Rocket Science

I got this spam message today from my WebEx is Stupid post.

from Ian Saunders – ihsaunders @wiredred.co.uk
to me
date Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 9:07 AM
subject Nefsis – great alternative to WebEx

Dear Brandon,

Ref: WebEx is Stupid

As a provider of high quality desktop video and web conferencing services I read your article above with interest.

WiredRed has recently launched a fantastic new web conferencing service called Nefsis® and I thought you might be interested to learn about.

Clearly he didn’t really read my message — I was just trying to “participate” in a conference, not run one.

So, he knows how to use Google Alerts to try and generate leads. Thank you. That’s unsolicited email you just sent me. I did not ask for any solutions. Thanks for the spam.

So I participated in a conference call today where we were asked to use WebEx conferencing.

Here’s the pop-up dialog box I got when trying to log in from my Mac using Firefox 3.5.

Source: Brandon/WebEx

Why?

Um, I’m sorry WebEx, you’ve given me zero reason to let you have UNRESTRICED ACCESS to my computer. Why do you need it? All I want to do is participate in a conference, not necessarily let you do whatever you want with my computer.

Turns out if you hit “Deny”, there’s no feedback at all. I get back a mostly white screen. No error message saying I need to allow access, and so on. So, there’s no conference. Um, ok. Gee, thanks.

That’s bad programming, and bad communicating.

Ok, so I guess if I want to participate in the conference I have to say Ok. Over the next two hours, we were uncermoniously disconnected from the teleconference portion, probably when the 1 hour time elapsed. No warning. Buh-bye. And then after re-logging back in, and redialing the teleconference, at some point I got this warning message.

Source: Brandon/WebEx

4GB is apparently not enough

Um, I have 4 GIGAbytes of RAM in this computer, with over 2.2 GB free. How is it I’ve run out of memory?

Bad programming. Bad software.

Ok, so I checked in today.

The Portola Hotel continues to fail:

• 

  Photo Credit: Brandon

  Bad Design It's a Heater!

  They have a thermostat in the room that shows temperature ranges between 50 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. What it doesn’t say is that it’s a heater only. Set the temperature to 50 degrees, hot air comes out. Ok, to be clear it’s not 50 degrees in the room right now, so I have no idea how it’s trying to heat the room to a temperature below the current ambient temperature. FAIL.
• Wireless Network access. The hotel operator says that the hotel does not provide wireless access. Hrm, there’s a set of wireless access points labeled “Portola Hotel and Spa WiFi”. That is the hotel’s name, right? Check. I can connect to it, right? Check. It’s painfully slow–check. To be fair, the conference is providing “free” network access over this network to conference participants, but the network is not designed to support the sort of traffic it must be receiving. FAIL. I wonder how bad things are going to be during the conference, and if I’m going to be able to use the network to give my presentation.
• Wired Network. Ok there’s a wired network port in my room. Let’s try that. Hrm, I get a private IP address, but nothing resolves in my browser. Ok, go to the instructions–it says the hotel login page should show up automatically, ok. Hrm, not happening. Ok, let’s go to the URL that’s listed. Hrm, still nothing. Ok, let’s restart. As most of you know I use a Mac, and you have to really misdesign your network to require a Mac to restart to get network access (though recall I had a private IP address in the range offered by the hotel’s wireless network). Hrm. Still not working. Ok, call “Customer Care”–15+ rings no answer, great. Call the operator. And try again. Oh hey it’s working now. Ok that was 5-10 minutes after getting an IP address that it decided to work? Ok, WTF? FAIL.
• Internet access payment screen that doesn’t work with Firefox, but does work with Safari. FAIL. Thankfully I had a second browser to use that displayed the field labels on the form. The version in Firefox showed a bunch of boxes. Um, you want me to guess where to enter data? Ok. FAIL.
• 

  Photo Credit: Brandon

  Care?

  Advertise a “Customer Care” line on a placard in the room and on the phone. Wait, don’t answer the line (after 15 rings) or have it roll over to a manager, the front desk, or even the operator. FAIL.

This place is over-priced, and provides dumb service. FAIL, FAIL, FAIL.

At least the network access that I’m paying for is working.

Oh, and the bathroom smells funny. As in musty.

So, all this time I thought I had comments turned on for my posts…wrong! Oops. So if you happen to have a comment about overly perfumed detergents, cool elevator features, or even want to laugh at my aversion to mint chocolate chip ice cream you can now do so.

There’s a reason I titled this site…Rocket Science.

(Update: I found a reversed Я to use in the post from Wikipedia – Faux Cyrillic.)

…I also dislike software that:

• Insists on starting itself up without giving me a convenient way of turning it off. Can anyone say Skype?
• Pollutes my desktop or dock (I use a Mac) with icons I don’t need nor want.
• Insists on setting the focus to itself. Can anyone say Firefox on startup and shutdown? (I have it asking me to clear settings on login and logout. I am very capable of command-tabbing or switching back to the app when I want to finish closing or opening it.)