A Day In The Life

Can't believe it's been a full two years since I last posted to this blog. Time flies when you're making change.

via Lazarus-6130 at DeviantArt

I read the blogs today oh boy
About more JS frameworks on their way
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh
I saw the infograph

It was yet another approach
To solving the same things of yesterday
A crowd of people stood and trolled
They'd seen this stuff before
Nobody was really sure
If it was like IO or Node

I saw a tweet today oh boy
Toronto street car service is still slow
They've crowds of people every day
But I still have to drive
Cuz of where I live
I'd love more subways here

Woke up, fell outta bed
A Beatles earworm in my head
Found my way down th'hall and dialed my call
And sitting there I noticed sound was dead

Found my phone in seconds flat
Bluejeans worked, so that was that
Found my way online (had to reboot)
And somebody spoke and I went into a dream

I read the logs today oh boy
Thousands of commits by hundreds of folks
Though some issues were rather small
We had to count them all
Now we know how many tweaks it takes to make a new release
And how to turn it on

The Beatles - A Day In The Life

Branding is reality.

I've been saying this for years
-- Diesel Sweeties #2194
(c) R Stevens 2009. Used Without Permission.

The Group Of Seven

Seven things about me, as inspired by Roy's tag:

1. In just under 3 weeks I've become utterly obsessed with my Blackberry. My wife, who at first was apprehensive of hers (along with all new technology), has been using it non-stop as well. It's been a good text'mas. :)

2. My wife and I live with two American Pointers, two horses*, three laptops, two smartphones, and many, many usb peripherals. The office is the warmest room in the house.

3. My day job consists of maintaining and improving the build systems for JBoss Tools and JBoss Developer Studio. My night job involves numerous Eclipse projects, including Modeling and Dash. Basically, I hibernate in the winter in front of the computer.

4. My parents - divorced - are of Jewish/American (dad) and German/Canadian (mom) decent. They've now been separated longer than they've been together. With the subprime mortgage crisis in the US, he recently moved back to Canada to seek more gainful employment. Unfortunately, he chose Calgary which isn't faring much better, now that gas prices are finally coming back down. My mom now lives in Scaborough near us, having returned from her self-imposed escape to Vancouver, and is more or less retired.

5. I graduated from the University of Waterloo back in '99 with a BASc in Chemical Engineering, having spent the balance of my last two years learning about programming, workflow design, process control, and optimization. In retrospect, it seems I was always headed for release engineering.

6. Much like Andi Gutmans, I too hate shaving... but as I work from home, I can get away with not doing so for days at stretch. I love my 30-second commute to work, which offsets my 8-to-10-hour workdays quite nicely. Why commute 2-plus-hours a day when you can use that time to get real work (or at least email) done? Thankfully, more and more companies are realizing this and are letting us work remotely.

7. I try to find time - when not working or hacking - to walk my dogs, hike, cycle, kayak & swim: sometimes several in series. One favourite route involves cycling from my house to the beach at maximum speed, swimming in the lake to cool off, then portaging the bike up the side of Bellamy ravine and home. This past season I rode over 750KM and kayaked over 75KM, mostly in and around Toronto, Scarborough and Pickering.

So, then, here are 7 more in this chain, in no particular order...

1. Opal Aristizabal, tech writer and Insight driver
2. Jamie Callingham, one of the few teacher-types I know who actually has time to maintain a blog
3. Alain Cloutier, graphic designer with a slightly insane blog, two great kids, and horse-addicted wife. He and I share a similar pain -- horsefolk are a special (wonderful) breed of crazy. :)
4. Kenn Hussey, IBM ex-pat and blogger with great frequency, especially this past Blaugust.
5. Wassim Melhem, overworked - but always well-dressed - project manager
6. Julia Raphael Morgan, opera singer sans blog at the moment...
7. Andrew Overholt, Linux evangelist and fellow cyclist

And here are the rules I'm supposed to pass on to the above bloggers:

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post - some random, some weird.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

* - The horses don't live with us, thankfully -- it's someone else's job to feed and muck them.

Evil Dead The Musical: The Remake of The Reprise

Another day, another visit to the Diesel Playhouse for some beer, blood, bawdiness, and blood...

The new cast wasn't the same as the original one (naturally), but you can't go wrong with a quasi-midget-wrestler in the role of Cheryl, Ash's sister. And with Ryan Ward and Mike Nahrgang still in attendance, a good time was had by all, especially when Evil Scott got killed right in front of us and showered us with gore.

If you haven't yet seen the show, it's been extended to June 14.

Look who's still evil!
-- The fourth, and final? time

Show Me, Don't Tell Me

Wow. My Grade 9 English teacher continues to be right. She was the first person to tell me "Show Me, Don't Tell Me," in the context of writing essays and debating issues.

