The most bothersome by far is the way the BlackBerry handles read-receipt requests. Whenever an email is received on my BlackBerry that includes a read-receipt request, the BlackBerry replies with an e-mail saying:

Your message has been delivered to the recipient.

This is particularly frustrating because it’s not accurate. The message may have been delivered to my BlackBerry, but that doesn’t mean it’s been delivered to me - and certainly doesn’t mean that I’ve read it. This is supposed to be a read receipt, not a delivery receipt.

I believe that at times this gives people sending me e-mail an incorrect view of my response to them. Scenario:

1. Someone sends me an e-mail at ~8pm.
2. They receive a response around 8:05pm with the confirmation message above.
3. Sometime the next morning, maybe 8-10am - maybe later, I have time to read and reply to the message.

The same thing can happen during the day as well if I’m in a meeting, etc. While I may be responding within an hour or two of seeing their e-mail, the darn BlackBerry auto-response can make them think I’m responding many hours later than that.

As far as I can tell, there is no way to turn this off. I can’t find a setting for it on the BlackBerry, nor in my account on blackberry.com, and the BlackBerry tech support reps I’ve spoken to don’t know how to disable it either.

It bugs me every time too because I BCC myself on e-mails sent from my BlackBerry with a rule to auto-file them properly in my IMAP account. I’m effectively SPAMming myself with these things.

If anyone has any tips on fixing this, please share them.

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It’s your choice to hide your pricing behind a “give us your phone number” blockade on your web site. It’s my choice to be annoyed when you take that as an invitation to call me the next morning. Please lose my phone number.

Regards,
–Alex King

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Frankly, I don’t understand why they choose to implement this as a service in the first place. Any gain they may have achieved by leveraging existing platform code they had written for SalesForce is negated by having to maintain servers, losing customers that don’t want to pay a monthly fee and leaving the door wide open for other developers to build a direct iCal to GCal sync.

If they choose to add syncing to other web services in the future as they note in their explanation, they can add on a service component as an optional upgrade at that time for those who want it. Doing it that way would also drastically reduce the hardware needs for their service portion - it could grow organically instead of just opening the flood gates and having to shut it down.

I’ve got no problem paying for software or for services, but this doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t need a service to sync iCal to GCal - a stand-alone app/iSync conduit would work fine. I’m certainly not going to pay a subscription to add more points of failure to something that is likely to be somewhat fragile in the first place.

Something that should have been a huge hit for both their customers and them as a $25 stand-alone utility is now likely to be a constant maintenance hassle for both.

Maybe I’m missing something fundamental here - if so, enlighten me in the comments.

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I took my drives to Reynolds back on Dec. 1, 2006. Since then they basically ignored me. I’ve been updating the timeline in my original post to reflect the (lack of) progress I was making in getting any kind of response from them.

On Thursday last week, I decided to try driving up to their offices again. This time there was a person in the office at Reynolds so I was able to go in, find my drives, and leave with them.

So after leaving my drives with them for over a month, I didn’t get any data back. Through a lot of effort on my part, I did manage to get my drives back.

Today I am taking the drives to yet another data recovery shop. I’m cautiously optimistic about them so far, but I’ll save all of that for a future post.

The Skinny

You may remember from my original post that I was able to get in touch with Bill Flinchbaugh (who attended BarCampDenver and was how I found out about Reynolds in the first place) after Reynolds’ phones and e-mail stopped working back in early Dec. Bill was apologetic when I first contacted him. He told me I could call him on his cell phone and he even put that number up on the Reynolds web site as the temporary contact number during their phone transition.

Since Bill’s number was posted as the number to call, I put a number of calls to him - most of the time going to voice mail and without receiving a return call from him after Dec. 13, 2006.

On Dec 26, Reynolds had a different number posted on their web site. I began calling that number too, but it went to a broken IVR and there was no way to leave a message. Because of this, I also called Bill’s number so that I could leave a message (see timeline in previous post linked above for details).

The last time I’d actually spoken with Bill, he’d told me I really needed to talk to Mark Tessin, who’d called me with status on Dec 5th and Dec 14th. Apparently Mark was the one actually doing the data recovery.

Unfortunately, despite asking Bill repeatedly for Mark’s number, he never gave it to me, nor did Mark leave it for me in his message. The only number I had where I could leave a message was Bill’s cell phone.

