MSN Video Player vs iPlayer

I saw this article last week on the Times Online website,

Microsoft challenges BBC’s iPlayer with its new MSN Video Player

The recently launched UK MSN Video Player will show full series of various popular shows (there is even some old Doctor Who stuff on there!)

This is all powered by Silverlight of course

On the face of it this looked really interesting. The picture quality was decent and a reasonable selection of programming (they’ll need to keep updating it to prevent it becoming stale though)

However, my excitement once again turned to disappointment

As always seems to be the case with anything new and shiny at the moment there is a distinct lack of subtitles. If you’re a regular reader you’ll know how many times I’ve come up against “Digital Discrimination”.

The iPlayer is able to display subtitles and does for most programs (not all though)

At the top of the page is a feedback link so I dropped my comments into there. It would be nice if this was sorted sometime soon but based on my experiences with the Xbox and it’s Zune Marketplace service I’m not holding my breath

The Customer Is Sometimes Right

I’m not sure I’m being unreasonable or unfair here but I was a bit miffed after a telephone conversation I had this week

My youngest daughter is one at the end of the month so we decided to have a family gathering and naming ceremony all on the same day

The plan was that once the ceremony had finished our friends and family would retire to a local pub/restaurant where we could all get something to eat, chat and generally have a good time. The place we had in mind is some where we go to quite often and we’ve seen people reserve tables for these sort of circumstances

I made the call and explained we may have 30 to 40 people coming so we wanted to give as much notice as possible

The person I spoke to said they needed to speak to their manager and disappeared for a few minutes. When she came back I was told that they can’t make table reservations at a weekend, only during the week

I explained again that we have a lot of people coming and we wouldn’t want to turn up only for the place to be full or have all our guests at various different tables across the restaurant

She told me they have a roped off area that they only open when large parties arrived but she wouldn’t be able to reserve it for us.

I asked what would we do if we turned up and area had already been taken?

Her reply was

“You could call about an hour beforehand to see if we’re busy or not”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

We’re arranging a large group of people to arrive which takes a lot logistically anyway as most people aren’t local to us and they expect us to turn up and hope that they can fit us all in.

What if i called an hour beforehand and they were full? Do i just send everyone home?

I like to be a little bit more organised than that so we won’t be visiting their establishment.

I can’t get my head around why we couldn’t make a reservation and they were willing to throw away custom over it.

Maybe if they were worried about us making reservations and not turning up which would have caused problems for seating other guests I can understand but surely the answer there is to ask for a deposit?

Any other thoughts?

Digital Discrimination

I originally started another post that would mention this but I’ve decided it deserves a post all on it’s own

Over the last few days I’ve been playing with the new Xbox features (that’s the post I started, it’s on the way!)

When I first turned my Xbox on there was a handy little video displayed to explain what all the new features are so I fired it up

Mrs P was sat next to me and asked

“Don’t supposed it’s got subtitles has it?”

If you’re a new reader, my wife is profoundly deaf, she’s currently being assessed to get a cochlear implant next year. You can read about it here (www.thedeafone.co.uk) as well talking about her experiences around the CI process she also discusses what it’s like to be “the deaf one”

I pulled up the display menu and as expected there were no subtitles. If she wanted to find out about the new features either I had to explain them, she’d have to go to the website, or look through the online help

I’ve blogged on here a couple of times about the lack of subtitles in Xbox Video Marketplace, even though it looks like the system supports it, the video description usually lists “subtitles: none”

Since Zune Video was one of the new features I jumped into that to see if anything had changed

Again I was disappointed, where under the old system it looked like there “may” have been subtitles, this time around the was no mention of subtitles at all

What irritates me a lot about this that I can’t get any definitive answer as to why this is the case or if it’s ever going to change. Most Xbox games are pretty good when it comes to subtitles, in just about every game I’ve played cut scenes and the like have optional subtitles so that the story can be followed. I’m not sure what it’s like on the PS3/Wii though

While on this, www.deafgamers.com reviews games from a deaf standpoint so that as well as talking about the game itself it will highlight if you need to be aware of any issues where a lack of sound would interfere with playing the game. If a game gave instructions on how to control your character via voice over with no visual cues for example

Access for people with disabilities is a problem in the digital world as well as the offline world, when regular people upload videos to youtube they don’t think about adding subtitles. I’m not saying everyone should but one of the most popular sites on the Internet is generally unavailable to anyone with a hearing problem (or a visual problem for that matter!)