Looking for a good recap of 2007 (which includes a bit of well-deserved bashing of Microsoft for Vista and Sony for the PS3), I found this article contrasting religion and atheism, and how to achieve common ground between the two camps. It concludes with 'Lead by Example', which is really just 'Show Me, Don't Preach At Tell Me."

So, while I don't have a lot of opportunities to run afoul of zealots (other than those in my immediate family, I suppose), I'm adding 'be more tolerant of others' beliefs' and 'lead by example' to my 2008 resolutions. Well, that and to get off my butt and get biking more.

EMF: Dynamic gay erection? Virtually unbelievable!

It's been a while since my last linkdump from the world of EMF, so here's a quick update, brought to you by Google Alerts:

• People start using Apache Tuscany SDO and JSF to build dynamic web forms.
• Gay Ghost of The George Hotel found thanks to EMF.
• Guildwood residents take to the streets to picket the erection of a new Bell cell tower planned for the roof of a local church, citing fears of EMF (well, RF, anyway).
• EMF Touts Second Life Virtual Protest against IBM as a Success -- "[I]f IBM employees stick together, organize and actively challenge IBM [Italia] they can change [...] practices."
• And finally, it seems the band EMF is coming back. Believe it.

Customer Service Apathy, Part 3: Closure

(con't from Part 2)

That evening, I got a call from Rob, of Double G, who apologized profusely for the snafu, explained this sort of thing was rare, and told me a forensic investigation was in progress to figure out how it was possible that so many people had dropped the ball here.

He then assured me that a carpenter would be out next week to close the gaping hole in the side of my house where my old meter had been.

On Sunday, a full 12 days later, I began this email thread:

When we spoke on Tuesday, Sept 11, you assured me that someone from Double G would be out to my house to complete the construction of a box to weatherproof my new gas meter THIS WEEK (Sept 17-21). As this week has come and gone, I'm hoping you'll send someone out this coming week to finally build the box and complete the job that was started in July.

When might I expect a carpenter to arrive? And can you explain why one still hasn't been here? You assured me you'd make this right.

Thanks in advance,

I checked with the carpenter and he hasn’t had time yet to get to you. He assured me that he will get there this week. We only have one carpenter and depending on the work schedules there are some jobs where he has to work with the fitters at the same time in order to complete the work. Work like yours can be done at any time and therefore can get pushed to accommodate the work that must be scheduled. I will follow up with him later in the week to make sure it is done this week.

By way of explanation of the work, it is not a weatherproof box for the gas meter that is required. At your home, the gas meter was moved outside from the box that it was in, but since we did that work the box cover doesn’t necessarily fit since there is now piping in the way. The carpenter will come and put a proper cover over the box in your wall, but the meter will not be covered.

I will make sure it gets done this week.

As long as rain doesn't leak into my basement anymore, I'm fine with that solution.

Thanks for following up on this. Can you let me know what day your carpenter will come by (eg., the day before) ?

I’m not sure I follow….are you having a leak into the basement and are you sure it’s related to the meter box? Is it just since the box cover has been off? Oh wait…did Enbridge dig up around the meter set when they were there on the 10th? I know you weren’t there, but are there signs the ground was disturbed and is it since then that it has been leaking? If so then I’ll have to get them out to look at that part of it since we don’t do any of the underground work.

Let me know.

I never got the warning phone call / email, nor did I have a chance to email back an explanation about the water leakage. This morning I was rudely awakened to the sounds of power tools (and very loud barking as my dogs made sure I was awake for said power tools), but at least I finally have closure:

And to think it's only been 4-1/2 months since I received the initial letter from Enbridge. What a gas.

I can has cowbell?

I've got a FEVER and the only prescription is... MORE COW BELL!
(found under Military Trail, Scarborough)

Choose. Choose wisely.

I live in Toronto. In a mostly Liberal neighbourhood. In the last few federal and provincial elections, my riding has gone red. (Note to US readers: Canadian political party colours are the reverse of those in the US. Living in a 'red state' isn't such a bad thing here. The red/blue colour coding is particularly true now that the Red Tories are all but gone, replaced by the not-so-Progressive Conservatives.)

So it always amuses and disappoints me that the ever-rebranding Conservative party, currently not favoured in Ontario (much less Toronto) because of at least three major pain points (Mike Harris, Ernie Eves and the "Right Honourable" Stephen Harper) with arguably the smallest chance of winning... is the first to put up lawn signs and spend the money Granted to them by their various supporters. This sign is just down the street from me; out walking my dogs this afternoon I saw at least a half-dozen others.

Meanwhile, the Liberal candidate this time around is apparently the Best one for the job.

(I have no clever pun for NDPer Neethan Shan, and will spare you a joke about what's cooking in the Greens' Kitchen this year. A hint: it's not good web design or a consistent message.)