On Thursday last week, having exhausted all phone contact options, I finally drove up to Reynolds again and was able to get my drives back. On Thursday evening or Friday last week, I assume in response to my previous post, Reynolds posted this on their web site:

There can be a difference between fact & truth. Contact us for the truth .

No good deed goes unpunished. Our IT guy, Bill, tried unsuccessfully to assist Alex. After entering the business through a closed door, Alex took items he claimed were his and left. Fact & truth.

here is a screenshot in case it changes:

This basically has 3 statements:

1. “Our IT guy, Bill, tried unsuccessfully to assist Alex.”

   I’m afraid I have to disagree this - particularly the “Bill, tried” part. Actually, Bill repeatedly told me he could not help me; that there was nothing he could do to help me.

2. “entering the business through a closed door”

   Perhaps this is semantic, but since someone already thinks they are saying that I broke in and stole from them, I should clarify. Like most people, I do open the door before entering a room. I’d imagine that entering a room through a closed door is quite difficult. The door to their suite was closed (as were the doors to all of the suites I saw in the building) and I could see light coming out from the gap between the door and the floor so I knocked, opened the door, and went in.

3. “Alex took items he claimed were his and left.”

   This is accurate, though it leaves out the part where I showed Bill everything that I was taking (the two drives that needed recovery and the one external drive I’d given them to use to put the recovered data on); which was all labeled with my name. [edited for clarification: the external drive was also mine, I’d brought it to them at the same time I brought them the broken drives.]

   And darn right I took my drives back. It had been over a month for what was supposed to be a 3-5 day job, and the company had gone from having several people in the office from 8-5 (as was the case when I called and spoke to people before dropping the drives off in the first place) to not having anyone in the office at all on my previous visit (Dec 13th) and having only an IT guy there on this visit (ie. no one doing any data recovery work). This is a red flag to me. If they are ignoring customers because they are going out of business, I certainly don’t want my drives auctioned off with rest of their business assets.

Side note: I’m not sure what “There can be a difference between fact & truth.” is supposed to mean, or how someone is supposed to contact them to find out. Maybe they are answering their phones now - I really don’t know.

So, while part of their statement is accurate, I believe it misses a few salient details though - even if we ignore the whole “Alex lost a month of time to get his data recovered and wasted many hours trying to contact Reynolds” side of this.

When I arrived at Reynolds Data Recovery last Thursday afternoon, the door to their suite was closed but the light inside was on so I knocked and went in. One thing I didn’t want to mention before I got my drives back is that there is no lock on the door to the Reynolds suite (there is a lock on the building door, but not the suite door).

It really surprised me that there was no lock on the door as they have a number of hard drives out on shelves around the office. I presume (hope?) that these drives must not have any customer data on them. Anyway, back to my visit.

When I went in, Bill was on the phone with a customer. He asked who I was, I told him and said I was there to get my drives back. He told me that he really couldn’t help me and that I’d have to talk to Mark.

I told him, as I had at least a half-dozen times before over the phone or in messages, that I had no way of contacting Mark.

Bill then gave me Mark’s phone number - yay!

I sat down and called Mark, got voice mail, left a message. Ugh.

After that, with Bill still on his call and “not able to help me”, I looked around and found my drives. I took them over and showed Bill what I had (just the drives labeled with my name).

Bill got off the phone around that time. We had a somewhat heated discussion about the way I’d been treated as a customer. I asked him what else I could have or should have done given my situation.

This part still gets me a little fired up: he told me that it didn’t help my situation that I didn’t respect his personal time - calling him multiple times a day and even calling during his lunchtime.

Wow.

Last time I checked, ‘lunch’ was during standard business hours. In fact, all of my calls were during standard business hours. Despite not receiving a call back since Dec 13, all of my messages were professional and I didn’t call more than twice a day (except perhaps the previous day I’d driven up there and waited around outside their empty office for an hour and a half).

I reminded him that I was only calling him because I had no other number to call where I could leave a message. He asked why I didn’t call Mark, I reminded him I didn’t have Mark’s number and told him the number on the web site was broken - no way to leave a message. He didn’t seem to believe me on that one so I pulled out my cell phone, called the number, turned on the speakerphone and demonstrated how it didn’t work.