Did you know you can add subtitles to youtube videos?

You can add a complete caption file which specifies exactly when each line of word should be spoken or you can upload a transcript and youtube will try and figure out where it should all fit

There is a nice explanation of how this works here: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=100077

However, the tutorial video is on a tiny little screen and has no subtitles…..the irony

I could create a very long list of areas on the Internet that are just off limits to certain groups

I do appreciate this isn’t something that has an easy solution. Broadcasting companies in this country are legally obliged to provide subtitles for 90% of their content. What if the program you want to watch is in that 10%. (The BBC are committed to 100% subtitling of content) If we can’t get that sorted on a platform that is under complete control how does a system like the Internet stand a chance?

This is where I think the Xbox platform doesn’t have any excuse. Microsoft 100% control the system. They set standards for the type of content that is and isn’t allowed on their platform so why can’t we get subtitles set as one of those standards?

Zune marketplace in my opinion has NO excuse at all. They are streaming major cinema releases. They have subtitles created for them for use in cinema (again I’ve blogged about this in the past!) and for the DVD releases. 

Having not tried Sky Player on the website or on the Xbox I can’t comment on their ability to display subtitles. (again, I’ve got an opinion on this too) Does anyone know if they can? This another area where there really shouldn’t another reason not to do it

Just for balance there are some technologies that have been a great leveller for deaf people

Email, SMS, Instant messaging, twitter, forums, blogs, facebook, etc, all these services are based around visual functionality first. Some them do have video and audio but it’s the core functionality that means you need the keyboard to communicate means deaf and hearing people alike are on an equal footing

If you’re interested in learning a bit more about the issues a deaf person can face when the digital and analogue worlds cross check out the the “Pesky People blog”. This blog first came to my attention when it’s writer Alison attended the “Hello Digital” event in October. She had tried to make provisions to attended the event but was badly let down by the organisers and she talks about various disability access issues in depth on the blog – it’s worth a read!

So will anything change? I don’t know, going on my past experience around deaf issues probably not which is a terrible shame

It would be good if I could get some information from Microsoft as to what there policies are for disability access around the Xbox, especially where Video Marketplace is concerned

Also any opinions you have are welcome. Very few people come across disability issues on a day to day basis because it just doesn’t effect them. What lots of us take for granted as just regular day to day stuff is hard work for people with disabilities.

Did you hear a traffic report on your radio on the way into work today? If you were deaf you would have just driven straight into that five mile tailback

What about calling your credit card company as you’ve been incorrectly billed? Just a five minute call to get that straightened out? Not if your deaf, you either have to use minicom or type talk or get someone to call for you (then they insist on speaking to the account holder)

Just a couple of examples but it happens every day

Customer Service and Service Delivery – Get it right!

I’ve not written a post like this in a while!

I’ve had a couple of experiences over the last few days that reinforces how customer service and service are not mutually exclusive

You need to get them both right if you want your business to stand out from the rest. This sort of thing is highlighted to me when dealing with larger companies

In my last post I talked about my shiny new HTC Touch 2 Windows Phone. Well guess what, it’s broken

I was out watching my Sunday football team at the weekend (watching is all I’m doing at the moment as I need a knee operation) and I’d forgotten to charge my phone. By the time I got home the battery was dead so I hooked it up to the charger and left it

When I checked on it few hours later the phone started up and shortly after the home screen was displayed the whole thing locked up. None of the buttons worked nor did the touch screen. I couldn’t even power it off and had to either pop the battery out or press the soft reset button

I performed a hard reset (press both the volume buttons and turn it on) but it was still the same

So the following morning I called T-Mobile and braved their telephone menu system

I spoke to a customer service agent who asked what the problem was

I explained the problem, told her that I’d tried a hard reset and said that the phone was unusable

She asked if the problem occurred in specific menus on the phone or all menus. I said that I couldn’t get into ANY menus. The phone locks up before then

She said ordering a new one shouldn’t be a problem and it would arrive tomorrow. So far so good I thought but it turns out there wasn’t any stock. Service delivery fail!