Anyway, whatever your colour preference or party favour, get out there and vote. And be sure to read up on what this year's electoral process referendum could mean in your area.

Customer Service Apathy, Part 2

(con't from Part 1)

Another example of how sometimes it pays to shame people into good customer service.

I sent a slightly less bitchy version of last night's post about Enbridge and Double G Gas Services to Enbridge's ombudsman emai address, and cc:'d the contact address on Double G's website.

This morning, I received this from Enbridge:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your e-mail.

You will be contacted regarding your concern within the next two business days.

Thank you.

The Office of the Ombudsman
Enbridge Gas Distribution Inc.

I also received this from Double G:

Mr Boldt,
As soon as you're up and checking your email give me a call at (416) ***-****

If you don't call me by about 9:00, I will try and call you.
Rob

I'm not sure if it was the same person, but around 8:15am I also received a call from Double G saying that they could come immediately to turn the gas back on. I was asleep; SWMNBN took the call. Apparently they had someone in the area who could come by "shortly," or in the next 90 mins, as it turned out.

The tech that arrived discovered that rather than just needing to turn on the gas, he had to connect the meter that Enbridge had played with yesterday. He was not amused, and rightly so -- I'm hoping he'll pass his annoyance with the workflow breakdown back to Double G and from there to Enbridge.

Anyway, by 10:45am, I was cooking with gas again.

Continued...

Blogged with Flock

Customer Service Apathy

Back in May, 2007, I received a note from Enbridge, my household gas distributor, telling me I'd been randomly selected for a new gas meter. The note then went on to say that if I didn't book an appointment,

we will go ahead and replace the meter sometime after May 25, 2007. If you are not home, we will leave the gas supply off and provide a number for your (sic) to call to have us come back to turn on your meter and relight your natural gas appliances. We will return as quickly as possible.

Now, as a skeptic and cynic, I new there was trouble brewin' here, but I called them and scheduled an appointment for June 1, between 1 and 5pm. A four hour window was the best they could do. So far, not great, but June 1 was a Friday and I work from home anyway, so this wasn't really a big deal. That is, until about 6pm when they still hadn't shown up.

I called to kvetch, but *surprise* they had no record of me, my address, or the appointment. So, I booked a new appointment, this time for June 22, between 1 and 3pm. Apparently when they screw you over they're willing do offer a shorter window.

Not that it mattered -- they didn't show up the second time either. So, that evening "between the hours of 4:00PM and 10:00PM", as directed, I called to book a third appointment. This time I got a three-hour window between 2 and 5pm on July 12 with the promise that they'd call 30 mins before to verify they were in fact coming. Whatever.

So Double G's technician finally arrived, did his thing, and was done in very little time, remarking that Enbridge would be back "soon" to complete the job.

Soon, apparently, was 2 months later -- this morning. No notice, no warning, no phone call or note dropped in my mailbox. Nada. Luckily, I work stupidly late hours so I was up to 3am last night and thus still home at 11am when two Enbridge techs stomped up my driveway to tell me my gas was turned off and that Double G would have to come out and turn it back on. (They're the gas company but they have to get some subcontractor to light a pilot? OK, whatever, I'm sure there's a union or some nepotism involved.)

The Enbridge guys were friendly enough and offered me a 6-9pm window for turning on my gas. Since today was Build Server Rebuild Day (another story for another time), I figured I'd be at the lab and in the server room pretty late, so I took that window, then later reconsidered and asked for something later. Believe it or not, they said I could have 8-11pm. I was once again skeptical that anyone would actually come out here that late, but since it was that or leave the server half-done to rush home or delay it another week, I accepted.

At 9:30pm tonight, I called Dougle G to verify that they had in fact gotten the booking and were on their way. They said yes, it's booked, between 8pm and midnight. So, great, not *quite* what I was told before, but at least I was in the system. Progress!

It's now 1:30am and there's been no sign of them, but frankly, I'm not surprised. They clearly have the same attitude that Rogers Email Support team does about fixing their website problems:

Because we're not satisfied until you're not satisfied.

Continued...

Blogged with Flock

Real World Bug Reporting, Part 3: Now we know!

I've complained about the way Rogers treats its customers via email, but I haven't discussed how they are on the phone. Much as I hate their IVR's need to ask me for my phone number (immediately before I get a live human who asks me for my phone number again), or the fact that I can't just ask for "cell phone billing" but instead have to step through "wireless" > "billing" > "cell phone", once you get a live human, life's pretty damn good.

If you argue enough (repeatedly but politely!) to the people in the billing department about not understanding why you're being charged for things you didn't agree to or that their policies are unfriendly (eg., $1 per 1K download with no data plan or $5 per 5M download with plan) or insane, you can get up to $20 back per complaint in "goodwill credit."