So I asked him again that, given that I had no other number where I could leave a message, what should I have done but call the number he told me to, that was posted on the web site, and leave a message there? He didn’t really have an answer for that.

The most amazing thing about this was that he was annoyed or angry with me. Never mind that pro-active calls or e-mails from Reynolds would have prevented me from calling him even once. The customer is pretty much helpless in this situation. Never once was I offered an apology. I got several half excuses, lots of blame shifting and some frustration thrown my way. His attitude and apparent view that I had done something wrong just blew me away.

Besides if the calls were bothering Bill so much, there was an easy solution: return one of my calls and provide me with the number of someone I should call. Just last week I got 2 calls from someone who thought my number was a travel agency. After the second one (the first I figured was a mis-dial), I did them the courtesy of calling them and letting them know it was the wrong number. It took less than a minute to make that call.

Y’know how you always think of a good line to say when it’s too late? I wish I’d said:

You aren’t seriously trying to blame the victim here, are you?

Oh well, next time.

A while ago I linked to an blog post that talked about the shift of companies now reflecting on individuals rather than individuals reflecting on companies (this is especially true with small businesses). Bill doesn’t seem to have gotten that memo. He is a Reynolds employee/associate/contractor/partner (I don’t know the exact relationship), and he was the only representative of the company I was able to get in touch with. He may have felt he wasn’t able to help me, but he sure was in a better position to help me than I was - if for no other reason than he knew who did know something, had the phone number of that person, and was able to get in touch with them.

By choosing to associate with Reynolds as he does, the actions of Reynolds reflect back on him. It doesn’t matter if it was Mark that was supposed to call me back. Bill telling me that Mark will call me and choosing to ignore all of my voice mails telling him I never got a call from Mark reflects badly on Bill too.

If you find yourself in a situation where your association with someone or something is hurting your reputation, it’s up to you to fix that. I’ve had to do this in the past myself.

With my experience over the last month and a half, now that I’ve got my drives back you better believe I will never again choose to have any dealings or association with Reynolds Data Recovery, Bill Flinchbaugh or Mark Tessin.

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First I took the drives to Eboxlab¹ but that didn’t work out so well. Then I choose to take the drives up to Reynolds Data Recovery.

When I took my drives up to them, I’d had nothing but good experiences with Reynolds. I met a fellow from there at BarCampDenver, and every time I’d called (getting information), my call was quickly answered and the person on the other end of the phone knew what they were talking about.

They gave me estimates I was comfortable with ($600-1400 and 3-5 days), so I drove up there and dropped off my drives along with an additional external drive for them to put the recovered data on. Since then, things have not gone smoothly.

Here is a timeline:

• Tue, Nov 28 - Call Reynolds for information. I am told a recovery like this will take 3-5 days.
• Fri, Dec 1 - Drop off hard drives for recovery.
• Tue, Dec 5 - Receive call from Mark, confirm $800 price (which they have already charged to my credit card) and that drives will be ready to pick up Friday (8th) or Saturday (9th) at the latest and that I could pick up Sat since I was local. Mark says he will call me Thursday to let me know which day.
• Wed, Dec 6 - E-mail sent to Mark on Tue bounces back to me, I call and fax the printed e-mail in.
• Thu, Dec 7 - No call from Mark. I cannot reach Reynolds via phone or e-mail.
• Fri, Dec 8 - Still cannot reach Reynolds via phone or e-mail. I track down Bill’s cell number via the BarCamp web site to his personal site to his WHOIS record. Bill apologizes, explains that they are having ISP issues (IP phones I guess) and says he’ll find out what is happening and call me back.
• Mon, Dec 11 - Call Bill again since he didn’t return my call with information as he said he would. Bill still has no status, says he will call me back.
• Tue, Dec 12 - Called Bill twice and left messages. No return call.
• Wed, Dec 13 - Call Bill again and leave a message. Since I can’t reach anyone and the drives were supposed to be ready 3 days ago, I drive 45 min to the Reynolds office. No one is there. I finally reach Bill, he tells me to wait that Mark is on his way. 1.5 hours later I give up and leave. Bill calls me on my 45 minute drive home and says he can’t reach Mark.
• Thu, Dec 14 - Mark calls in the morning. Note that this is the first time someone from Reynolds has contacted me since Tue, Dec 5 - one week after he was supposed to call. He says that the drives are 55% complete and he will call me in the afternoon. He does not call in the afternoon.
• Fri, Dec 15 - No calls from Reynolds, called and left a message with Bill at the end of the day.
• Mon, Dec 18 - No calls from Reynolds, called and left a message with Bill at 2pm and at 4:45pm.
• Tue, Dec 19 - No calls from Reynolds, called and left a message with Bill at 12pm and at 4:45pm.
• (the timeline is continued with updates at the bottom of this post)

