Tuesday 24 February 2009

Inentions/ideas, always rear their head when people do stuff they don't like dong, and think to themselves "I don't like doing this, it would be better if I could just do this..." and there we have an idea.

Well I had one of those, and I wish someone would come up with the answer - that is if this idea doesn't already exist, because if it does then I'm going to look foolish.

Anyway, I had to make adjustments to an account today, and had to enter in exactly the same information many, mnay times.

That's not my issue, what my issue is that there were two fields of informaiton to enter, so you need to make a choice of which is the longer of the two pieces of info to add to cut and paste that and the other bit you enter in manually.

What I'd like to see is a second hot key, so start off with Ctrl+V and the second one might be Ctrl+D+V - because I looked at my fingers and one hovered naturally over the D key.

I'd also like to see a hot key which converted case - so from lower case to upper case and in reverse, because lord knows I hit the caps Lock often, and regularily have to rewrite what I've typed - but that's a blog for another time.

Cheers,
C

Wednesday 18 February 2009

Well, hasn't TV warmed up in the new year here in Oz!

Kicking our evenings off watching fatties run around, cry and bitch about each other during their struggle to lose the pound, whilst I sit there eating my dinner really gets the endorphins going.

Then later at 8:30pm comes Underbelly - which I'm sure is about a pair of boobs, with a few ancillary characters with guns and drugs thrown in for the ladies - you really need to see it to appreciate what I'm saying here :) - although I'm a little surprised that it's on so early, there was nothing like it when I was a kiddy - well, there was Chances, but it's not really in the same ball park.

And then at 9:30pm we get Ladette to Lady - it must have been a toss up for Channel 9 to decide which one went first - until they watched a few minutes into the first episode, and then the decision was made for them.

There's a character in there called Skye, and I must admit every time she's on I think about Skye here in our office - of course our Skye is a bloke - but it does make me giggle.

What i love can be found right at the very beginning, when the girls are on the bus to the school and they stop for a pit stop where Skye can be seen squatting in the middle of the road in front of the bus - she goes on with other shenanigans, has a number of tantrums and general cringe worthy behaviour.

It's not until the very end, during the assessment, where one of the teachers advises Skye that people think she's scum, "Scum" she bites back, quickly replied back from the teacher "yes, scum" - and then Skye rolls her eyes, and is obviously offended.

Its' the offended bit that I like - she does what she wants, behaves fantastically poorly, not bothered about other people but is insulted when she's made aware of it :)

Just great, I love it - and the English gentlemen make me love, ever the opportunists :)

Cheers,
C

Monday 16 February 2009

Is there a change in the air?

It's no secret that I'm not a huge fan of of shore services for a number of reasons, I honestly don't think that an offshore service is as good a quality and offshore services, international time stamps, delayed message delivery and lost messages, etc...

When I bought my car, I sat in the salesman's office and on the wall was an old sales saying which went something like this "the sour taste of buying a lemon stays in the mouth long after the sweet taste of buying cheap deal" - it was very interesting, I didn't get the cheapest car for my make/model, but I've had it now for a few years, and not once has it broken down on me - I haven't had to spend anymore than the standard servicing on it and in general has been a great car, and still is.

Late Friday afternoon I received a called from Steve about wanting to sign up to a service with us. I'd spoken with Steve a while a go about using our service to SMS his staff for their rosters, and at that stage he decided to go with a competitor because they were 60% cheaper, but then they used offshore routes to deliver their messages - a risk at the time Steve was willing to bear, mainly because he thought the risk was negligible, which is fair enough.

Speaking with Steve I asked what the problem was, why did he want to change? "Chris, it's because I'm having to send 2-3 messages to the guys because they are not receiving them, and it's ending up costing me a fortune".

"Steve, how many messages are you sending?"
"Umm, last month we sent about 200 messages"

200 messages per month he sent last month, but bearing in mind that he's sent messages 2-3 times, so really he wanted to just send 70-100 messages.

This is an excellent example of the perils of using offshore services for mission critical messaging requirement because Steve isn't a big user, and yet is having real drama's getting messages to his staff.

If Steve was sending tens of thousands of messages or more, then you might say, well a few lost messages is acceptable, but if on such a low number of messages he's feeling the effects, then can you imagine what larger volume customers must be experiencing?

Admittedly Steve's only looking at the fact that as he has to send multiple messages, that that's what it's costing him, but that's not strictly true, what he's not factoring in is the phone calls he's ended up making to check if they had received the messages, what that cost is, and what the cost of his time is in all o this extra effort.

