I’m certain we could all list bad service but would you include the like of the following examples that have all happened to me in the last 2 or 3 weeks – and personally being busy at Christmas is no excuse for not providing a reasonable level of service.

1. I’ve wanted to purchase a pair of ZEMgear’s for use with my martial arts training – the dobok (gym) where we train is usually covered in sand and other muck so these would help out. Also I could use them in my garage / decking when training at home.

Anyway I contacted the UK distributor of these only to not receive an answer. So I sent a fresh email and CC’d in the US manufacturer. I got a reply from the US within a day or two but still not the UK. Replied as such to the US whom apologised on their behalf, etc but still 2 weeks later and nothing.

2. Or then there’s the UK company (only just down the road from me) that have replied to my email but only opted to answer one of the questions.

3. Or how about the internet service company that needs 2 or 3 prompts to actually supply an answer to a query from a paying customer.

4. Or the service supplier who just closes tickets off without telling you what they did to fix the problem.

These are but 4 of many examples I could cite – but all are very recent.

And as I said above being busy over the Christmas period is not an excuse. It will cause me to give them more latitude in how long it takes to reply, but after several week amy patience wears thin.

But in truth it doesn’t take much to get it right.

So what about good service then?

Yes, I rightfully complain to, hopefully, the right people about poor service but equally I will praise a company and write to them to say thank you. I even go so far as to find out the name of the person that dealt with me and thank them personally as well as singling them out in the letter / email.

And how does one improve the level of service?

And I’m sure there are more you could add…. but ultimately it does come down to the senior management within a company – if the ethos they push down the line is all about profit then customer service will go by the by.

- so what’s your service like?
- how do you handle good / bad service?

Service is a post from: Church Techy

So let’s start off with their own words:

Passing exams required towards getting your CCNA certification is easy, using uCertify’s top rated test Prepkits. Here’s how:

 - Full coverage of exam objectives (updated 2011) including Hardware, Security, Networking, and Operating Systems
- Practice questions that follow the exam pattern
- Comprehensive practice questions modeled on real world scenarios
- Detailed answer explanations for both correct and incorrect answer options
- Chapter by chapter study guide and study notes for exam 640-802, 640-816, and 640-822 not only helps you pass the exam, you actually learn the stuff you are supposed to know!
- Interactive Quizzes

They also state you get a years worth of updates for the price and one other ‘unique’ feature is the ability to ask / interact with other students and / or UCertify staff.

Whilst all this is laudable the reality is that the price is cheap and there is a probably a good reason for this.

Let me clarify by saying that the package could well help you become CCNA certified, but you’re going to need to put in some effort outside of this tool to do so. It is at best a dis-jointed affair that doesn’t guide one through from the basics to the end result. You have to navigate an interface that is not intuitive and doesn’t lead you – as I believe it should.

On top of this, the ‘extras’ I mentioned maybe of some value or not.

I couldn’t find anywhere that stated how often you get updates, just that you are entitled to a year of them. Secondly, in my usage I could see some questions from other users of the prep kit but nowhere did I see any answers from uCertify staff. If that’s to be the case, then they should just remove this feature.

One feature that does appear to work well is their exams and the method of tracking the results and what you need to brush up on. However, even this has a shortcoming in that it doesn’t have any simulation type questions which (it seems to me) are one of the biggest stumbling blocks mosy examinees face.

Ultimately I can’t recommend this product to anybody who is coming at the CCNA cold – and by that I mean with no knowledge or prior experience of the subject. If however, like me, you want to brush up on or take some tests because you need to re-sit the exam (as it’s changed out of all recognition in 3yrs) then this may be worth the $150.

That’s got to be your call.

CCNA Studies is a post from: Church Techy

I admit, I’d never heard of them and initially I wasn’t impressed by what I saw. I blame that on tiredness though as I had been very busy around the time Joe first contacted me. Having taken another look here’s what I think.

In short, BigMarker is a free web conferencing community.

Their blurb goes on to say:

Through our platform, you can reconnect with your family in Rio; manage your employees in Madagascar; organize your non-profit’s resources to Ottawa; teach a virtual class from Tulsa to students all over Thailand; foster a support group for cancer survivors from France to the Falkland Islands. With unlimited access to live events, there are endless opportunities for you, your community, organization, business, classroom, and social network to grow.

But with a little lateral thinking one can see how a church might use this.

• How about live streaming of a church service?
• Can’t make that house (home) group session then why not dial in to one?
• Hosting a conference and a speaker can’t physically make it?
• Chat with a missionary you sponsor?
• What about staying in contact with your youth that have gone to University or on a gap year?

… and so on.

Given time I’m sure you or I could think of several more options that could be added to the list.

The supplied tools all add benefits to the service – items such as document sharing, whiteboards; share parts of your screen and so on. I hear you say so why not just use Skype or MSN or a similar video conferencing system? The answer is three fold.

1. First they provide private as well as public meeting areas
2. Second their conferencing system is multi-point in that you are not limited to “one to one” video chats
3. and, third, the best bit is it’s all free.

There is a caveat or two though … I was unable to test this or see behind the scenes due to their demo not working and I couldn’t think of a way to test it by signing myself up to an account. Secondly you have to have flash so whilst it will work on a laptop or desktop anybody with an iPhone or iPad that wants to join in is out of luck.

Still, for free, you can’t complain and this can only be a good addition to the ministry toolbox.

Big Marker is a post from: Church Techy

It took a slight mental shift to see that it wasn’t Twitter and it certainly isn’t Facebook. So I’m thoroughly enjoying it. And now that I’ve taken some time to develop a few friendships I’m finding that the social benefits are coming in a way they never have and probably never will with Twitter.