So now I’m not sure what to do. I can’t seem to get them on the phone, or get them to give me any kind of status information. I can’t even go get the drives back since it appears that no one is at the office².

I can understand that a phone and e-mail outage means that things are not “business as usual” for Reynolds right now. Maybe if I’d taken the drives to Reynolds first and gotten in and out before their phone and e-mail outage I’d have had a nice smooth experience.

I can try to sympathize and understand, but at this point I can no longer excuse their failure to communicate or complete the work as promised. A quick phone call or e-mail when a project is a week and a half past due isn’t too much to ask for.

I decided to blog this in the hopes that it applies some pressure to Reynolds to resolve this quickly (so that they can comment here and show a nice response time). If this doesn’t work, I guess I’ll have to look at other options for recourse.

I hate that they’ve put me in a position to even have to consider this. Please, someone from Reynolds get in touch and fix this.

Based on the information I was given three weeks ago, I decided to postpone my upcoming releases of Tasks Pro™ and Tasks to wait until I got my data back rather than re-doing about a week’s worth of work on stuff for the launch. I now regret that choice - I probably won’t be doing those releases until 2007 now.

• (timeline continued from above)
• UPDATE: Wed, Dec 20 - No calls from Reynolds, called and left a message with Bill at 10:45am. Called Bill again at 5pm - he answered but had no information, will try to have someone call me tonight or tomorrow.
• UPDATE: Thu, Dec 21 - No calls from Reynolds.
• UPDATE: Fri, Dec 22 - No calls from Reynolds.
• UPDATE: Tue, Dec 26 - No calls from Reynolds. Reynolds has a new temporary phone number listed on their web site. I dialed it at 9:30am and got an automated voice system. When I pressed 0 to reach an operator (an option given to me), I received a ‘your call cannot be transferred’ error. When I try to type in ‘mark’ in the dial-by-name feature, I also get a ‘your call cannot be transferred’ error. It seems that the original temporary phone number posted on their web site (which would go to voice mail) has been replaced by another temporary phone number that doesn’t work at all. I am close to giving up on them entirely.
• UPDATE: Wed, Dec 27 - No calls from Reynolds. Calls to their (new temporary) number still do not work. I was contacted by another local company that does data recovery (see comment below) and they were kind enough to try to contact folks they knew at Reynolds for me. Unfortunately, they had no luck either.
• UPDATE: Thu, Dec 28 - No calls from Reynolds. Tried to call again at 2pm, the phone system is still broken (can’t even leave a message). Called and left a message on Bill’s cell phone around 3pm.
• UPDATE: Fri, Dec 29 - No calls from Reynolds. Tried to call again at 10:25am; no luck, no way to leave a message.
• UPDATE: Tue, Jan 2 - No calls from Reynolds. New year, same results. Tried to call at noon; no luck, no way to leave a message.
• UPDATE: Wed, Jan 3 - No calls from Reynolds. Tried to call at 11:30am; no luck, no way to leave a message. Left another message with Bill’s cell phone. It is now my guess that Reynolds is likely going out of business.
• UPDATE: Thu, Jan 4 - No calls from Reynolds. Tried to call at 12:45pm; no luck, no way to leave a message. Left another message with Bill’s cell phone. Drove up to Reynolds and was able to take my drives back. You can read more about that here.

1. Which, apparently, actually wasn’t Eboxlab on some technicality I don’t fully understand. [back]
2. Perhaps because the phones are out no one is working on-site? [back]

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A few online searches showed that CompUSA was the only local big box retailer to carry the S 530 (nothing at Best Buy, Circuit City, MicroCenter, Office Max or Office Depot), and they had them at all of the local stores except th one closest to me.