You can also be reimbursed for loss of service when there's an outage (especially the planned ones). They're supposed to contact you in advance in writing when there's a planned outage, so if they ever let slip that the reason you've been without internet/cable/phone access for the last 3 hours is due to a *planned* outage (and of course no one emailed or dropped a flyer in your mailbox to warn you), you're entitled to compensation.

My most recent Rogers experience was around the fact that changing my cell phone billing plan can only take effect at the start of next month's billing cycle, but EVERY OTHER CHARGE happens immediately and is prorated from the request date. In my case, this means I got charged $45 in usage fees which would have been free if they'd actived the new plan the day I called instead of 2 weeks later. Given the plan cost jumped from $35/mo to $60/mo (for two phones), I would have paid 14/31 of $25, or $11.30 for the balance of the month. So, being charged $45 - $20 = $25 is forgivable, though still not ideal.

I guess the point here is that every support group has its preferred method of operation, and it's up to the user to find the best way to navigate his options and choose the best route. For example, all Eclipse projects have access to a wiki, newgroup, mailing list, website, blog(s), IRC channel(s)... but each project's committers/contributors/evangelists work a little differently and so they all provide support via their favourite channel or channels.

Anyway, having been on the phone with Rogers at leat a half-dozen times this summer getting erroneous charges reversed, now I know that Rogers Email Support = teh suck but Rogers Phone Support r0x0rs. And knowing is half the battle!

Blogged with Flock

Road Trip, Day Two

Woke up around 7. Quick breakfast and chat with other visiting guests and we were off on the road again to get to Moxie for the day's rafting. Thankfully, this time the drive was 5 minutes instead of 9 hours. Moxie's improvised base camp was a repurposed offseason ski hill, with no signage anywhere except on the road

The Moxie gang we were very laid back (check in time is 8:30 but we didn't get to the river until about 10:30) and in fine form:

Are you here to ski? We usually get an inch or so by 10. You've got to be ready to go by 11:30, and off the hill by 2 'cuz it melts pretty fast.

Comedy aside, the trip went pretty smoothly except for a few minor issues:

• We signed up for the 'Double Trouble' package which involves running the river twice back-to-back, and that had to be cancelled because it turned out only two people (us) were interested in it (better marketing for next year would help!)
• We got stuck with the Party Boat (aka The Cadillac), a somewhat oversized raft which was heavier (and thus tougher to steer)
• The other 5 people in our boat had never rafted before and were more interested in sight-seeing than paddling so we didn't have much opportunity to surf any hydraulics

Other than that, we had a fantastic guide (J.), the river was beautiful, lunch was great, and the last two Class IV rapids were a blast. Due to the cancelled Double Trouble trip, Moxie was good enough to give us a CD of trip photos for free. However, even though they had my credit card on file, they still made me call head office to get reimbursed for the second half of the trip instead of simply crediting it back as soon as they knew the second trip had to be cancelled. Ah, well, water over the dam. ;-)

Some frothy Class III whitewater: I'm in the front with the black/orange sleeves and blue/white paddle; SWMNBN is behind me with the ballcap under her helmet

Catching some air

Later that day, I decided to wander around the farm to check out its residents:

Back at the B&B (because apparently I have 'computer geek' tattooed across my forehead) our host D. asked me to fix her wifi so that her guests could share it.

Within 5 minutes I had hacked into her router, disabled her WEP protection (she decided that would be simpler than telling people what the network password was), and assigned a new router password to keep people like me out in future. Note to would-be h4xx0rs / network admins: using 192.168.{0,1,2}.1 as your gateway IP and "admin"/"admin" as your username/password makes getting in suprisingly simple.

Dinner was at the attached Warfield House Restaurant, and though they were apparently out of almost half the menu (this being the off-season, they're not open Mon-Wed), everything we wanted was available and worth blogging home about, including SWMNBN's 2 required Cokes.

Tomorrow, it's off to Shelburne Falls for some quick sightseeing and then nor'eastward to my dad's place in Essex, MA.

Road Trip, Day One

The drive to Charlemont was uneventful, though we unfortunately left about an hour later than planned, and got stuck in contruction and long weekend traffic just getting out of Toronto. Once we got to the 1000 Islands bridge, the border took no more than 20 mins to get in and through.

I was a little worried about having to drive over a US bridge after the recent news about the bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed this week, but we were over in no time, and ready for the next southbound leg of the trip. By 8pm we were in Albany, and by 10:15pm SWMNBN had managed to navigate the Scenic Mohawk Trail (aka Route 2) in the pitch dark...

... to find our B&B, the lovely Warfield House Inn.

Thankfully, people were still up in both the inn and restaurant and we were able to check in to the 'penthouse' suite on the top floor of the house -- a beautiful room with two skylights, private bathroom, and oh-so-comfortable bed -- which was unfortunately also stifling 90 degrees. With all four windows open and the AC cranked, it got down to a tolerable temperature in no time, and it was time for sleep: rafting tomorrow!