I needed to know where this put me as I was now without a phone

She seemed surprised at this

“Are you not calling from the phone?”, she said

my perplexed reply was, “No. I’ve already said the phone is unusable”

“You said that the problem only occurred in certain menus”

“No. I said that I couldn’t even get into ANY menus, the phone is unusable”

Customer service fail! You really need to listen to the customer when they are describing a problem

She basically then said I had two options, wait for stock or take it my nearest service centre

I asked where the nearest centre was and she gave me the address before adding,

“If you take it there the repair could take up to 28 days”

Multiple fail! This isn’t doing anything to solve my problem. I have phone I’m paying for and can’t use. Waiting 28 days isn’t really an option I want

She then told me that she would monitor the stock and call me the following day to let me know the phone was dispatched so I’d get it the following day

That was Monday, I didn’t receive a phone call at all on Tuesday so I’m not expecting any phone to show up today.

Yet more fail! If you promise to do something for your customer, make sure you actually do it. If they hadn’t received any stock so I wouldn’t have been getting a phone today, at least keep me informed to that fact!

In contrast I had to take my car to the garage recently. It’s something I always dread as you hear lots of horror stories about people getting ripped off for work that doesn’t need doing.

However, the garage I go to have really good customer service, they did the exactly the work they said they were going to at a reasonable price and even sorted out a problem with car they probably should have charged me extra for

In their reception area they have a notice board full of letters of thanks from previous customers. Recommendations from happy customers are always a good thing to see

What’s the difference between these two companies?

Size

As a small business it’s really something that’s critical. There are tons of garages I could have taken my car to so by making me into a happy customer they get my repeat business. It’s a real differentiator

For big business it’s difficult to keep a high level of service across your whole company, there is also less competition and they all have similar problems

So now I’m off to ring T-Mobile again..that’ll be fun

My Windows Phone – HTC Touch 2 and Mobile Madness

Let’s get something out of the way – I don’t want an iPhone :-p

No that’s out the way back to the post…

Our mobile contract recently expired so I try to approach this in a reasonably simple manner

1) Is the price plan fitting our needs? If it is then I don’t really want to pay anymore per month, if anything I’d rather pay less

2) The less we have to pay for devices the better! Windows Mobile is our first preference.

So even after our recent “billing issues” with T-Mobile we went to them first to give them the chance to keep our business. I told them our preferences and asked to see what they could do

What was really frustrating here was the first person I spoke to didn’t really know exactly what they were selling. I was told that our price plan didn’t exist anymore and if we wanted Windows mobile we had a choice of two devices, one we could get as a free upgrade and one we’d have to pay for. The price plan choices were also confusing and it wasn’t clear how much data we’d be getting (which is important!)

Annoyed I left it and decided to come back as Windows Mobile 6.5 had just been announced so I wanted to see how quickly the devices would filter through

I then went to look at the competition and looked through their offerings on the websites first and initially I found

Three don’t appear to sell any Windows Mobile based devices

02 and Orange have price plans that are higher than what we’re paying now and it was very very unclear about data allowances

Vodafone had price plans that were slightly more than we were currently paying with less minutes, texts and data but had a greater variety of devices

I then spotted the HTC Touch 2 Pro which I liked the look of so spoke to Vodafone’s small business team. The upshot of it was that i was correct in that we’d be paying slightly more per month for less features on our package and would have to pay for each device

So I went back to T-Mobile see what they were doing on the Windows Mobile 6.5 front

I spoke to three different people and not one of them was 100% sure about the devices they sold! The good news was that our price plan does still exist and we don’t under or over use it so it’s the correct plan for us

So if we were going to stay where we are it was just a matter of trying to pick a device

There are two on the website, and like the other experiences I’ve had with the other mobile providers trying to get clear and concise information wasn’t easy

By the time I’d been backwards and forwards and tried to figure out who actually knew what they were doing I didn’t care about the version of Windows Mobile!

It then transpires that T-Mobile have recently started to stock the HTC Touch 2 (though it was no where to be found on their website) which does run Windows Mobile 6.5 (again the staff on the phone weren’t entirely sure of this!) so that is what I went with

It arrived a couple of days later (no thanks to the Royal Mail postal strike!!)

So after all that…the phone!

Image from HTC.com

Compared to my HTC TyTn II the phone weighs nothing at all! That keyboard makes all the difference.

