-centric. Gee, what a surprise eh? Bloke works for Microsoft, so OF COURSE he’s going to be all "Hoo Rah Microsoft".

Glad I’ve changed my mind (ie. I was wrong) and now have him on my RSS feed list.

Saw this over at FriendFeed, and some of Robert’s learnings are worth noting. DO READ the whole feed to get the context. My comments in BLUE.

I sure learned a lot about how a company can screw up big time.

Brother, I know how you feel.

Major learning’s for me?

Have a story.

Have everyone on board with that story.

If anyone goes off of that story, make sure they get on board immediately or fire them.

Other things I learned:

Make sure people are judged by the revenues they bring in. Those that bring in revenues should get to run the place. People who don’t bring in revenues should get fewer and fewer responsibilities, not more and more.

Work ONLY for a leader who will make the tough decisions (see above).

Build a place where excellence is expected, allowed, and is enabled.

Fire idiots quickly (didn’t happen at PodTech — even if you count me as one of the idiots).

Working for people incapable of making a decision SUCKS. Learn to manage your boss in that case. Or leave.

Failures of companies often happen around failures at the leadership level.

Particularly when they say one thing, and then demonstrate something else.

We never played together as a team. It is why entrepreneurs need different skills after they start their companies. It is not enough to sell people on a dream. You must coach your way to it too.

I have been thinking about what Furrier said about me not having a full picture of what went wrong. First of all I don’t think he is right, but if he is I will add one last learning: never work in a VP position when those above you don’t share a complete picture of the business with you. Especially when that business is a social media one that was pushing transparency and community values.

Never worked as a VP, but that seems right. If you can’t be informed at the VP level, there is no hope for the company.

FastCompanyTV is making our bosses happy (we’re bringing in more revenue than is being spent) but we’re a private company so we don’t discuss our finances in public. About our audience. I’d argue that I know more about our audience than any TV show does and we’re soon going to require logging into FastCompanyTV to comment. Who is making tough decisions? I have a boss and he has a boss but the community is really our ultimate boss.

Listen to your audience. Your audience is the customer and your bosses.

Some Scoble links:
scobleizer.com
Scoble’s Google Reader Shared Items
IBM unveils nano-projector based VirtuaHuman with 1TB of memory

Sometimes when you are angry with someone … August 8, 2008