What I Did On My Summer Vacation: The Remake

In Episode 2 of WIDOMSV, I saw Evil Dead: The Musical for the third and final time. This time we went with Sara and Ulysses and sat in the front row of the Splatter Zone. Unlike the previous two visits to row two (with splatter across the chest and/or lap), this time we got front row tickets and we all got it in the face or hair. And then it kept coming: the 10 year old Peacefire shirt from my UofW days entered the show completely white. In keeping with the original trilogy, this final time wasn't the best performance (with two casting shuffles), but was by far the funniest.

Anyway, I'm off to Essex, Massachusetts this weekend (by way of the Deerfield Dryway in Charlemont) for a week's vacation at my dad's place, including some whitewater rafting, kayaking, boating, and a whole lot of driving. But hey, it's the summer -- it's road trip season!

marriedtothesea.com

Hopefully, I won't be completely off the grid the whole time.

Reacting Badly

I live not far from Pickering Nuclear -- in fact, about 5 blocks from where the nuclear fallout from an explosion would apparently reach. Yes, the cloud is supposed to stop at Morningside Ave. Riiight. Luckily, the reactors which had a bad rep in the 90s were cleaned up and are back in service, though Greenpeace has its doubts.

Anyway, with the summer in full swing and my A/C working hard to keep my house habitable, I'm reminded of the past few years of outages, brownouts, and full-blown blackouts we've had here over the years. This morning I did a little reading into where things are at in the world of nuclear energy, and I have to say I'm disappointed.

Back in the 40s, the West led fission technology and it unfortunately led to a rather effective (if deadly) end of WWII. There's been much speculation about the reasons Germany never built the bomb before the US did, but I digress. Since then, we've enjoyed nuclear energy in a number of forms, but they've all mostly been water-cooled systems which are now, in retrospect, highly inefficient and expensive. In Canada, we're pretty much stuck with CANDU-style reactors because they're of a Canadian design, and at least are safer than the infamous design used at Chernobyl. I'm all for 'support locally-developed tech' but when there's the potential for a better, cheaper, and safer solution, it's time to look past our own backyard and toward what the neighbours are doing. (Why can't the AECL license the new tech? They'll happily build CANDU 6 reactors for other countries -- why not these new ones?) In the world of nuclear energy, we're not keeping up with the Joneses.

So what's the alternative? Well, there are several, but there's one that I've been tracking for a while now, since I was clued into it via this WIRED article, "Let a Thousand Reactors Bloom". China is moving along nicely in their plan to surpass Canada with their use and consumption of nuclear energy, but they're not doing it with the old, expensive designs. They're pioneering a new design, developed in South America by PBMR, which instead of fuel rods and water cooling, uses graphite-covered uranium "pebbles" and some inert gas (eg., helium).

Waste
The design of the of PBMR fuel makes it easy to store the spent fuel, because the silicon carbide coating on the fuel spheres will keep the radioactive decay particles isolated for approximately a million years, which is longer that the activity even of plutonium. [T]he PBMR fuel can be stored on site for at least 80 years, [and] has a greater "burn-up" [...] which makes it less valuable to recycle. [...] The spent coated particle fuel can be disposed of in a deep under-ground repository. (Coated particle fuel will maintain its integrity for up to ~ 1 million years in a repository, ensuring that spent fuel radionuclides are contained for extremely long periods of time. The plutonium will have decayed away completely in 250 000 years).

Safety
The PBMR is walk-away safe. [T]he reactor will cool down naturally on its own in a very short time. This is because the increase in temperature makes the chain reaction less efficient and it therefore ceases to generate power. The size of the core is such that it has a high surface area to volume ratio. This means that the heat it loses through its surface (via the same process that allows a standing cup of tea to cool down) is more than the heat generated by the decay fission products in the core. Hence the reactor can never (due to its thermal inertia) reach the temperature at which a meltdown would occur. The plant can never be hot enough for long enough to cause damage to the fuel.

Radiation Leakage
The helium itself, which is used to cool the reaction, is chemically and radiologically inert: it cannot combine with other chemicals, it is non-combustible, and non-radioactive. Because oxygen cannot penetrate the helium, oxygen in the air cannot get into the high temperature core to corrode the graphite used in the reaction or to start a fire. If, through some accident, the helium gas duct (inlet and outlet lines) is ruptured, it would take some nine hours for natural air to circulate through the core. Even if this could happen, it would only lead to less than 10^-6 (one millionth) of the radioactivity in the core being released per day. That means that the amount of activity released in 24 hours under this very severe (and recoverable) situation would be some 10 000 times less than that requiring any off-site emergency actions. To avoid such a total failure of the main gas ducting it is designed to leak before it breaks, so that the depressurisation will be gradual and cannot lead to such a rupture. The helium pressure inside the closed cycle gas turbine is higher than the air pressure outside it, so nothing can get inside the nuclear circuit to contaminate it. [1]

As of 2004, China has one of these reactors in use, with another planned for 2010 and at least 30 more old-school water-cooled reactors coming online in the next 15 years. It seems they want to do more research on the new tech before leaping forward with it [2], but if all goes well the plan is to "spread this technology both at home and to the whole world" [3].

