Tretakoff Musings
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
GREAT service
My old friend and mentor, Doug Fleener, likes to talk about the importance of great customer service, in keeping customers. He’s right: you’ve read about my travails with my recent webhosting issues: I switched to WebHostingBuzz.com. I expected very little in terms of service, and, truth is, I have few needs: some basic FTP functions and FrontPage support. All good.
FrontPage would not publish, so I resigned myself to the black hole of trouble tickets, expecting an answer within a week, maybe. Imagine my shock when I got three responses within a day, explanation of the issues, expected resolution times, and updates. When it still did not work, they responded within an hour, and offered to port my site to a new server.
FrontPage would not publish, so I resigned myself to the black hole of trouble tickets, expecting an answer within a week, maybe. Imagine my shock when I got three responses within a day, explanation of the issues, expected resolution times, and updates. When it still did not work, they responded within an hour, and offered to port my site to a new server.
I’m paying less a year than most pay for their monthly access, and that’s the level of service I got. Wow. Kudos, guys.
Contrast that with the level of service I got from a company I usually have very good things to say about, Salesforce.com. We pay thousands of dollars to them a year, and several of their functions had some bugs. In response to my trouble tickets to them, I got form letters that were recapitulations of the help docs, which I had specifically indicated I had already consulted with. They didn’t read, they just sorted and hoped I’d go away. Not their norm, but not fun either.
WebHostingBuzz.com: the new paragon of service.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
1.7Ghz PC for $100
I'm putting my hands on a 1.7GHz computer with an inkjet printer as part of a deal I'm doing. $100 and it's yours, if you want it. Desktop machine, won't have Windows on it, but let me know!
Google Talk
For those who don't know, Google Talk is live. Yes, Google has launched their own IM and PC to PC phone service. Best news? If you already use Trillian Pro, you can access Google Talk through Trillian, via the Jabber plugin. If you want to IM me on Google Talk, it's jtretakoff@gmail.com.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Ok...I might have to say "Go Pats!"
If it means getting a ring for this man, I may have to embrace my hometown team for at least a season.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
We're Back
Sorry we've been "off the air" for a while. We recently had a fun webhost experience. This in an interesting business, with some strange characters. Now, before I start to relate this tale, let me make it clear: my site is a plain old website. That means I need just any webhost. My only qualifications are that they are cheap, and give me lots of space, and are reliable. There have to be 500 companies that meet those criteria. Here's how it goes:
A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from my web host provider, saying they were having a "customer appreciation sale," and offering some good deals to upgrade my hosting. Now, I host two sites with this company, and rarely pay attention to the space, but no big deal. For my Tretakoff.com domain, I was paying about $8 a month for 500MB of space. Didn’t think much; just had my card charged every month. The host seemed to be run by one guy: Jay Higdon. Every now and then, I'd have an email exchange: always nice. So, I'm happy.
A week or so later, I was updating my site, and starting getting messages that I had almost no space left (amazing how much web space you can take up with a personal site!). No problem; I recalled the "customer appreciation sale:" looked like there was a good deal for me there! I read the fine print: it expired about 5 days previously.
Now, I'm a good customer, right? I host two sites with these guys, and have been there for years. I don't take much care and feeding. So, I use their help ticket system (they have no direct email address, of course) to ask if I, as a good customer, can take advantage of the sale, even thought I am 5 days late. Jay, being a good guy, will surely respond. I send.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait.
I waited a week, and no response. So, I start to investigate my options for other webhosts. Much to my surprise, I find that there are a bevy of other providers who, for less money, will provide me with 5 or 6 times as much space (and transfer bandwidth). In other words, I've been getting a bit hosed. I'm not bitter: I was happy with Jay, and too lazy to be a smart shopper. So be it.
Now, armed with this info, I go back to the help system for Jay. Sure enough: there's my lonely help ticket, waiting for a response. Nada. Ok, I open up a new ticket: this time, I tell Jay that he has not responded in a week, and I find I can get a better deal with lost of other folks. I show him some of the packages. But, since I like Jay, and like hosting with him, I offer that, if he can match the package, I'll gladly give him the money instead. If not, we can part ways sadly, but part nonetheless. Off the ticket goes.
Now, remember: Jay does not offer me anything that these other hosts do. In fact, he offers me less. Most of these hosts are simple affairs: there is, literally, nothing to differentiate them from one another. They are a commodity, plain and simple. Yet, out of a misplaced loyalty, I offer Jay a chance to keep me. What do you think his reaction was to this nice gesture?
He cancelled my account.
Yep, just like that. Shut me down in less that 5 hours from receiving the second help ticket. No response. Just said that I was cancelled, per my request. Boom. Site offline. Mail offline. No place to publish the blog. Amazing.