When going for this phone my one worry was the lack of keyboard and was the reason the Touch 2 Pro caught my eye as I used it quite a lot. A week in and I’m just about getting used to it

The touch screen is nice and responsive and the few people I’ve shown it to said they liked how the device looked. It also has an FM radio built-in, I’ve never had a phone with the capability and haven’t had the chance to try it out yet. I’ve put an 8GB micro SD in though so was planning on using MP3s more than listen to the radio

The quality of the calls I’ve made have been decent and it plays nicely with my hands free kit

I’m not going to do a full blown review of Windows Mobile 6.5 (Windows phone!) as there are plenty of other people who will do a far better job but just some thoughts

• The new start menu is very nice. On my old 6.0 device using the start menu with anything other than the stylus or the device navigation buttons was a no go
• The threaded conversations for text messages is interesting. I’m still getting used to it but it’s keeping my inbox a lot neater
• The new onscreen keyboard is pretty cool, now i’m getting used to it I haven’t been anywhere near the stylus
• Internet Explorer is nice. Though I’m currently testing Opera mobile that came bundled with it as it just too many good features (tabs and password management are my current favourites)
• While it’s generally more “finger friendly” there are still some areas that very obviously are the same as in previous versions of Windows Mobile so i think this is more of an incremental upgrade.

I’ll need to read the manual for the TouchFlo stuff though. The areas on the front screen for text messages and emails have changed since the day i turned the phone on. I may be misunderstanding it’s use though

Overall I’m really pleased with the phone. At the moment I don’t have any immediate regrets for ignoring the Touch 2 Pro. I do wish we could do away with the version madness though

When you buy an iPhone that’s exactly what you get. Regardless which generation of handset you buy you always get updates so you can take advantage of the latest features. No such thing with Windows Mobile as you are at the mercy of the handset manufacturer and the mobile provider. It was immensely frustrating dealing with the sales staff who just didn’t know their products

Sky Player on Xbox 360 – Fail!

Regardless of the title this post actually has nothing to do with the “technical issues” that caused Sky Player to get pulled from the Xbox dashboard today

It’s to do with the way it’s been priced

There are two ways to get Sky Player on your Xbox

As an existing Sky customer

If you are a Sky customer and have multi-room (or Sky broadband unlimited) you already get access to the existing Sky Player service on the Sky website and now you also get access to Sky Player on the Xbox at no extra charge

If you don’t have multi room you can add this on or buy an online multi-room option (between £5 and £10 a month extra)

As a non Sky customer

You basically have to take out a subscription (you also need to be an Xbox Gold member)

These subscriptions work in a similar way to a standard Sky subscription in that they start at £15 for the base “Entertainment Pack” and then if you want sports and movies you have to add these on at extra cost

So why do i see this as a massive fail?

I don’t see the point – if you already subscribe to Sky then all you are actually gaining is another platform to consume Sky content on

If you aren’t a Sky customer then what really is the point? If you wanted to sign up and pay a monthly figure then surely you would just get a Sky dish?

Just signing up for Xbox package you got no HD capability and no Sky+ option

As far as I see it people who have an Xbox are in one of two camps

Kids or Adults

Kids wont be paying for the Sky subscription so they get no say in this (you can’t pay with MS points)

If the parents are already paying for a Sky subscription it’s an easy way to put Sky content into their children’s room

For Adults who would be paying a Sky subscription then as I said above if i wanted Sky on a full time I’d sign up for it through a dish. My Xbox is on my main TV so even if I did have a Sky subscription I wouldn’t be gaining anything at all

Also looking at some of the options the Xbox only option works out more expensive and if you spent that sort of money Sky would throw in a phone line and broadband connection! So where is the incentive?

There really should have been some sort of pay-per-view option

I’d quite happily use my MS Points to grab a football match, watch Lost or the Simpsons or anything that took my fancy on a casual basis. This would also mean you could grab the teenage market if they could watch content on a casual basis using MS Points. Currently they have spending power at all for this!

I was really exciting when the it was first announced the service was on the way. It added to Microsoft’s vision of the Xbox being the entertainment hub of the home.

I’m just feeling massively disappointed

From a couple of Xbox blogs and forums I’ve seen already I don’t think I’m alone with my opinion

Also before I really get started I haven’t even looked to see if the content is subtitled. Video marketplace has a distinct lack of digital accessibility but I’ve ranted about that plenty of times before!

