Tag Archives: services - Page 2

Updating software

Posted by on January 24, 2007 Comments Off

I have been a relatively happy customer of Cox Cable, and have especially enjoyed their DVR service for the past few months. While the set-top box (which is basically a small special-purpose computer) is itself manufactured by Motorola, some other company writes and maintains the software that runs the DVR machine. Interestingly, this third company is constantly updating the software, and they seem to have an arrangement with Cox so that they can issue software updates to the DVRs at any time, without even telling Cox. Nowadays most modern operating systems and software packages have an auto-update mechanism that you can use to make sure you have the latest and greatest. The difference with the DVR software is that it is not under my control. If the software was always robust, I’d consider that a usability benefit; however, a recent update to the DVR software was not fully quality controlled, as evidenced by the conversation I had with Cox technical support:

Me: My DVR has stopped recording all the shows I’ve scheduled, except for Blues Clues, Spongebob, and Dora the Explorer.

Cox: Have you tried rebooting your DVR?

Me: Yes, that didn’t work.

Cox: You know, I’ve been hearing this same problem a lot over the past day from other customers. What you have to do is delete all your scheduled shows and re-input them. That should fix it.

Me: Okay, thanks, we’ll try that. (It only partially worked, by the way.) Why did this just start happening, any idea?

Cox: I think that the software company issued a new patch and didn’t tell us about it.

So the software auto-update model is not perfect. An inherent benefit of web services (such as Skweezer) is that they are always up to date, there is no client-update required. Nevertheless, before we make our latest improvements public to our customers and users, a thorough testing must be done. While there is always the temptation to shortcut the quality assurance step, examples such as this blunder by Cox’s software partner remind us that a botched upgrade increases support costs and harms customer goodwill, which is a poor exchange for agility.

This is my long way of saying that we’ve been working on something very cool, but you’re going to have to wait until it’s ready.

Update: it turns out that the software company I wrote about above is called Aptiv Digital, Inc. (formerly Pioneer Digital), and the software that they updated is called Passport Echo. Last night I called Cox support again (recordings still borked) and at the end of the conversation I asked if they could roll us back to a previous working version of the software. The agent said that was a possibility, since Cox/Aptiv has done that before in other areas in response to bad upgrades. Obviously this has happened before.

Next version of Skweezer: conversions!

Posted by on November 9, 2006 Comments Off

I just realized an easy way to describe the next version of Skweezer: like this site, except for mobile devices. Seriously, this is very handy. Then of course there’s Zamzar, which is similar but has a nicer design. I wish I could figure out a way to use these services with Skweezer, but phones do not like the upload so much. It would have to be more transparent to the mobile browsing experience, and so it seems like we’ll have to dive into file conversion ourselves. Along those lines, I have not yet found a PDF to HTML converter that I like. Still looking.

On apologies

Posted by on August 10, 2006 1 comment

AOL LogoMost are familiar with the AOL fiasco this week (they accidentally made the search logs of more than 650,000 users public), and the resulting apology:

Although there was no personally identifiable data linked to these accounts, we’re absolutely not defending this. It was a mistake, and we apologize. We’ve launched an internal investigation into what happened, and we are taking steps to ensure that this type of thing never happens again.

Still, the data was specific enough for the NY Times to track one user down. When confronted with that story, the AOL spokesperson apologized specifically to the unmasked woman, but added “there is not a whole lot we can do.” He went on to explain that the system that collected this data did not record the screen names of the users whose searches were captured, which I do not believe. There has to be a way for AOL to identify every one of the 650 thousand customers who were affected by this breach of privacy and apologize to them directly or somehow try to make it right. After all, how were these numbers consistently generated in the first place? (Perhaps the number is an internal customer ID, or maybe it’s a hash of their username.) Instead, AOL issued conditional apologies that can be summed up as this: “we’re sorry, but what’s done is done, it’s really not so bad, and it probably won’t happen again.”

I contrast this “apology” with a message I received yesterday from Peter Blum, developer of some very useful ASP.NET controls which I downloaded this week. Out of respect I don’t want to go into specifics of exactly what happened, but via e-mail he described the problem, sincerely expressed his personal remorse (“I feel really bad about my mistake”) and extended my license period. Here’s the kicker: this is a trial product and I’m not a paying customer (yet). I think other companies might have hoped their mistake went unnoticed, or perhaps qualified their mistake and become defensive. Further, Mr. Blum made sure to give me something as proactive compensation (an extension of the trial period), even though I personally had not yet complained. I am impressed.

As long as they are staffed by human beings, companies will occasionally make mistakes. The lesson in it for us here at Greenlight Wireless, a company that is also entrusted with sensitive user data, is to do our best in protecting that data, but be forthright and proactively apologetic if/when we accidentally let our customers down.

ESPN MVNO, part II

Posted by on July 24, 2006 Comments Off

I had my misgivings about ESPN Mobile’s service some time ago. Since then, things haven’t gone so well for them, unfortunately. I really mean “unfortunately” because I’d like to see data services do better in America, really. Rising tide and all that.

While reading the news on this, I found a really good writeup on MVNO math by Julie Ask, a JupiterResearch analyst, describing how small this market really is. I have since subscribed to the Wireless section of the JupiterResearch weblogs. Good stuff.

Skweezer is not a phishing site!

Posted by on July 20, 2006 2 comments

Update: it seems Skweezer is green now, even though there haven’t been any new ratings besides mine. Maybe this post triggered a review? We’ll never know, and my concern about lack of transparency stands.

