07.05.2007

New Geniuses: Actually, it is one old Genius and one new one. war1 picked up his fourth Genius certificate, this one in Web Browsers, while SteveGTR picked up his first, in the MS-DOS zone.

More MVPs: There are three more names to add to the list of Microsoft MVPs. tim_holman joined EE in 1998(!), and was recently named to the MVP list for the third consecutive year. TechSoEasy is the Zone Advisor for Small Business Server, and was named to the list for the first time. war1 is the third member of the 10,000,000 point club, and received his MVP award in Outlook.

Milestones:

• war1 became the third member of EE to earn his fourth Genius certificate, in the Web Browsers zone. He also reached 4,000,000 points in the Outlook zone.
• jkr reached the 9,000,000 point level.
• We noted a couple of months ago that ozo hade earned his Genius certificate in Math and Science. We neglected to mention that he is the tenth EE member to have more than one Genius certificate.
• TechSoEasy went over the 4,000,000 point mark in Small Business Server.

Kudos: digisel asked a question in the Internet marketing zone, which prompted a discussion of search engine optimization between humeniuk and ellandrd that is "Must" reading for anyone who wonders why his/her site isn't Number Three With A Bullet on Google or Yahoo. digisel summed the discussion up this way: "Having tried many forums in the quest for knowledge I must say that this has been a real pleasure. It is the first time I have used Experts Exchange. What a revelation."

mbizup had kind words for the engineering department at Experts Exchange.

The Expert t-shirts are finally making their way through the maze known as the postal service; thanks to shekerra for showing those of us who haven't received one what they look like.

war1 is the third member of Experts Exchange to earn 10,000,000 points overall. He joined EE in February 2003, and has picked up four Genius certificates -- only two other members have as many or more -- while answering questions about the Windows operating system and the Microsoft email programs. He was recently awarded Microsoft MVP status in Outlook.

How did you first find Experts Exchange?

I was googling around the internet and found answers from Experts Exchange were highly prized.

What made you start answering questions?

I had a free weekend in February 2003, so I answered a few questions in EE about operating systems.

What do you get out of answering questions (besides 10,000,000 points)?

I learn from the experience of helping. I understand more facts. Helping someone on the Internet is different from helping someone with their computer directly. The process is the same: I start with the most likely possible to less possible answers. Understanding the cause of the problem is the main issue. The answers in computer are straightforward.

Tell us a little about yourself -- the who, what, where stuff.

I live in the Los Angeles area and am an aerospace engineer working with a top company that supports the NASA programs. We support future ventures into space as well as the present Shuttle missions.

What do you do when you're not doing Experts Exchange?

When not working in IT nor Engineering, I love to watch and play sports and go antique hunting. Go Anaheim Ducks (world champs)! I write articles in Wikipedia on Trader Joe's grocery market.

What got you started in the IT business?

I consult with the IT department of my aerospace company. I help friends and family with their computer issues. I help out in Gmail user groups.

What got you interested in XP and Outlook?

Our aerospace company uses Windows XP and Microsoft Outlook. So I because interested as a prime user of these products.

The Zone Advisors can be a contentious group; one of the criteria Experts Exchange uses in looking for members to become ZAs is that they are "evangelists" for the zones they visit. Ideally, EE wants people who live and breathe the subjects they answer questions about, so it is natural to expect disagreements between them when it comes to specifics. However, another item on the list of criteria is how well the ZAs collaborate with other members; there aren't very many Lone Ranger types in the group.

One of the best examples we have seen recently was a question involving TechSoEasy, the ZA for the Microsoft zones, and ShineOn, the ZA for all things Novell and Linux. The discussion starts out as a debate about whether switching from Linux to Windows is a good thing, and ends up as a valuable guideline for any small business network. Nice work, gentlemen!

stone5150 is the IT manager for a non-profit organization in Kansas, and the Zone Advisor for Hardware. He likes Mexican food and cats, though not together or at the same time.

Does anyone really need that much caffeine?

Is it really worth that much?

I like fancy coffee as much as the next guy, but I have to draw the line at paying anywhere from $4 to $8 for a cup of flavored hot water with some cream and sugar. I know that in some circles showing up with a cup of joe that doesn't come in a brown cup with the all-too-familiar logo on it is like showing up naked to the prom. But if your identity revolves around how much money you stupidly throw away on a warm caffeinated beverage, then you really need a reality check, and soon!