It would be good if a pay-per-view option were to become available in the future but I wont hold my breath

I’d love to hear your opinion

Other Links

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/news/news-3766-Microsoft-and-Sky-s-Official-Xbox-Sky-Player-Price-Plan-&-Channel-Listing-Announced.html (read the comments!)

http://www.techradar.com/news/television/sky-on-xbox-all-your-questions-answered-603561

Microsoft Partner Network and SBSC

I’m blogging on this a couple of weeks after the event because I’ll be honest I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about this

At WPC a couple of weeks ago it was announced an overhaul to the partner programme is on the way

There is a great explanation of it on the UK SBSC blog here

I’m sure the programme definitely needs a kick in the butt. As Microsoft’s and our own businesses evolve, the way we work together evolves too so a revamp will be good

Specifically for people who are currently SBSC certified there are some big changes too

The Small Business Specialist Community designation will be reassigned to a new competency called Small Business Solutions.  Key enhancements include providing additional entry points to target other types of partner communities such as Web VARs.  With that, the new competency will retain many of the same requirements and benefits that partners are familiar with today – and partners should continue to enrol in the Small Business Specialist Community designation to maintain program status and benefits.

Ok so Microsoft want to be able to get different types of IT businesses involved in small business? That’s cool

However, my initial reaction was one of disappointment though as I’ve always seen SBSC and competencies as two distinctly separate things.

I’ve always felt it was a separate group within the partner programme. In the same way that registered partners and certified partners are separate groups.

It’s something that differentiates us when we go talk to clients. When talking to a client an MCTS certification (for example) and a competency are pretty synonymous for them. The MCTS applies to the individual and the competency applies to the business and helps outline capabilities

So reading the rest of the post from the UK SBSC post the next bit caught my eye

Can I still use my logo?

Continue to use the logos you have today. You’ll be able to use Microsoft Partner Network logos after October 2010, after you have met the requirements. Existing logos will be retired six months after the new logo system is available

Initially I didn’t think this was a big deal. The “blue badge” would get an overhaul too to reflect the new programme but when i read Steve Wright’s (UK PAL extraordinaire) two posts I changed my view on this

This is his first post with his initial reaction – like me a little concerned about losing a key differentiator

MS partner program evolves – is it goodbye to the SBSC community?

In his second post Steve talks about how he discussed his concerns during his first PAL meeting

First PAL meeting

This is the stand out part for me. (I’ve highlighted a specific sentence for emphasis)

The impression I got was that Microsoft are looking to simplify the partner program and have therefore decided to create various new competencies and that includes bringing the SBSC designation into that framework. The concern over the disappearance of the “blue badge” was raised and it seemed to come as a surprise to Birger that it would cause concern for partners. I do get the impression that in some countries the SBSC designation has not taken off in the community sense like it has in the UK. Birger talked about the possibility of incorporating some kind of SBSC logo in to the new Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) and would take that information back to Redmond.

Surprised it would cause concern?

Does the fact we have a pet name for the logo (“blue badge”) not indicate that it’s quite a big deal to us?

Susan Bradley also sums it up really well here

WHAT IS BLUE AND WHITE AND…?

You have got to be kidding.  You guys taking a page out of "shoot ourselves in the foot" AICPA again?  You have a brand.  One that people are proud of, and you are going to throw it away?  Before you rolled this out did you even talk to anyone?  Run it by anyone in the SBSC?  You have a Partner Lead group, did you get their feedback?

It’s a brand and a logo that people have stuck on shirts and cars.  Don’t throw it away without listening to your partner network.

Quite

We’re one of those companies that are proud of our SBSC certification and the logo is a big part of that. I’ve got a blue badge sticker on my laptop, it’s on our van, it’s on the door to our office, it’s on our website, it’s on every single piece of paper we produce, it’s in our email signatures, I even had some stickers printed once upon a time

We’ve also just had some brochures and leaflets printed and the blue badge actually features more than our own logo!

I originally wasn’t going to post about this as I thought Steve and Susan said everything that needed to be said and I wouldn’t be adding anything extra, but I guess I just need to be another voice that says I quite like our little part of the partner programme. I understand that things need to change and we need to change with it but it feels like all the work that has gone into building SBSC as a brand is about to disappear

I’m also wondering what it means in the long term for SBSC as a whole. The new programme will come into effect over the next twelve months which is roughly how long the PAL role runs for.

What does it mean for Steve Wright, Andy Trish and the rest of the worldwide PALs?

Do Microsoft need partner feedback for a competency?

There aren’t PALs for the “Advanced Infrastructure Solutions competency” or the “Licensing Solutions competency” are they?

Did they not speak to the PALs about this?