So, now I'm with my new host, for a ton less money and a lot more space, and we're back. And I still shake my head in bemusement at those that think, selling a commodity at low price and margin, that they are somehow special. I stand educated.
A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from my web host provider, saying they were having a "customer appreciation sale," and offering some good deals to upgrade my hosting. Now, I host two sites with this company, and rarely pay attention to the space, but no big deal. For my Tretakoff.com domain, I was paying about $8 a month for 500MB of space. Didn’t think much; just had my card charged every month. The host seemed to be run by one guy: Jay Higdon. Every now and then, I'd have an email exchange: always nice. So, I'm happy.
A week or so later, I was updating my site, and starting getting messages that I had almost no space left (amazing how much web space you can take up with a personal site!). No problem; I recalled the "customer appreciation sale:" looked like there was a good deal for me there! I read the fine print: it expired about 5 days previously.
Now, I'm a good customer, right? I host two sites with these guys, and have been there for years. I don't take much care and feeding. So, I use their help ticket system (they have no direct email address, of course) to ask if I, as a good customer, can take advantage of the sale, even thought I am 5 days late. Jay, being a good guy, will surely respond. I send.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait.
I waited a week, and no response. So, I start to investigate my options for other webhosts. Much to my surprise, I find that there are a bevy of other providers who, for less money, will provide me with 5 or 6 times as much space (and transfer bandwidth). In other words, I've been getting a bit hosed. I'm not bitter: I was happy with Jay, and too lazy to be a smart shopper. So be it.
Now, armed with this info, I go back to the help system for Jay. Sure enough: there's my lonely help ticket, waiting for a response. Nada. Ok, I open up a new ticket: this time, I tell Jay that he has not responded in a week, and I find I can get a better deal with lost of other folks. I show him some of the packages. But, since I like Jay, and like hosting with him, I offer that, if he can match the package, I'll gladly give him the money instead. If not, we can part ways sadly, but part nonetheless. Off the ticket goes.
Now, remember: Jay does not offer me anything that these other hosts do. In fact, he offers me less. Most of these hosts are simple affairs: there is, literally, nothing to differentiate them from one another. They are a commodity, plain and simple. Yet, out of a misplaced loyalty, I offer Jay a chance to keep me. What do you think his reaction was to this nice gesture?
He cancelled my account.
Yep, just like that. Shut me down in less that 5 hours from receiving the second help ticket. No response. Just said that I was cancelled, per my request. Boom. Site offline. Mail offline. No place to publish the blog. Amazing.
So, now I'm with my new host, for a ton less money and a lot more space, and we're back. And I still shake my head in bemusement at those that think, selling a commodity at low price and margin, that they are somehow special. I stand educated.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
2 lbs of coffee for 2 Budget rentals
Here's an odd one: rent twice from Budget, and get two pounds of Dunkin Donuts coffee, free. I'm all in favor of it: a neat loyalty strategy.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Mobile Life Tips: PALMCasting
Ok, I'm coining a term: Palmcasting. I've written about podcasting; this is similar. Imagine: being able to designate any website, document, or RSS feed to take with you to read on your Palm, complete with links, illustrations, pictures. Now, imagine you can have it, every day, update while you sleep, so the latest content is delivered automatically to your Palm. Pretty cool, eh?
Here's what you'll need:
Now, of the above, the only thing that costs anything is EZSync; it's $14.95, but you can try before you buy. The rest are FREE.
Here's what you do:
You are done! Leave the Palm in the cradle attached to the computer. At the designated time, it will "wake up," and HotSync. Your Sunrise content will be pulled down, and transferred to your Palm. When you pick up your Palm in the morning, it will be loaded with content from your favorite sites for you to read on your commute. Every major newspaper, any blogs, any sites you want, even documents on your hard drive, ready for you, complete with images and links.
Welcome to Palmcasting!
Here's what you'll need:
- A Palm-powered handheld with some good free space (or an SD card)
- Plucker, an offline document and HTML reader for the Palm
- Sunrise, for designating what sites to pull from, and when
- EZSync, for scheduling HotSyncs
Now, of the above, the only thing that costs anything is EZSync; it's $14.95, but you can try before you buy. The rest are FREE.
Here's what you do:
- Install all of the above.
- Start up the desktop application for Sunrise.
- First, create a new Document List by pressing on the icon in the top left of the application. Follow the wizard.
- Next, in a web browser, find a site or RSS feed you want to put on your Palm. Copy the URL.
- Go back to Sunrise, and create a new Document. Follow the wizard, and paste in the URL you copied from the web browser.