I’ve detailed before about what I think is wrong with Twitter and I’ve also talked about a typical day  for me on Twitter where I get zero responses to my >20 tweets, replies,RT’s, etc. I’ve found on Google+ that for a following that is a sixth of my Twitter following I can guarantee at least one response every day I bother to post something. That’s a win and a plus for me straight off. I think some of this responsiveness has to come down to Google’s policy on only allowing real names – no hiding behind corporate handles or bizarre nicknames.

Talking of followers, it has probably helped that Google+ is out of beta and mainstream access is allowed. Equally, what has helped is that ‘circle sharing’ has just been switched on. What this allows is for someone to share their carefully crafted circle of people that they’ve taken time to build up without me having to go through the same process again. So I could share my circle of Tang Soo Do martial artists and increase their readership. Equally I have come across some awesome photographers that are inspiring me. I didn’t use Google search for this but merely imported someone else’s circle of pic takers into mine.

Talking of search, then that’s another win for Google+. Any search you can do outside of + can be done within it. Like any social network keeping up can sometimes be problematic. What if someone shared a circle when you were asleep? Well that one’s easy …. type the following into the Google+ search box:

“shared a circle with you”

and suddenly all previously shared circles appear. Know that one particular person shared a circle, then simply add “+their_name” to the end of your search and all the circles they’ve shared appear.

I won’t be dropping Facebook as that is purely a family and people I physically know thing to me – and yes, I do know over 300 and more.

Twitter on the other hand is somewhere I can take or leave.

I do have some relationships I’ve fostered on there, but they are very much in the minority and not enough to guarantee my long term use of Twitter.

That said, Google+ could be just another fad and I’ll be writing about its demise in a few years – but for once I think Google have hit pay dirt and I’m not the only one saying that.

• What’s your take?

My Take on Google+ is a post from: Church Techy

Get rid of the trailing cables that Apple are so fond of and instead use  Bluelounge’s MiniDock. Recently launched, the dock adapter eliminates the awkward slack of charger cords, conveniently lifting your handheld device out of harm’s way.

The sleek accessory, specifically designed to replace existing iPhone or iPod cables, plugs in to a USB power adapter and props gadgets upright in an optimized position as they charge. To ensure a perfect fit regardless of whether you use a case on your device foam spacer stickers (offered in three sizes) are included in the kit.

Available in U.S., U.K. and E.U. versions, the MiniDock costs £15/$20, not a bad price for apractical solution to recharging your digital devices that will see you through many versions of the device itself.

I could have done with one last week!

iPhone MiniDock is a post from: Church Techy

However there are some oddities I’ve yet to get used to, amongst them are:

• why mobile access via whatever paltform / browser is so poor
• why it takes 2 clicks from a notification to get to the linked item (to be fair you can comment straight from the notification window itself)
• and more …

but, rather than concentrate on the negatives here are some resources / tips to aid:

- as with any social network be careful of what you say and to whom you say it.

- carefully consider who can see what portions of your profile – under each section you can opt who can or can’t see it a la facebook

- whilst in edit profile mode check your photo settings and set your defaults there – myself I’ve turned off auto-share of auto-tags and geo-location stuff.

- 5 tips from Duct Tape Marketing.

- and loads of tips from Local SEO Guide

Oh – and if you need or want an invite then do drop me a note with your email address – though I don’t think they are needed anymore.

My google+ thoughts is a post from: Church Techy

I’ve decided to start dropping some folks I follow (and whom may even follow me back).

Principally the main reason is because they talk too much

However, as you’d expect, it never is that simple.

• yes they talk too much (for my liking that is)
• consequently it drowns out other, more important, voices
• despite assertions to the contrary they never respond

You might think these folks are superstars or even semi-famous. In some way I could excuse them if they were… but they aren’t. In fact the very few famous folks I follow do respond to their followers – this isn’t about me being petty because some snob didn’t reply to me. These folks have, however, managed to amass a large (ish) following on Twitter and perhaps this has gone to their heads.

What their over tweeting has done though is gnaw away at my sense of unfairness.

Unfair that they tweet way too much.

Unfair that they sometimes dominate my timeline.

Unfair that they never reply….to anybody.

But mostly unfair that they detract from those I’m trying to build a link or relationship or community with.

At the moment nobody has been dropped but I do have certain names in mind. Perhaps I’ll add them to a high talkers list. But then I already have enough lists to be getting on with. Anyway, the two point thing about this post is this:

• if I drop you and we already interact then it’s an error on my part and please let me know
• I’m re-defining my tweeting life in an effort to generate more talk and less volume.

What about you?

Do you have a twitter rationale?

Twitter Rationale is a post from: Church Techy

In short Brightfilter appears to be a very competent filter that works and will protect your surfing habits (or those of your children, staff, etc) from all but the very newest sites – this to be fair will always be an issue with any filter as they can only ever be reactive.

Also the challenge I threw at my son to “try and break it” was unfortunately not taken up. He found other things to occupy his time such as sleeping so I can’t comment on its resistance to being circumvented.

However my initial reservations around management of it remain.

Should a child have a problem with a site (and mine did) then the process requires you to:

• log them out of their session
• fire up a BF admin session
• make necessary changes
• log out
• log them back in
• check if changes have worked
• repeat until working

There don’t appear to be any options to immediately add sites / pages to an exclude from blocking or even any options to temporarily over-ride the blocking. These are all available in BlueCoats K9 which is free. The point here is that as an admin user I should be able to log straight into the admin panel regardless of whom is logged in and make the changes before logging out.

Overall though I can’t fault the core functionality of Brightfilter and would have to give it a 3½ out of 5.

Do also remember that I’ve been reviewing the standalone Windows version of Brightfilter and not the managed platform versions – these will have the same core filtering competencies but with better management.

Brightfilter ReVisited is a post from: Church Techy