Who says that everything we drink has to have caffeine and sugar in it?

I was reading an article on MSNBC recently about how people are not getting anywhere near the recommended amount of sleep. It is really bad news for teens, sleep deprivation really screws up their development. There are plenty of articles on the Internet and in print that say these things, so I wasn't too surprised to read it all over again. It was a slow news day. One thing that did stick in my head about this article were the ads that were splattered all over the page. Normally I filter these things out, but these really caught my eye. It wasn't the fancy Flash animation or the hot girl that caught my eye this time. It was the fact that I was reading an article about sleep problems, how most people do not get as much sleep as they should, and the ads on the page were for Starbucks and Coca-Cola.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the two things are related. Just try to find a drink other than water that doesn't have caffeine in it. Sure, there are sports drinks, but they are starting to put caffeine in those too. I lost a few nights sleep to the new Gatorade AM because I had no idea that it was chock full of caffeine.

The whole craze with overpriced drinks with harmful chemicals in them reminds me of the movie Idiocracy. In that movie no one drinks water, the word water is usually followed with the question "like from the toilet?". They prefer this nasty looking sports drink that has something called 'lectrolytes. Of course no one knows what this wonderful chemical is or does, but they don't seem to care either. This hits a little too close to home. Does anyone actually know what an electrolyte is? For that matter does anyone know what Retsin ® is either?

Overall, people are too stressed, too sleep deprived and too unhealthy, yet we pour caffeine and sugar down our gullets like it was something we can't live without.

A few more questions to ponder.

• Exactly how many chemicals do you put into your body on a regular basis that you have no idea what they are or what they do?
• How many people drink sports drinks that rarely drag their fat asses off the couch or computer chair?
• How much caffeine do you really need?

The Help page is pretty consistent; it says to ask for help if you need it, especially if you aren't getting responses to your technical questions. However, the Help page doesn't really answer the question of "who do we ask". So what follows is a list of the Zone Advisors, along with their various areas of expertise:

They can be contacted directly by emailing to [ZAName] "at" experts-exchange.com. The one exception is The--Captain; because email servers don't like the hyphens, his email name is "thecaptain".

An editor by trade, a writer by avocation and an Expert by happenstance, ericpete is the person who puts together the newsletter for Experts Exchange.

Back in my college days, I did my time in the restaurant business; for some reason, the manager at a family restaurant thought I'd be pretty good at waiting tables, and gave me a job even though I had no clue what I was doing. He told me that there were three things I had to always be conscious of: people at the door waiting to be seated, a half-empty coffee cup that should be filled, and getting to the cash register if someone wanted to pay. That translates into providing a quality product (and make it easy to acquire), support it to the Nth degree, and when it's time to purchase, make it easy for your customer. The customer isn't always right -- but you treat him as if he is.

A couple of weeks ago, the subscription on my desktop to ZoneAlarm expired. Since I installed it two years ago, I have told dozens of people about it; I put it on my laptop, I put it on both of my wife's computers, I put it on my mother's and my brother's computers... I'm not quite a shill for ZA, but I like how it works, it's easy to configure and install, their technical support is better than most, and it's very good at doing what it is supposed to do.

So, when I noticed that it had expired -- my one beef with the program is that it doesn't warn you -- I did what every red-blooded American consumer with a computer and a credit card would do: I clicked the renew button. I filled out the forms -- five pages, plus one to create an account that I had never needed before, but that's a minor annoyance -- and clicked the final submit button.

Sorry, but you can't access that page right now. Try again later, or call us.

Okay, I should have called. But for whatever reason, I trust computers a little more than I do some faceless, first-name-only guy who knows the three digit code on the back of my credit card. I also figured it was temporary... so I waited half an hour and tried again. And again. And again. Insanity, Einstein said, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the results to be different, and I was bordering on it. So I filled out a trouble ticket and sent it in. I got an autoreply saying I'd get a response in one to two days. Okay, I can live with the 500 or so spam emails a day -- no big deal. The next morning, I tried again. Same problem.