Meanwhile, back in North America... nothing much is happening. Well, that's not entirely true. A couple CANDUs in Ontario are being fixed up for re-use [4]. There's talk of building new CANDUs in Alberta to support the oil industry there. The US is watching what China is doing and predicting the world's nuclear outlook, suggesting China will be among the top five nuclear countries by 2025 (along with the US, France, Japan, and South Korea). Oddly, Canada, Germany, and Russia are predicted to decline in nuclear output. I wonder why, considering the AECL is developing a new CANDU design, the ACR-1000 for service by 2016. Maybe we'll be switching to wind and solar? Yeah, right.

Real World Bug Reporting, Part 2

I've given up on Rogers' ability to think outside their carefully cloistered support pillars, but for comic relief here's their final reply in this thread, interspersed with a little froth:

Thank you for taking the time to write to us, we appreciate your use of online customer service.

Gotta love the opening remarks drivel "We appreciate your use of online customer service." Geez, that's fantastic.

In your recent email, you have informed us that you would like assistance so you can view your services online and be able to manage your services successfully.

We apologize that you are experiencing difficulties accessing our www.rogers.com website.

Holding breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop...

We are also sorry to hear that you have not been happy with the customer service you received. The expectation is that you receive world class customer service. If that is not what you experienced, we do apologize.

Silly me, I thought I'd made it clear I was dissatisifed. But by all means, couch your replies with "if", if it gets you through the day. Note also the distinct lack of "... and to make it better, we're going to actually do something other than simply sending this FOAD email to pacify you."

Please ensure that when you are navigating our website you are using Internet Explorer or Netscape as your browser as we do not support other browser types at this time. It is also suggested to clear all your cookies and your cache folder.

Kudos to Rogers for being forward thinking and choosing to mention Firefox here instead of Netscape. Oh, wait, I'm dreaming. Unfortunately, I can't argue the Internet Explorer point since according to some recent stats, they're still about 70% of the planet. I've never seen very flattering stats for Mac or Linux usage, so I guess it's reasonable to only support Windows and its de facto browser. You win this time, tech support. Oh, but wait -- this isn't a browser issue, it's a VBScript compilation error!

You are able to login as many times as you would like on our www.rogers.com website.

Actually, that was the reason I filed this complaint in the first place, and no amount of "just use IE or Netscape" will resolve the fact that this isn't a browser problem.

If you continue using our website and experiencing errors, we do suggest that you contact our eCare department at 1-877-343-5745. They are open to serve you Monday-Sunday 7am-3am.

They are truly our website experts and with further troubleshooting, they will be able to assist you so you can view your services online successfully.

Oh, let's be real. They'll probably tell me that they've never heard of Linux, that Konqueror is a guy on a horse with a big sword, and ask me what version of Windows I'm using repeatedly until I hang up in disgust. I doubt they'll acknowledge the possibility that the browser is not the problem or that it's their code that's causing the compilation error.

We understand that you would like to receive assistance via email, however some matters are more complex and better if we discuss via telephone.

Like the ones where I say, "Read this Microsoft KB article and fix your website accordingly." Yep, that requires discussion.

And true, it's way more efficient to read a screen to someone over the phone than to send him an email so he can read it himself. Besides, manually entering a URL as someone reads it to you is *much* more fun (because errors = comedy, right?) than just clicking a link.

We do appreciate your cooperation concerning this matter. You are a valued customer and we thank you for your business.

So highly valued that they can't communicate between their departments to resolve problems. Ah, well, you can lead a monopoly to water, but you can't make it think.

Anyway, despite this, I'm stuck with these folks for the following reasons: the phone lines in my neighbourhood suck and the best throughput I can get is about 2-3MB/s download. With Rogers over cable lines I can get 5MB, and yesterday I got some junk mail saying they're upgrading everyone to 7MB for free. (It was postal junk mail, not email, because they're not quite *there* enough to send me a free email when wasting postage is an available option.) Ah, Rogers. Always going that extra mile to justify jacking up their rates while giving us a little something extra so we won't complain too much.

So, what can you do? Monopoly, yes, but ultimately, it's all about the bandwidth.