I don’t think the community will disappear overnight as groups like AMITPRO would continue but the SBSC certification is great focal point for that and it’s something we all rally around

At the end of Steve’s post he said that he’ll be putting concerns over to Emily Lambert at his first regional PAL meeting so it’ll be good to hear more details what the plans are going forward

PC PRO – SMB Feature – What happened?

I’ve been sitting on this one for a few weeks as PC Pro magazine articles don’t appear on the site straight away (which i can understand)

First let me start off my saying I’ve previously been a massive fan of PC Pro magazine. My interest in the magazine has waned in recently years for a few reasons but that’s probably worth a blog post all of it’s own. That said I do still still pick it up from time to time

This months PC Pro kicked off a feature that talks about IT in small businesses. Obviously this caught my eye and I’ll be honest. I was shocked at how badly researched the article seems. I understand this is the first part in series but I don’t think it’s gotten off to the best start

Keeping it really simple the article says that you have a couple of choices

Cloud apps in combination with some open source software (think Google apps & Open Office with maybe Kerio MailServer) or an on-premise Microsoft solution with the Office suite (read the article this is vastly simplified)

So far so good – the Cloud / Open Source argument is a whole other kettle of fish so I’ll just focus on the Microsoft solution

What irked me was that the article talks about the on premise solution meaning Exchange 2003 (in preference to 2007!) with the possibility of adding SharePoint

If this article is about SMBs and you’re going to mention Microsoft solutions why not actually look at the small business solutions Microsoft offer?

If you read this blog on a regular basis you know that for me that means

Small Business Server

Then depending on the size of the business your dealing you can also take into account

Essential Business Server

Windows Server 2008 Foundation

Windows Home Server (It’s not specifically a small business product but fits well for micro-businesses)

The article then goes on to talk about a few things I’d like to highlight

Firstly, it talks about using Exchange in combination with mobile devices and indicates you’ll need to use IMAP, touting the iPhone as an example

For example, many employees will have smartphones capable of picking up email via IMAP. Careful setup allows them to do so in a secure, encrypted way. The iPhone, for example, can pull email from various accounts

What about ActiveSync? The iPhone supports that you know? As do Nokia’s E & N series devices (which are aimed at business) and tons of other devices – and that’s without mentioning Windows Mobile

It then says

If you make the move to ES2007, then it’s possible to use this to manage the phones too – remote lockdown and wipe both become possible

Exchange 2003 has been able to do remote wipe and device security since service pack 2 was released. Obviously Exchange 2007 makes improvements but that doesn’t mean Exchange 2003 doesn’t do it at all!

Staying with Exchange

A key issue with ES2003 is to ensure you’re getting the most from it. For example, many companies limit the user inbox size in an attempt to keep below the 16GB limit of the original ES2003 release. However, this limit has been raised in recent SP versions, and you should be allowing more online storage of company information if possible.

Why mention the 16GB limit? If your going to deploy Exchange 2003 you will be installing service pack 2 as support for service pack 1 expired on 08/01/2008. This means you have no reason not to make use of the 75GB extended limit

As far as can see the article is aimed at the small business owner, and while this statement makes sense

You can never have too much security, but SMBs are often very surprised at how much they can do with what they already have. This is especially true if you’re running Exchange Server 2003 with recent Windows clients. A thorough understanding of Group Policy can totally transform the network computing experience, and bring peace and calm to an otherwise chaotic network. Making sure that My Documents, and its brothers and sisters, all point to network shares means that irreplaceable documents dumped on the desktop will actually be backed up properly.

What has Exchange Server got to do with group policy? Group Policy is an Active Directory feature?

Also SBS 2003 and SBS 2008 have management consoles that make it possible for an interested business owner to look after the server themselves. There is even a simple wizard to configure the My Documents folder to redirect to the server without having to go anywhere near any group policy settings

I’m presuming this means SharePoint

If money is available then you can’t beat Microsoft Office 2007 for bells and whistles, but only if you back it up with Microsoft’s server-side collaboration software. This is a whole different level of investment, and one worth doing if finances allow.

Windows SharePoint Services is still free whether you’re using Small Business Server or “vanilla” Windows Server so what level of investment being referred to? Depending on your level of skill then customising SharePoint could require investment but as a software purchase? If you went with SBS it all gets configured it all for you

Also by completely missing out Small Business Server (and Essential Business Server) you are missing out one killer feature that enterprise has pay extra for

Remote Web Workplace

Complete access to your email, SharePoint site and remote control of your office PC all from a single, easy to use web site. The 2003 version was great and the 2008 version is even better!