Now, this is a company that probably does most of its business through the Internet. So I replied to the trouble ticket's autoresponse -- it says it's okay to do that -- noting that I had $35 that I really wanted to spend with them, and please fix your website. Another autoresponse, and then, about 20 hours after my original complaint, I got the following:

I am sorry for any inconvenience. We have been having problems with our website. Please continue trying or you may call in and we can try and place the order for you. If my answer did not resolve your issue, and you would like further assistance, please reply to this email, leaving the subject line intact, your response will come directly to me... Michael, Customer Service, ZoneAlarm

My first thought was, "No, you're not sorry -- you're pathetic" (thanks, Lise!). Immediately following that was a survey. No, you didn't solve my problem. No, I'm not satisfied. Yes, I'm satisfied with your product. Yes, I have a comment: FIX your website. I also responded to Michael, asking when the site would be functional, and offering to just email him my information. After all, if I'm going to have to call, why wait on hold for the next available customer service rep, right? I got another autoreply, and a thank you note from the survey, and another survey. I went to bed.

The next morning, I tried again. Same result. So I responded to Michael again: "Just so you know... three days that your website has been "having problems" and counting. I can't be the only person in the world who is trying to resubscribe; you might just want someone to get it fixed." I thought about sending a link to Experts Exchange, but why tip my hand, right?

Michael finally responded the next morning. "I am sorry for any inconvenience. I understand your frustration, and no you are not the only person with this problem. We do not recomend you email your credit card info to us, but you may call us and provide your info and we can get you renewed. Please contact ZoneAlarm Customer Service at 1-877-966-5221 within the United States or 1-415-633-4588 outside the United States." There was also the same mealy mouthed paragraph about his answer, leaving the subject line intact, yada yada yada. (I've left the phone numbers in there out of spite.)

That evening -- four full days after the subscription expired, I thought "maybe it's the browser," so I tried with a different one. Imagine my surprise when I was presented with the message that I no longer qualified for the $35 renewal price, and that I would have to pay $50 for a new subscription. That did it; I finally called.

The guy on the other end was very helpful -- as long as we were only talking about him getting my credit card number. He did give me the $35 price, but it is what he wouldn't do that ticks me off. He didn't care that tens of thousands of people were looking at buying Symantec or McAfee or TrendMicro software. I pointed out that he might mention dissatisfaction to his boss; "I can't do that, sir." I warned him that I don't take lousy service lightly, and that while I wouldn't ever say anything bad about him personally (he did his job), that I would definitely give my opinion. Unlike ZoneAlarm, which essentially promises that the conveninence of online renewals is far more efficient and keeps the cost of software down, I'm keeping my promise.

See... this is what is wrong with online businesses. Someone in Marketing thinks it's a good idea to make people have "accounts". I didn't need one two weeks ago when I tried to buy ZA for a new desktop, but I do now. And now, the system doesn't work -- but no one feels it is so important that it has hadn't been fixed after four days. The customer service people have no clue; the company isn't even honest enough with its employees to tell them what the problem is and when it will be fixed. It isn't Zone Alarm that has the problem; it isn't the customer service department that has the problem; it's the website's fault.

Message to Zone Alarm: I'm looking for another vendor. I have, at my fingertips, access to some of the best security/antivirus/antispam people on the planet, and I'm not afraid to take advantage of them. You broke the cardinal rule: you aren't paying attention to your customers. You aren't serving their needs. They had to wait at the door to be seated, their coffee cups sat empty, and three people walked by without stopping to take their cash. That is unforgiveable, and they do not forget.

When in doubt, ignore the problem and blame the computer, right? At this point, I have sent in another email to Michael, and I'm waiting for the survey to come...

Epilogue: I sent in yet another survey. To date -- nearly two weeks later, no one at ZoneAlarm seems concerned enough to respond to me directly. Someone should have told them to never tick off someone who buys ink by the barrel.

It would work better if they included the part about $100 from Bill Gates: We've all see the emails that try to get you to go to a site that will download software that turns your computer into a zombie. The latest one comes from what appears to be the Microsoft Security Update folks. If you don't want to read through all the details, just trust us that MS Update MS07-0065 doesn't exist.

Speaking of working better: The launch of the iPhone last week did not come off without a few glitches. Notable were the less than enthusiastic reviews of Apple's decision to hook up with AT&T's EDGE network, and the Apple system for activating the phones was buried with requests.

Full employment for techs: The White House -- notice how an inanimate object and not a single person is responsible for things like this -- has ordered that all federal agencies will use a single configuration for Windows computers, designed by the Air Force, in order to reduce the government's security vulnerabilities. At least one reliable source of ours says that the Army has been dealing with the issue by going to thin clients without options for six months.

