I’m amazed at how behind the times Support Management software is.  I’ve used a variety of applications in my career, and I’m sorry to say the best of the bunch was HP Service center, used by Fujitsu.  Just by looking at the UI you can see it’s behind the times.  Raising / updating tickets involves a host of drop down lists and text boxes.  In many cases managing a support call is more work than fixing the actual problem.  Time is wasted, calls are not managed correctly or SLAs are missed because of clunky software.

Why is it still like this.  Support Management software is crying out for the google treatment.  A graphically based system, where common settings and favourites can be dragged and dropped into a ticket.  Where staff activity can be displayed on a time line or users grouped into departments allowing managers and customers to see at a glance, live, graphical reports.

Every so often I clear down the Draft messages folder on my phone.  It’s always full of entertaining half messages, either written when drunk or discarded mid flow.

Only two this time:

Evening strip

(no recipient)

Jon, what’s this number?

(no recipient)

I love the idea of Chrome, it’s fast, has a small UI and does it’s job well.  As soon as more plug-ins (xmarks being the essential one) I’ll use it full time.  But until then I’m on Firefox 3.  One of the things I really like about chrome is the combined address and search box.  Just being able to type everything into one place is nice and if you get a URL wrong rather than a error message you get search results, usually taking you to the correct site. Turns out you can make Firefox do that as well.  Details below.

• Type about:config into your address bar.
• In the small filter box, type keyword.URL.
• Right click the keyword.URL value and click “Modify” (screenshot below). Enter the following URL into the popup box (you would want to copy this URL before clicking Modify):

  http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=

 This is the best thing I’ve found in weeks!

If you hover over a news feed item a Hide button appears in the top right corner.  Clicking on it gives you the option to either hide feeds from that person, or hide feeds from that application (past and future).

Fantastic, now I can slim down facebook to see your photos, links and notes without a flood of Mafia Wars posts

So I arrived on Saturday morning and immediately tucked into a pasty, the first one in 7 months!  Followed that up with the train to Jon and J0’s after which we headed out for a Full English.  Saturday night was spent in a pub in South London to see a intimate Levellers gig with Pat, Frank and a few others which was pretty damn good. 

Sunday saw us in the back garden for a BBQ and a chance to catch up with Abby, Tori, Lorraine, Rhi, Tim and Cool John.  Most of us had been out the night before so the conversation was limited but the company and burgers good.

So far this week I have been shopping for clothes, American ones don’t seem to fit me very well.  The trousers, sorry, pants, are really baggy in the leg and I end up looking like MC Hammer.  Anyway it turns out that European brands like H&M and Zara are actually a bit cheaper over here.  I’ve also spent my days eating English luxuries like Wheetabix and Kebabs.

Plans for the rest of this week include football, some light IT support and a curry plus a half day in the London office.  All of which leads up to the weekend and a Slimelight extravaganza!

I’ve been a bit rubbish at taking photos so far, but I lived here for 5 years, I already know what everything looks like

And finally, thankyou every0ne for the birthday wishes, I can wait to see more of you at the weekend!

I’ve pretty much spent all day in a meeting with a customer, on the phone and via webx (a bit like VNC).  Quite a lot of this time was spent monitoring what they were doing while we had each other on mute, with occasional questions.  During this time Tom has been dealing with AT&T to resolve some phone issues.  This means we’ve spent a lot of the day listening to automated operators on speakerphone:

• Press 1 for Business enquires
• Press 2 for Internet questions
• Press 3 to start a land war in Asia!

The upshot of all this is it occurs to me that you could write a text adventure game for an automated operator:

• You are in a dark room, Press 2 to go North
• Press 6 to go East
• Press 5 to talk to the wizard

We’re getting an automated system for work and I’m wondering if I can get any development time on it.  I’m also wondering if I’m ever going to get laid again having thought all this up.

Brilliant!  Now I have no excuse to be disorgonised.

Except Apathy.

I have a lovely pink drivers licence, issued by Her Majesty’s government.  Backing it up is a international drivers permit, which allows me to drive over here no problem.  In fact I’ve been doing so since February.

But to own a car I need a Connecticut licence.  If I was French I could just swap my licence for a local one, but apparently my town hasn’t forgiven me for when my great, great, great grandfather burned the place to the ground, because I’ve got to jump through every hoop going.

There’s a 20 minute driving test, no problem.  A multiple choice exam, again not problem I’ve just got to learn the slightly different laws.  The bastard part of the entire process is the mandatory 8 hour drugs and alcohol lecture.  This is in two parts the first of which I attended Saturday.

It was like an easyjet flight to church!  40 people in a tiny room, on folding chairs with NO leg room, while some old boy told us that drugs are bad and you shouldn’t drink and drive.  Fair play, no arguments there, but 8 hours!  Seriously, how many different ways are there to say don’t drink and drive.  We also got to watch some videos (actual VHS videos), 2 of which were made in the 70s and one in the 50s.

My theory is it’s a deterrent, get caught DUI and you have to do the course again!

Apop are playing New York next Thursday.  This makes me amazingly happy!

As always I shall stand at the front and act half my age like the fanboi I am.  Thinking about it I still need to book tickets to see Deadmau5 at electriczoo.

Took the bike into Manhattan for the first time on Saturday.  The plan was to ride around the island, although in the end I only went down the West side and back up the middle.  All the roads are one way so it’s easier going than London and zooming in and out of the mostly yellow traffic is awesome fun.  Major downside, the city stinks!  After the sweet and affluent air of Connecticut the air quality is hopeless and you really start to notice as you suck in lung fulls to feed the engine.

Hudson river park is beautiful, full of bikers, skaters and kids playing in fountains.  As an added bonus I got a first hand view of the clean up operation after the helicopter crashed into the aeroplane although I didn’t see the crash itself.

View my route on google maps