So I called the number for the next nearest store, followed the prompts to check product availability, and was transferred to a central operator who told me all of the local stores were sold out except for one ~25 miles away.

This was surprising to me for 2 reasons:

1. It means that the inventory information on the web site (including the option to buy online and pick up in the store) is wrong, and there is updated information available internally.
2. Calling the local store will route you to a central operator instead of getting the local store you called.

I asked the central operator how I could get in touch with the local store, and was told to hit ‘0′ when I got the IVR. So I called the local store back, and hit ‘0′ at the IVR. Sure enough, I got transferred to someone in customer care at the local store.

I asked this fellow if he could see if an item was in stock for me, and he told me he was very busy and that I’d have to hold. So hold I did, for 13 minutes, until I was hung up on. I called back, sat on hold for another 5 minutes, then got through to a different person who transferred me to a “sales rep”. Another 3 minutes on hold, and the sales rep confirmed what the central operator had told me - there was no stock available at the local store.

I asked if he could check the other stores in the area, and he told me that he couldn’t. He told me to call the other stores directly. Since it took nearly 30 minutes to get the info from this store, I decided it wasn’t worth it to do the same song and dance for the other stores.

Instead I went online to Amazon, and with a single click ordered the Logitech S 530 to be delivered overnight for $15 $24 (including tax) cheaper than the local brick and mortar stores had it listed for.

Sure I didn’t get to test drive it first, but quite frankly I’d be a lot happier if I’d never even bothered with the local stores and had just ordered it online to begin with. Even if I don’t like it and have to send it back, it’s still less hassle.

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A number of apps that use the system keychain (Adium, Shrook, Chicken of the VNC) all require you to re-authenticate as they wake up and attempt to re-connect to various services. When these apps need authentication, they pop up a password dialog.

So when the machine wakes from sleep, you first get a system username/password dialog. As you’re typing into that dialog, the application keychain access dialogs start popping-up in the background and I’m guessing that these steal the focus from the dialog you’re typing in.

This means you almost always have to re-focus into the login dialog to complete the login, or try again after the focus jumping around has causes the login to fail.

I’ve heard a lot of new Mac users complain about this, and I don’t blame them. I really can’t think of a good reason why this couldn’t be fixed. Or maybe there is a fix and I just don’t know about it?

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Between his idiotic babbling and Fox missing half the game to show random close-ups of people’s faces, it’s really hard to enjoy the postseason so far. And that’s a shame.

The comments are open, throw your own log on the fire.

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I’m getting more and more e-mails that end with something like (using John Doe as the name in the example):

… Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

Regards,
j.

or even a plain:

… Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

JD

Why am I seeing more and more of this?

Is this supposed to signify an informal relationship between the two people?

Perhaps the person is so busy and important that they don’t have time to type their entire name? (I even know some folks who have this as part of their auto-attached signature. What, too busy to type it even once?)

Or is it a cult of self-loathing, where these folks hate their names so much they can’t stand to see it in print?

Chime in and pile on or, perhaps, defend yourself and educate me in the comments…

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I called Qwest at 12:20am (Mountain) on July 18th and was given the run-around for 45 minutes while I tried to convince the lady reading the script to me that I needed a new modem. I thought I’d finally done so, and she assured me I would have a new modem within 24 hours if I was willing to pay a “deposit” - which I readily agreed to (though I was never told the deposit price). Given the time of day, I figured it was reasonable to expect it in 36 hours (delivery on the 19th).

Since she said someone would need to be home to receive delivery of the new modem, I thought it smart to call and verify that the modem would indeed be delivered today. After all, I can’t be at the coffee shop (where there is working wireless) and at home at the same time.

After getting another vaguely helpful rep in an offshore call center and sitting on hold for another 15 minutes, I was able to get the tracking number for the modem. I then called UPS and found that:

1. No details for the package were in their system yet - which generally means that the package has not yet been picked up.
2. That tracking number was for a ground package.

This did not make me particularly happy.

I called customer service (rather than tech support). After explaining the problem and waiting on hold for another 10 minutes, the customer service rep then transferred me back to tech support - but this time to someone in a US call center. This fellow informed me that there was no replacement modem order in their system for me.