- Choose the category you want to put the site in (optional), and how many links deep should be pulled in to your Palm.
- If you wanted to read the SFGate's RSS feed, for instance, you'd set a link depth of 1, since you wanted to be able to just click and read a single article at a time.
- Some sites like to break the articles up into multiple pieces, like the New York Times, so you'd set a higher link depth, like 3 or 4.
- Click on More Settings.
- In Scheduling, you can set what schedule you’d like Sunrise to update the content. For me, I have it update each "feed" at 6am.
- In the Output tab, you can specify the size and amount of color you want to capture, as well as if you want the content put on your Palm's main memory, or in an SD card.
- If you've ever used AvantGo for similar things, don’t worry: while AvantGo is so slow, especially in reading from the SD card, Sunrise and Plucker are very fast.
- If you are putting the content on your SD card, you will need to access the SD card on your computer and create the following directory: PALM/Programs/Plucker
- Repeat steps 4-9 for as many sites as you want.
- On your Palm, start up EZSync, and choose what days and what times you want the Palm to schedule a HotSync.
You are done! Leave the Palm in the cradle attached to the computer. At the designated time, it will "wake up," and HotSync. Your Sunrise content will be pulled down, and transferred to your Palm. When you pick up your Palm in the morning, it will be loaded with content from your favorite sites for you to read on your commute. Every major newspaper, any blogs, any sites you want, even documents on your hard drive, ready for you, complete with images and links.
Welcome to Palmcasting!
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Charles' visit, day 2
First stop: The California Academy of Sciences, for the Chocolate exhibit. Learn more about cacao then you ever thought possible! From there, into the Steinhart Aquarium, where we saw things I never expected to see in a warehouse on a busy San Francisco street.
The Academy is temporarily located in SoMa in downtown San Francisco, while their new digs in Golden Gate Park get built. Hard to believe you can just walk in and see things like this!
From there, we headed over to the Sony Metreon, Sony's version of a mall, for some exhausting rounds of Hyperbowl. Trust me, you have to play it to believe it. After that, we needed a rest, so we headed to the Sony Store for Charles to bask in the glow of the ultimate home theater.
Finally, dinner at Il Fornaio, where a butterfly dropped by to say hello. And off Charles went; we had a GREAT time.
First stop: The California Academy of Sciences, for the Chocolate exhibit. Learn more about cacao then you ever thought possible! From there, into the Steinhart Aquarium, where we saw things I never expected to see in a warehouse on a busy San Francisco street.
The Academy is temporarily located in SoMa in downtown San Francisco, while their new digs in Golden Gate Park get built. Hard to believe you can just walk in and see things like this!
From there, we headed over to the Sony Metreon, Sony's version of a mall, for some exhausting rounds of Hyperbowl. Trust me, you have to play it to believe it. After that, we needed a rest, so we headed to the Sony Store for Charles to bask in the glow of the ultimate home theater.Finally, dinner at Il Fornaio, where a butterfly dropped by to say hello. And off Charles went; we had a GREAT time.
Our weekend with Charles
Charles Barletta, my brother, was here over a recent weekend. We hadn't spent any significant time together in years. Heck, thanks to my stupidity, we hadn't even spoken in years until recently. However, it was like not a day had been missed. I'm so thrilled to have him back in my life. Thanks, bro.
What did we do? Wine country (while listening to Lewis Black's rantings in the car), the Jelly Belly outlet store (makers of JB's, the bext M&M style chocolate candy!), Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Sushi Ran, the Chocolate exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences (noticing a theme?), and the Sony Metreon. Want a glimpse?
First stop: Viansa. Good wine, great food, and what a view. Charles getting back in touch with his Italian roots. 
Amy enjoyed the sunshine of Viansa, too!
Next stop: Kunde. Beautiful cave tour, decent wine and nice grounds. With temperatures over 108 degrees, the sight of any water was welcome! 
More on the next post.
What did we do? Wine country (while listening to Lewis Black's rantings in the car), the Jelly Belly outlet store (makers of JB's, the bext M&M style chocolate candy!), Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Sushi Ran, the Chocolate exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences (noticing a theme?), and the Sony Metreon. Want a glimpse?
First stop: Viansa. Good wine, great food, and what a view. Charles getting back in touch with his Italian roots. Amy enjoyed the sunshine of Viansa, too!
Next stop: Kunde. Beautiful cave tour, decent wine and nice grounds. With temperatures over 108 degrees, the sight of any water was welcome! More on the next post.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Become the LiftMaster
No, it's not an exercise device or a new erectile pill. Instead, it's a way to make an elevator obey your commands, despite any other pesky people wanting the elevator to stop on THEIR floors! Take a look for yourself!