Big red XPhishing scams are a serious problem on the Internet. Thankfully this issue is getting more attention. While I consider myself immune to the pleas for my bank information, nevertheless (after reading some of the latest info about OpenDNS, which I intend to write about later) I recently installed the McAfee SiteAdvisor Firefox extension, which rates the sites you visit by safety. Naturally one of the sites I visit daily is skweezer.net. Imagine my surprise to see in my toolbar that both skweezer.net and greenlightwireless.net are flagged as dangerous by SiteAdvisor.

The entry for greenlightwireless.net has no ratings of its own, but is flagged evil because of its association with skweezer.net. Skweezer’s black eye, in turn, is because of a single user, “JoshMeister”, who on July 8 left this supremely insightful comment for Skweezer.net:

Phishing scam at http://www.skweezer.net/s.aspx/2/signin.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?SignIn

Skweezer affiliations (SiteAdvisor)And that’s it: we’re officially evil. My hat is off to you, JoshMeister. I’m glad the Internet is full of network experts like yourself who can tell the difference between a phishing site and a transcoding service. My response to this false charge is on the SiteAdvisor site (I validated as the website owner) but if you would like to help us out and set the record straight, please register as a reviewer and leave a comment in our favor.

I am concerned about the ripple effect of things like this. How many users are warned off from our site for the wrong reason? I doubt that the reviewer was malicious (probably just mistaken) but what if this was a competitor that wants us censored or hamstrung? How many services or ISPs license SiteAdvisor’s database? What is the vetting process that McAfee takes here? Each reviewer has a “reputation score”, but we were nailed by a single reviewer with a score of 2/7. Frankly I’m glad that anti-phishing services like this exist, but I’m concerned with one that relies too heavily on a community of users to provide a service that would otherwise be to expensive to staff properly. If this passed an internal review process, then the process is not thorough enough; otherwise, Skweezer.net would never have gotten flagged.

The trouble with contextual ads

Posted by on July 19, 2006 1 comment

Self-googling is so wrong, but nevertheless I followed a recent link from a Google News search on “Greenlight Wireless” to one of our PR articles that celebrates our union with our web host, Data393. In case this doesn’t work later, here’s a screenshot for the full effect:

Screenshot of PR article

Note the Rackspace ad right in the middle of the article for their competitor. Either this is totally brilliant or a complete disaster depending on your point of view. I think it does more harm than good in this case, but that’s just my opinion. The article is all about how we went with Data393 and found them to be superior in all respects. When I see this ad, I am reminded of all the reasons why we didn’t we go with Rackspace. This is the advertising equivalent of wearing the loosing team’s jersey as you leave the stadium. This is just another example of how placing ads along side content can have unintended consequences.

Mobile Model Muddle

Posted by on July 18, 2006 Comments Off

Quick: what kind of mobile phone do you have? You may know the brand, but what’s the model number? Don’t know? You’re not alone, according to this blurb from The Register:

A survey of 761 mobile phone users aged 15 and over, commissioned from Ipsos MORI by LogicaCMG, found that 49 per cent of mobile phone users didn’t know what model they use. A further nine per cent were unaware of the make.

This is a serious barrier of entry for services that require you to know this information before using them, and that translates into lost sales.

Bookmarks and articles

Posted by on June 27, 2006 Comments Off

Here are a few recent items from my bookmarks and feed reader just so I have at least one post for the month of June (it’s been busy):

  • In defense of walled gardens, by Andrew Cole, president of CSMG Adventis (a telecom consulting firm), via Techdirt. I agree with points but disagree on the conclusion. Here’s the key quote, basically saying “walled gardens are essential for usability”:

The walled part of the garden is required because a closed system ensures the seamless movement of digital content and services across networks and hardware. It optimizes ease of use and encourages digital service and content purchase and usage. At this stage of the digital services market lifecycle, mass-market users fundamentally require closed system benefits.

Vonage IPO

Posted by on May 24, 2006 Comments Off

As a long-time Vonage customer, I had the opportunity to buy in to the Vonage IPO at $16-18 a share. I passed, but I still worried that I was missing a good thing. What if it goes up to $20 on day one? I could have made a few hundred bucks. Today Vonage had its IPO at $17. Now it may be that Vonage will shoot through the roof and I may still live to kick myself for sitting this one out, but right now I'm not feeling too bad:Vonage IPO day 1

Carlo Longino on “the mobile Internet”, nails it

Posted by on May 10, 2006 Comments Off

I picked up Carlo Longino's post just minutes ago on my feed reader (he discusses surprisingly low mobile Internet usage penetration statistics) and I was struck by how well his final paragraph summed up what's wrong with today's mobile Internet, or at least many operators' visions of it:

…Users should be empowered to access whatever they want. This means no walled gardens, and powerful browsers that can access full HTML sites. Second, operators should focus on adding value to users’ internet experiences by recognizing that mobile browsing is different than browsing from a computer and add to (not replace) the open access with more customized services and sites for users that want them.

Amen to that. Who wants Internet lite? Not Skweezer users, that's for sure. The original article at Netimperitive is quite interesting too, as it backs up the rationale for Skweezer's whole existence (emphasis mine):

… One in three (33%) British mobile phone users want to surf the web on their mobile phones, but only if it is like the true Internet environment. To date only one in ten (11%) British mobile users have browsed the Internet on a mobile, compared to over one in four (28%) world wide.