Ugh!

He told me I had 2 options, he could overnight a modem to me or I could go buy one myself at Best Buy. I opted to have them send one out, but now I’m re-thinking that. I might swing by Best Buy and see what the damage is on a modem. His estimate was $60, rental is $3/month - life expectancy seems to be about 2 years, of course if it dies faster then it’s my problem. Naturally I was next door to Best Buy yesterday and could have just bought one then and avoided most of this entirely.

Advice on renting vs. buying a DSL modem is hereby solicited…

UPDATE: it looks like the modem I currently have is $90.

UPDATE #2: I bought a DSL modem for $20 off Craig’s List, but it seems not to work so well. Hopefully the modem that should arrive tomorrow will work properly.

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Some songs in your iTunes Music Library could not be transferred to your iPod because your iPod software is too old. Go to apple.com/ipod to download the latest…

Odd.

Ok, I go to apple.com/ipod and look for a link download the latest iPod updater. For some reason, I have to log in or provide my e-mail address to download the updater software.

Why?

Ok, I dig into my System Keychain and find my apple.com account info, log in and download the updater. The updater is a package installer that installs the iPod updater application.

Sigh.

Ok, the iPod updater software is now installed. I launch the updater and… it tells me my iPod software is up to date.

Argh!

Ok, time to do some searching.

Hmm.

This looks like it could be a solution.

Whew.

Following the solution steps in the last post in that thread did the trick for me. This certainly isn’t an easy solution though. It requires deleting a system file, downloading the iTunes installer, downloading a shareware app, pulling a file from the iTunes installer package, and manually putting that file into the system extensions.

Dear Apple,

Every step along the way was harder than it should be (including the fact I shouldn’t have needed to do it in the first place). This process is broken and needs fixing. Thanks for listening.

Sincerely,
–Alex King

1. Wow, that’s an awkward sentance! [back]

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Annoying.

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First and foremost, do not interrupt legitimate conversations.

I tried to leave this comment:

It isn’t supposed to make marketing sense, it’s supposed to make logical sense. We can’t offer the service period if we can’t cover the costs.

on this post.

and received this result:

Sorry, you’ve been prevented from commenting on this blog.

Either your comment content was found to contain spam, or
your IP address (or a subnet of your IP address) has spammed this blog before.

If you think you got this page in error, your entered name might be too short.

You can also complain to wp.spaminator@gmail.com. View source to see why you got blocked.

Strike count: 6

from the source - blocked because: bad referer - spambot?, excessive links

I filled in a real name, e-mail address and web site URL. I filled out the form on the page as provided to me. I’m this close to thinking that captchas are a good idea.

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Feeds are new technology, the old guard is scared and slow to adopt.

Remember in the early days of the web when newspapers wouldn’t put their content online? Same thing here… eventually enough quality content will be in full content feeds and the partial feed folks will have to play along or they will become irrelevant.

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Last weekend, they were saying that the winner would be determined by which team won the weekend series… that is ridiculous. 3 games out of 162? C’mon.

Let me put forth two sets of reasoning I would consider valid for choosing an MVP:

1. Best Player - I don’t think that you can make a good argument that the best player in the league isn’t the most valuable. If a player is the best in the league, how could another player be more valuable?

   Put it this way: given the same pitching staff, how would a team of 9 A-rods do again a team of 9 Big Papis? I’d generally say it would be no contest. Both are good hitters, but A-rod is a gold glove SS and can run. To me, he’s the best all-around player in the league - hence the MVP.

2. Most Helps His Team - A strong argument could also be made for the player that most helps his team. The problem is that most people use anecdotal evidence exclusively when trying to make this claim. I don’t have the raw data, but it can be measured.

   Given any situation in a baseball game, the stats guys can determine the probability of either team winning a game. When a player does something (gets a hit with two outs and drives in the go-ahead run for example), the change in probability that their team will win the game is measurable. This may be the most pure way to measure a player’s true value during the year and would be a great stat to use for the MVP award.

Also, the idea that a player somehow becomes more valuable by playing for a better team is perposterous. Take last year’s AL MVP, Vladimir Guerrero for example. Was Vlad more valuable to the Angels than he was to the Expos? I’d argue it was the other way around.

The comments are open, rant away…

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