Note to vendor - I'm very, very satisfied, OK.

It feels to me as though evey major vendor is calling me for a satisfaction survey right now. Let me categorically tell you right now, so we can save you the expense of the market reasearch agency, I am very happy, OK.

I think I'm going to start grading the day by the number of satisfaction survey calls I receive. Well, today was a number 2!

Can you please start listening to customers when you are selling to them and concentrate on getting the order correct or the subscription connected/cancelled when asked. Half hearted hollow satisfaction surveys don't achieve any reality of feedback, especially when questions are loaded.

If the same effort was spent dealing with the customer at the point of sale, we would all be alot happier and you would know about it!

Live Meeting Rocks!!!!

I've really been getting into webcasts recently on Microsoft TechNet. These webcasts are poduced using Microsoft Live Meeting 2005. Live Meeting is a great product allowing you to deliver live training sessions or conferences direct to your customers or staff.

The meetings are live broadcasts consisting of a presenter running through a PowerPoint deck and combining this with a series of demos. Basically you can show anything on your PC : word docs, websites, audio, live vocal, images etc.

To join the meeting, delegates simply click a link contained in an email and log-on to the webcast. There is also interaction between the presenter(s) and delegates. This can be controlled as much or as little as desired.

As a delegate, you get a seating plan, so you can really feel how many people are tuned-in. You also get a feedback-to-presenter tool. This allows the delegates to vote or give opinions on topics being covered. Plus you get a Q and A tool, allowing you to submit questions to the presenter(s).

The power to be able to deliver direct to the delegate, without the need for travel and time away from the office is unbelievable. This presents an affordable and viable option for any company to give presentations direct to decision makers, without the need of a trip to Dubai.

It also presents an interesting "add-on" value when selling the product. Live Meeting can be used to transmit the message to customers, partners, sales staff, outlets, employees and internal customers.

If you can't contain yourself, and wish to view a webcast about live meeting, I have uploaded a Windows Media Player file to our sever below:
http://www.yellowpark.net/Livemeeting/downloadLMM.wmv

Bear in mind that the Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 client interface is far more textural and detailed than what you see in Windows Media Player.

To view a webcast, visit the Microsoft Live Meeting homepage here.

Microsoft Office Live Meeting Advert

This a great advert for Live Meeting. Check out the advert here.

New Mobile messaging features released soon for Windows Mobile Devices

Microsoft have released an update to their email server, Exchange 2003. “How will this affect my mobile world?” many people might be asking. Well, if you have a Windows Mobile Device and your email service provider uses an Exchange 2003 server, big changes are about to happen.


What is SP2?
The update is being rolled out in the form of Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2. SP2 boasts huge improvements in enabling mobile e-mail, antispam protection, new security features, and more. SP2 is an update that enhances the Exchange Server 2003 system by adding:

Mobile email improvements
Security improvements
Advanced mailbox improvements.

Probably the most important change, is the new seamless Direct Push Technology e-mail experience. This means that when you receive a new email, the message will be pushed down to the mailbox on your mobile device, the same way that a text message is.

This is done via a HTTP connection, maintained by the device, to push new e-mail, calendar, contact, and task notifications to the device. As Direct Push uses HTTP(s), it works over GPRS as well as WIFI networks.

There are also significant security improvements. For instance, if you loose your device, you can do a remote wipe of data by doing a reset over the Web. You can also make a setting to wipe the device after a number of failed pin attempts.

To take advantage of all these features, you need a Windows Mobile 5 device, and there is only one on the market at the time of going to press. Plus you need to have the Windows Mobile 5.0 Messaging and Security Feature Pack installed. This will be released shortly.

So while we dream of messaging eutopia without a blackberry, we continue to wait with baited breath until most of this stuff is released in November 2005.

MICROSOFT RELEASES 9 SECURITY BULLETINS

You got off easy last month, with no security bulletins released on Patch Tuesday, but it's a different story for October.

Microsoft on Tuesday released nine security bulletins, three of them rated "critical."
http://rcpmag.com/news/article.aspx?editorialsid=6979

Service Providers - its just service based economics

Well I think the majority of service providers have got it sewen up. We all know that direct debits are a great way of ensuring client retention is as easy as possible. It is easier for a client to remain signed up than cancel. Simple.

But it seems that the majority of service providers also have a "Good till dead" policy. Meaning that when you cancel your subscription, they "forget" to cancel the service.

As a customer and regular admin person responsible for dealing with internet connections, I can safely say that the majority of sevice providers follow this two pronged approach. Seems like a great policy and the zenith of service based economics:

If you can't keep 'em with the direct debit, forget to stop the service when the account is cancelled.

Keep up the good work boys.

google maps

If you haven't seen http://maps.google.com yet, i would suggest taking a look. You can zoom into our office here.