Lists: It's been a little while since we had one of these, so for your entertainment:

• A bit self-serving, but Yahoo listed 25 sites worth watching, including its own Yahoo Pipes.
• Another mildly self-serving list from the Boston Globe: six myths about work, listed by the author from her book.
• eWeek listed its suggestions for the 15 geekiest vacations. The mention of the baseball stadium tour doesn't note that the San Francisco Giants' home stadium includes free wireless Internet access.
• The Inquirer did two versions of geeky movies, one selected by its editors and another selected by its readers.
• ComputerWorld posted a list of ten dead or dying computer skills. Not to be confused with TechRepublic's list of ten signs it's time to look for a new job.
• Finally, PCWorld's list of five ideas that will reinvent computing, paired up with c|net's list of ten products that reinvented hype.

Request For Submissions: Your humble editor's cell phone plan -- the one he signed with Cingular a little over two years ago to get away from AT&T -- is up for renewal. He's looking at at least one other provider, but is open to suggestion based on something other than who has the best ads. If you have had, or have now, two different cell phone plans, let us know what you like about which and why. And remember, it helps if you're familiar with AT&T's stranglehold on most of California.

Just in time for the primary season: IBM says it is going to debut a new supercomputer that will achieve a sustained speed of 1,000,000,000,000,000 flops per second -- about a third of what one sees in a typical Congressional session. Sun Microsystems is also building a supercomputer that operates at about half that speed.

Bye, bye Miss American Pie: That odd noise you heard coming from your computer last week was the sound of no music, the result of a joint action among most Internet radio broadcasters protesting a new fee structure for royalties paid to recording artists.

French government won't supply needles: The French government has banned the use of Blackberry devices by government officials, based on a fear that messages sent using them could be spied on by the US.

Products of the Week: A steampunky problem light (thanks, Paul!) and, obviously, the Apple iPhone. We can't wait to see the mashup.

Best. Microsoft ad. Ever.: The same week that Microsoft came out with what we think ranks as the technological equivalent of a a bad coffee table book (thanks, Matt!), someone found the company's best banner ad ever.

Sign of the Apocalypse: The Department of Homeland Security has had 800 hacker break-ins, virus outbreaks and other computer security problems over a two year period. And there is a sign that maybe the Apocalypse isn't as close as it seems (thanks, Susan!).

We took a little break from the ordinary last week, and spent some time in one of our favorite places, and left the laptops at home (I know -- but we like to live on the edge every once in a while). During the time we were gone, needless to say, our POP3 server dutifully kept track of everything someone wanted to send us, and we obligingly downloaded all of it when we got home. He had about 2300 emails; I was mercifully sent only about 1500. Most of it, predictably, was of the "unsolicited commercial email" type.

While we were gone, my other half actually read a book -- for you permanently-connected types, a book is something you pick up in a store or library that doesn't have copy protection on it, costs only a few dollars, and doesn't require a mouse, a monitor, a DVD-R/W player or an Internet connection to read -- written by James Gleick called Faster. My better half was telling me about one of the chapters, about email. One of the things Gleick said is that it doesn't really matter how much email we really get, we always think it's too much -- thereby giving us the impression that we're really doing something when we're reading it.

Now, I'm not really like my other half when it comes to email. If I don't check my mail today (because I have other things to do, or just don't get around to it), then my world isn't going to end. My other half's world isn't going to end either -- he just develops a nervous twitch in his shoulder that looks like someone reaching to click the Send/Receive icon, because he thinks there is something important that will show up in the next few minutes. I was surprised, though; not once did he try to sneak off to the hotel's business center, and he didn't stop in the lobby to peer over someone's shoulder to look at their laptop.

But Gleick's point -- that we use email as our way of becoming and staying connected to people -- is well-taken. Someone once said that you can't choose your neighbors or your relatives, but when that was said, people lived in their communities, saw the same people all the time, and interacted with them. Today, with automated teller machines, and grocery stores with self-checkout systems, and gas pumps that use your debit card, there isn't much of an opportunity to get to know your neighbors; even the local elementary school parents club has a website through which you can donate money using PayPal. "Fundraiser? We don't need no stinkin' fundraiser."

To those people we do want to communicate with, email works fine; we have expanded our circle of friends to include people around the world, let alone around the block. They send us jokes; we pass them on. We know what their kids are doing; they know about our dog. It's almost a comfort to get all the junk mail, even. It's like getting the flyer from the car dealership in the next town over in the mail; it is an affirmation that we exist.