Unfortunately Steve is tasting the lemon, however he's seen the light, and now at least he'll be able to worry less about landed messages and more about growing his business.

Cheers,
C

Friday 13 February 2009

Reasons why I like working in Brighton

When I started with Esendex a few years ago, we were in the beautiful area of South Yarra, the view from the office was amazing covering most of Melbourne, and was a real treat to work there.

When I headed out to get lunch, being right by Chapel street, there was a big choice and catching the tram home was always an interesting experience.

Requiring more space, we then moved to St Kilda, very, very close to home, and with some interesting people around the neighbourhood creating a bit of spice in our lives, but we lost the view siting in an old art deco ex mansion - but plenty of space though.

However, after the owners of the building decided to sell up and evict everyone from it, we found a fantastic new office in Bay Street Brighton - looking down onto Bay Street and beyond, it's nice spacious and being a new development very modern.

But that's not the real reason why I like working in the area.

I like working in the area because when I came to see the offices for the first inspection, I counted about $500,000 worth of car value, and that was just the first two I counted of many in the street.

It's quite nice to work in an area where it's regular to see Porsche 933 Turbo or a Maserati on the street - something that did make me smile was one day I was walking down the street when we first moved in to see what was about and there was a guy in a very expensive Maserati who couldn't get it to fire up, it was turning over, but that was about it.

I also like Brighton because people drive however they want and care little as to whether they drive into anyone else - we're right by a roundabout and frequently people just drive on through without looking, mostly because they're the ones that can afford the fines and insurance, etc...

It's like an expensive west, with rich cowboys doing as they please around here.

I also like the fact that we're in the same block of offices as the great Shane Warne (who has a nice Lambo himself, and may have caught Skye and I drooling over it the other day) - not so much because I think he's the most gifted and intelligent bowler god put on this earth, but because there are a lot of St Kilda footballers that come in here, including both the great Robert Harvey and Aaron Hamil (who i secretly call the Hamil Tiger - although it hasn't seemed to catch on).

But one of the best things I like about Brighton, that I would never have imagined would be the case, is the sense of community in and around here. I park my bike up in the morning, and as I'm getting of it people walk passed and give me a nod and a smile. I turn to go into the building and the local traders on the ground floor all give me a wave (and if you asked them what my name was they'd know), all the way up into the building and speaking to the other residents in here. And in the evening it's in reverse, although the oldies do seem more inclined to have a chat in the evening than in the morning but I know more people in and around here then I do in the block I live in and I've been there for a few years now :)

No, working in Brighton isn't one of the best things about working for Esendex, but it certainly adds to the attraction.

Have a great weekend.

Cheers,
C









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Monday 9 February 2009

A damn shame

When I got home on Friday night, I sat down and put the tellie on - I remember thinking to myself, that I don't believe I've ever seen a warning of staying indoors unless you had to come from a state premier in Victoria.

The weather bureau predicting a max temp of 43c, but with many others saying that it was likely to get hotter than that - and it did, in the city of Melbourne, it tipped over 46c, and out in the suburbs it hit 48c.

The usual bush fires happened, as expected they would - even looking out the windows at home the sky was an ash grey colour - similar to when we had the last big fires a couple of years ago, but then the cool change came through, there was a touch of rain and the temps plummeted back down to the high 20's.

The news came on, an hour long special, and I admit I didn't really want to watch it, it was just going to tell me how far and wide the fires were, etc... Kind of expecting that it was just going to be of peoples stories about their homes that have been burnt down - bearing in mind that these are people that live in the bush, and there's got to be some expectation that one day it could happen, and I went on with my life and watched something I'd recorded on Tivo.

It wasn't until Sunday, that it really occurred to me actually how bad it was.

I've never been in a bush fire, and I have no comprehension of how quickly it moves, and how easily you can get trapped by it and figured that because the people in these areas had, then they'd generally be OK.

When I went to bed last night, there were 65 confirmed dead, and the reports were saying to expect many more - whole towns were burnt down, people were trapped on the roads trying to escape and people who got out described it as raining fire as the embers hit down on them burning them and their clothes as they ran to their cars.

When I woke up this morning, the figure had gone to 108 confirmed dead, with a further expectation that was going to rise again.

It's a damn shame, and beyond my comprehension of how quickly these fires can spread taking so many lives with it and the confirmation that in the beginning it was deliberate.

When it comes to others, I may not always appear to be the most sensitive person in the world, but my heart goes out to those that have lost their friends and families, and to those that still don't yet know.

C









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