Technology service: it's the little things that matter.

Today I had reason to contact the technical support service of a major Web service provider. Digital Rights Management (DRM) was my problem. I subscribe to the provider's site for downloadable content. But today, I couldn't download my historical material--stuff I'd already retrieved but lost (We'll, it *is* here on a server somewhere---just easiest to d/l again).

I decided to use the 'chat now' feature of their support site. I got a gentleman whose native language was not English---you could tell from his grammatical constructs. He promised to resolve my issue in 2-3 hours (I had to ask how long it would take), and that I'd receive an e-mail notifying me when I could download my stuff again.

Half a day later (i.e. well over 3 hours passed), I decided to engage a chat with their support again. This time, another non-native English speaker named 'Devanand' shone.

At exactly 16:02:00 PM, EST, he promised: ``Sure Dave, I will try to fix your issue as soon as possible.''

By 16:05:41 PM EST, 'Devanand' wrote back: ``...I have regenerated most of your downloads and now you would be able to access (them). ''

So here are my best compliments to 'Devanand,' wherever he might be. He took about 5 minutes to do what someone else promised in 3 hours (and never actually delivered).

The moral of my story is not just about excellent customer service. My point is that the ``time taken to resolve'' any technical problem is a critical metric in distinguishing a good IT practitioner from a less competent one. Shorter solution (or resolution) times are the hallmark of a technologist who knows her game.

The Web should have a standard way to track and reward service professionals like Devanand, whose performace deserves metion only because there exists another person---presumably his peer---who promised me that e-mail in 2-3 hours, never to be heard from again.

Twitter is for followers. Nevermind ``What are you doing?''. Frankly, I'm busy and I don't really care. Managers and business professionals need an information system that continuously answers to the question: Who accomplished what? A by-product of such an information system might be ``how long did it take her?''

I devised and built such an information management system. Waaay before twitter. Started work on it about 1993. I say Intranet for obvious reasons--one of which is security. Drop me a line if you're interested in obtaining my solution.

This begins the only use I can think of for a blog---a shameless plugging medium to help you, a business owner or manager, to decide to choose my services. Pick up the phone and call me at 352-505-7885. To be continued....

Blogging: I finally gave in.

. Moving to Blogger was a tough decision (nevermind the technical ones). I've finally bitten the bullet, Or kicked the bucket, or something.

I've been``logging'' my life and work using computers---recording much detail---long before the Web as we know it existed, and long before anyone ever dreamed it would be good idea to 'blog'.

So I have in here my possession this copious data, aggregated from all the computers I've ever used since before Van Jacobson invented header compression. I journalled events, technical procedures, musings, and private thoughts. I never saw any reason to unleash this stuff upon the world at large. This stuff was *my* stuff---material intended for me, and me alone.

So I'm still deciding whether to put *any* of it up here. At the very least, I'd have to filter through all the meaningless (to you) private stuff and choose to publish only that which is approved for the general public.

Now that everyone and their pets are making a great deal more noise than ever in cyberspace, tweeting away, I figure I might as well publish *something* or other, And now is as good a time as any. I physically connected some of my hitherto private servers to the 'net today.

Could there possibly be some kind of value to spending my time this way? We'll find out soon enough. Maybe, like Lewis Carroll's Red Queen, ``we must run very fast in order to stand still.'' But I think not---not if I can help it.

Thanks for reading this much.