“You’ll find more information on the Safety Card in your seat pocket”

Ever noticed, when flying, that people ignore the Flight Safety presentation.

So when someone sent me this Youtube video, I thought it was worth a second look as well.

You can tell the Air New Zealand staff really had a great time filming the various videos, particularly if you look at the blooper reel.

And I can’t get the background tune out of my head:

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This enhanced web-case entry …

In my inbox this morning…

Enhancing your eService experience…

is a commitment from WXYZ Technical Support to you. Our goal is to continually evolve the content on our Support web site to help you get answers to your questions quickly or solve problems you are having…on-demand…7 days a week, 24 hours per day.

Our Technical Support site is designed to deliver solutions to your product related questions. Specifically, the site allows you to search hundreds of known solutions to product questions as well as submit issues to Technical Support. You can also download software patches and documentation and check the status of any cases you have opened with Technical Support.

The Technical Support web site is your solution portal. This site provides a web form that is structured to capture the information we need to begin the problem resolution process. As such, we are requiring that questions/issues for Technical Support be submitted via the website.

This enhanced web-case entry process will allow us to eliminate the use of email as a case submission tool, effective July 20. Phone support provided to our maintenance customers is not impacted by this change.

How will this change benefit you? By submitting a case through the web we can route your issue to the right specialist – immediately. In addition, the structured web form captures the information we need to begin resolving your problem and, you receive an immediate case ID that allows you to monitor and track the resolution progress of your case.

We look forward to continuing to enhance the support experience we provide you.

WXYZ Technical Support

So, they’re removing a way for me to communicate with them, and forcing me to their dubious website.

I’m not a fan of WXYZ.  For the past two years, they have assured us that our yearly license renewal is correct, and when we apply the license file to the server, it isn’t.

I’m not a direct customer of them.  I support a customer who is.  I pity the fools.

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The iPhone Enterprise Deployment Guide

hero_iphone_enterprise_06252008 A work colleague, an iPhone user, sent me a link to the "iPhone OS Enterprise Deployment Guide”.

So I had a look at the guide, expecting to see a half-arsed attempt at supporting corporate deployment requirements.

I was wrong.

There is much to like about what Apple has done for corporates.

My favourite three?

Remote wipe.
Lose your iPhone, and we can remote wipe it for you.  I had a customer ask me that very question today about BlackBerries.  “Yes, we are able to wipe your BlackBerry remotely.”

Syncs to Microsoft Exchange.
And supports the password policies: enforce password/maximum number of password attempts (before device wipe)/password complexity.

Configuration profiles. 
My great annoyance with the BlackBerry is that I cannot easily configure each one with the same “look and feel” via a simple policy program.  So I spend 10 minutes each device getting them the way we ship then to customers.

It looks as if I would need to do that only once with the iPhone.

 

Now to convince the boss to buy me a iPhone 3GS, so I can try it all out.

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For the love of dogs

It’s a cliché, but the world’s best Vizsla passed away in my arms today.

Super Vizsla didn’t have an easy life, having had sarcoptic mange as a young dog, then a thyroid condition, and finally arthritis in his old age.

Vadar rekindled my love of dogs, and I’ll miss him terribly.

      

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Windows Live Writer programming is a pain.

3 reasons:

  1. Most of the examples out there are written in C#.
  2. You can’t manipulate your post html source directly.
  3. The SmartContentSource.GeneratePublishHtml Method insists on wrapping DIV tags around everything.

Sure, there are workarounds, particularly by using the ScottIsAFool.WriterUtilities, but it mightily peeves me that Windows Live Writer is difficult to write for.

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Semi-regular web-link clearance 2! - June 2009

Windows 7 RC Training Kit for Developers
"The Windows 7 Training Kit for Developers includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos designed to help you learn how to build applications that shine on Windows 7"

How Do You Detect if Running OS is Windows 7 or Later?
… preferably by using the VerifyVersionInfo function.

Installing Applications Using Active Directory Group Membership
"With this solution you can dynamically install applications during a LiteTouch deployment based on the membership of Active Directory groups, this means that each computer deployment can be uniquely customised, without the need for complex scripting or advanced infrastructure.  All that is required is this blog post, a group created in Active Directory for every application that will be dynamically installed, and all computer accounts pre-created in the domain and added to the relevant application groups."

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"100 fatals per compile is NOT excessive!”

Clint Edmonson, over at notsotrivial.net, has a great post about how to assess your developer team skills.

The short version, is characterised like this:

  • Novice – “Just tell me what you want me to do.”
  • Advanced Beginner – “I’m ready for my next task.”
  • Competent – “I’ll have it done by the end of the day.”
  • Proficient - “The XYZ pattern can solve that problem perfectly.”
  • Expert (aka Master or Wizard) - “Did you need anything else?”

If you want to know where your developer’s skill level are at, I heartily recommend reading it.

And, since this is a Friday, it reminded me of this chart, back when I was working as a Computer Operator.

A concise guide to basic traits of Data Processing personnel

(click on the picture for a larger version)

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How to find a string in a returned record in a Crystal Reports report.

Simple, once you know how.

It’s even in the manual, if you can find it in the 500 page tome.*

In Formula Workshop, under Selection Formulas/Record Selection,

"dont want this string" in {database_table.in-this-field-record}

Just like it is in this picture.
 Crystal Reports Formula Workshop

* there’s four hours of my life I won’t be getting back.

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No post today

At work, I been busier than a one armed Sydney cab driver with the crabs.

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“They don’t know who you are, just hang up.”

state-bank-hamburger-logo Banks place a whole lot of responsibility on their tellers, to balance or “slicker” their cash draws at the end of the night.

And pressure.

No one goes home until every dollar is accounted for, or ultimately written off.  Talk about peer pressure.

I worked as a bank teller before I got into the IT game.  One night, over a beer after work, Ashley Brown* was telling the story about how he was $100 short.

“We balanced up, and found the cash draw was $100 short.”
(clearly Ashley overpaid someone, it happens).
As we were going though the receipts, we got a phone call..

‘G’day, I was overpaid $100’

Ashley was overjoyed that the money had been found, and was in the midst of asking the customer when he could return it, when he heard in the background of the telephone call.

‘What the f&*k are you doing.  They don’t know who you are, just hang up.’

CLUNK!

* Ashley was a high-flier.  Last I heard of him was that he’d transferred to the bank’s Internal Audit section.  Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s running the place now.

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