'Till I was Blue In The Face

Went to see GWAR tonight w/ my friend and die-hard GWAR fan Ulysses. Caught the last two opening bands (Chimaira, I think, and Shadows Fall), then the Scumdogs took the stage. As a GWAR concert noob, I wasn't sure what to expect, but things got underway pretty fast... beheadings, dismemberment, puppets getting torn apart and even a bit of bestiality/necrophilia for, ahem, colour.

Speaking of colour, the highlight of the experience has to be the "blood" that's rained over the audience during the aforementioned comic atrocities. I started the evening in a white shirt and ended up looking like I'd torn apart a Smurf.

CTRL-ALT-DELETED!

To celebrate Friday the 13th, I went to Ontario Place's Molson Amphitheatre tonight to see Billy Talent tonight w/ SWMNBN, our niece Skylar, and and her friend Katrina. It was Katrina's first time at a concert, and everyone else's second time seeing BT play the home town crowd. Gotta support the local, ahem, talent, after all.

This gave me a chance to try out the video recording on my phone, along with Blogger-in-draft's new video upload feature.

Here's a couple of examples of the a/v quality achievable from my phone, after converting the .3gp files to .mpeg using Miksoft's Mobile Media Converter. I have to say I'm very impressed with the converter (yes, there's a version for linux!) but not so much with the source data captured by the phone.

Surrender

Where Is The Line?

In addition to video, I tried to take some photos throughout the show (including the encore where Ben got everyone to light up cellphones and lighters), but was repeatedly thwarted by the manic fans in front of us. (I can't fault them for having fun, however, as that was the point of the evening after all.) Good times.

Real World Bug Reporting

I've seen some kvetching lately in #eclipse that people (Eclipse users/customers) open bugs which never get resolved. Also, last night I saw an article from earlier this year discussing whether or not Vista would be fit for purpose, which spawned further kvetching about Microsoft and IBM and how much/little support there is from large organizations with large customer bases.

That said, let me present a real life example I just went through of how much worse life would be in OSS if we, the developers, treated our customers (the world at large) as if we were a monopoly with nothing to gain from helping you out, with an insipid insistence in NOT working together as a community.

Without further ado, I give you ... reporting a bug to Rogers Communications (unabridged).

 Original Message Follows:
 ------------------------
 name: Nick Boldt
 emailId: nickboldt
 replyEmail: nickboldt@gmail.com
 issue: account
 subcategory: other
 problemdescription: Logging in using Firefox or Konqueror browser
 (which normally works), I periodically get this error:

 Microsoft VBScript compilation  error '800a03e9'

 Out of memory

 /web_auth/verifpwd.asp, line 0

 Given you're running a Microsoft server -- maybe it's in need of a
 reboot? ;-)

Dear Nick Boldt,

Thank you for your email.

We understand your concern with this issue.

Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet technical support representatives are qualified to diagnose and troubleshoot issues relating directly to our client software. We will therefore not be able to assist you with this matter, as it is beyond the scope of our support parameters.

For assistance regarding peripheral devices and other software products, we recommend contacting the vendor of the software in question. We apologize for any inconvenience.

If you have any further questions or comments regarding our service, please fill out the online form on our Customer Support page listed below or contact us by phone at 1-888-288-4663.

Regards,
name removed

There's nothing more annoying that people who tell you to solve your problem by repeating what you've already done (namely, to contact the software vendor, who in this case is in fact Rogers).

Guys, this is either one of two problems:

a) your webserver has a memory leak

b) your website relies on activeX controls and therefore doesn't (consistently) work with anything but Internet Explorer

In either case, it has nothing to do with my "client software" -- it's a website/webserver problem.

Please escalate this to your webmaster for review.

Cheers,

Nick

Granted, I was wrong about what the problem here was, but that's why I was suggesting escalation. Besides, I don't do ASP anymore.

Thank you for taking the time to write to us, we appreciate your use of online customer service.

We would be more that happy to assist you with your concerns.

We appreciate hearing from our customers and thank you for your comments and feedback. However, please note that the Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed cable internet service, currently supports only Internet Explorer and the Rogers Yahoo! browser. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Please let us know if we may be of further assistance to you.

If you have any further questions or comments regarding our service, please fill out the online form on our Customer Support page listed below or contact us by phone at 1-888-288-4663.

Regards,
name removed

I think the point you're (once again) missing is that it's not the browser (client) that's the problem but the website/webserver (server). Since this problem is intermittent and happens with multiple different browsers, I'm reasonably certain it's not a browser issue.

Further, since VBScript compilation occurs ON THE SERVER, not in the client browser (we're not talking about Javascript or another client-side scripting language, but a server-side one), and since my computer (and thus browsers) have ample memory to load other websites (2G of RAM and a 2G swap) an "Out of memory" error must be caused by a problem ON THE SERVER.

A quick Google search confirms that this is a known problem in VBScript, with an available workaround provided by Microsoft:

Microsoft VBScript compilation error 800a03e9 Out of memory
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/174634

That said, if you don't feel this issue needs to be escalated to your web server support staff for review, or that it's perfectly reasonable to expect that at least once a day your website won't let customers sign in (it worked fine a moment ago but not when I first filed this bug report), then by all means, please send me another FOAD "we only support MSIE" note. After all, it's much more fun (and costly for you!) for me to call your support staff instead of using the website for self-service every time it won't let me log in.

Yours,

Nick

Dear Nick Boldt,

Thank you for your email.

We sympathize with your situation.

Please provide further information on the nature of the problem you are experiencing and we will be happy to assist you in any way we can. Information such as error messages or codes you receive may be helpful in determining the source of the problem.

Please include when you are recieiving the error message as well, including the full URL of the site and any other information you can provide about it, may be useful as well.

If you have any further questions or comments regarding our service, please fill out the online form on our Customer Support page listed below or contact us by phone at 1-888-288-4663.

Regards,
name removed

Fine, if you need me to do your job for you, I will.

Steps to reproduce:

1) Go to http://www.shoprogers.com/homeen.asp?CustomerType=Consumer&Language=En

2) Enter username / password; check box for 'Rember my username'; click go or hit enter

3) Marvel at the following error which tends to occur at random intervals but particularly the second or third time I try to log in using the same browser session:

Microsoft VBScript compilation error \'800a03e9\'

Out of memory

/web_auth/verifpwd.asp, line 0

4) Per advice in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/174634, fix this bug.

5) Send me a $50 account credit for helping you fix your website. (Hey, I can dream.)

Cheers,

Nick

Dear Nick Boldt,

Thank you for taking the time to write to us, we appreciate your use of online customer service.

We would be more that happy to assist you with your concerns.

Although we thank you for your input regarding the Corporate Website, for further issues related to the Customer Service feature, we recommend contacting the support number 1-877-343-5745. They may then escalate such matters to the network administrators, who manage the server.

Please note that the email support team, addresses issues related to the various Rogers Cable services (such as Hi-Speed cable internet, Home Phone, Digital Cable TV, etc.).

If you have any further questions or comments regarding our service, please fill out the online form on our Customer Support page listed below or contact us by phone at 1-888-288-4663.

Regards,
name removed

1. It's not the Corporate Website, it's the public customer website. I'm not a corporate user, I'm just one of your many regular customers. I would have thought that would be obious from the URL: http://www.shoprogers.com/homeen.asp?CustomerType=Consumer&Language=En -- note the "CustomerType=Consumer" part.

2. Why should I have to report this issue a second time to yet another unsympathetic ear when you can just forward this email chain to the appropriate people for resolution? Not only do you need me to document (twice) the problem, but you now want me to report it twice as well? Are your webmaster(s) so afraid of email that they need a buffer of phone-answering lackeys around them to protect them from valid, documented, and solvable bug reports?

3. If your staff "addresses issues related to the various Rogers Cable services", then why can't you deal with issues related to me checking my Rogers bill online -- namely, the fact that about half the time I try to log in, I get the aforementioned error? Shouldn't supporting the website on which my bills reside be part of supporting Rogers Cable services?

Thanks,

Nick

Dear Nick,

Thank you for contacting us again, we appreciate the support you are providing us.

I have read the history behind your e-mail requests along with your current e-mail. First I would like to mention that the Rogers corporate web site is www.rogers.com. I'm sorry if that information was confusing to you.

Second, my question to you is why are you logging in 2-3 times in the same session? (from e-mail sent 7/11) You only need to log on once to do all your maintenance, bill viewing and reviewing of your account. This may be the root cause of the problem.

Third, you need to call the staff in our Internet support office. We are not qualified to help you. We do not do any technical troubleshooting via e-mail. Please understand that we are not equipped with this type of knowledge, we answer a limited range of questions about billing, sales, general inquiries. Please call 1-888-288-4663, they are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and would be very happy and able to help you.

Thank you for contacting us, we hope that this issue will be resolved by our technicians.

Sincerely,
name removed

So, the moral here is that even when you provide steps to reproduce, solve the already-documented problem (via Google and the Microsoft KB), and request multiple times that they simply forward the email chain to someone who can address it, the oh-so-diligent lackeys at Rogers' email support desk refuse to help while claiming they're "happy to assist." Yeah, right.

Contrast that with the 1000s of bugs closed this year for Europa, and I'm sure you'll agree Open Source is much better than dealing with the close-source, closed-process, closed-access monopolies. Not only do we have several documented way to ask for support (bugzilla, newsgroups, mailing lists, IRC), but we actually use them, and the projects & member companies share information and collaborate to solve issues. Oh, and all this without having to pay $100+/mo for "service."

Really, what more could you want?