In addition to the technology Microsoft can offer a small business they also have group of their partners who specifically work with small business

Small Business Specialists – we’ve even got a funky blue badge (for now!)

We’re also a community so when I say we I’m not just talking about my company. We form partnerships with other Small Business Specialists to make sure we can cover everything our clients need

Our day-to-day operations are geared towards working with small business owners and getting the right technology for their business. We’ll even be their IT department if they want meaning their staff can get on with the jobs they are actually paid to do. We’re also flexible enough to lend a helping hand if they do want to do it themselves

Finally this baffles me

Don’t leave 2003 until all of it has been properly virtualised into either VMware or Hyper-V, or an equivalent of choice. The future world is a virtualised one, and moving to a new OS version running directly on the hardware is the wrong answer to the wrong question.

Yes the future is virtual, even in small businesses (we’ve got an expert for that too!). But using virtualisation as a reason for not moving to the latest OS version makes no sense in my opinion. If you want to stay on the previous generation of OS fine. But do it because it makes sense for your business not because you don’t think the current generation isn’t up to being virtualised (which i don’t agree with either but again that could be a post on it’s own)

Obviously it’s really easy for me to be critical. However, the article does make some other good points

The paragraph on the first page titled “First Steps” is excellent (I’m not going to reproduce it – go read it! – the whole of the first page is actually good reading)

Then it takes a cautious approach to the running of a small business purely on Cloud Apps. It doesn’t say you should avoid it completely but also doesn’t jump on the “everything should run in the cloud” mindset that a lot of the media seems to have nowadays. Hosted solutions are ideally suited for some businesses and not others in my opinion so choose the solution that fits.

There is also a good piece on backups that starts with this

It’s astonishing how many companies get backup wrong. There are three things to consider here. First, there’s backup and restore for recent data. Then there’s disaster recovery to bring back servers from the dead. Finally, there’s the role of archiving for long-term storage.

In summary I’m disappointed that this has come out of PC Pro and I had to read the article a couple of times to get my head around it.

As always I’d love to hear your opinion as I know I don’t always have the answers

Card Fraud

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you’ll have seen me make the following update

just found out our company credit card has been scammed for 17k..thanks a lot scumbags!

We didn’t even know it had happened. The credit card company called over the weekend and the police paid a visit to my business partner to go over the details. They wouldn’t say much but it looks like the card was used online. Since it’s a credit card we are protected against fraud so we’re not liable for the money. It’s still money that someone has lost (i.e the card company!)

This isn’t the first time I’ve experienced card fraud

What frustrates me is that the chip and pin system was brought into effect in 2006 at great expense but it only solves part of the problem

If you order something over the phone or on a website you have to hand over

Name on the card

Card Number

Expiry Date

Card security code (CSC)

That is enough information for anyone to use that credit card – they don’t even need to physically have it in their possession

The telephone transaction is the biggest cause for concern in my opinion as your trusting the person your speaking with to put the card details in their system and not write them down for their own use

So what’s the solution?

That I don’t know. The only thing i can think of is if the credit card itself could generate a one-time password (a-la RSA SecurID or AuthAnvil Tokens)

It would mean you’d physically have to be in possession of the card – though that still wouldn’t help if you had your card stolen

We’ll be more wary of who we’re giving our card details to going forward but in all honesty I don’t think we did anything wrong here

EasyJet Speedy Boarding Madness

As I mentioned in my last post I wasn’t impressed with the way EasyJet board their flights

EasyJey don’t allocate seats. They let everyone choose seats as they get onto the airplane

Their boarding procedure works in groups in this order

Group SB: Passengers who have purchased Speedy Boarding/Speedy Boarding Plus

Group SA: Passengers requiring special assistance and families (maximum 2 adults) where at least one child is aged 5 years or under.

Group A: (reserved for passengers who have checked in online, and the first 30 people who check in at the airport)

Group B: (Everyone else)

On paper this looks like a good idea

People who pay more get on first and get to pick the “best seats”

People with children or wheelchairs are kept separate

Online check-in gets a priority which I see as a nice incentive (and it’s less people the check-in staff to deal with) but in practise is of little use on main holiday as you can only use it if you only have hand luggage

Everyone else just has to queue and pick from what is left

My experience went like this

When we knew which gate to go to we made our way over. Luckily we were waiting quite close to the gate so started the short walk. We then noticed a large family rushing to get to the front of the queue

Once we made it to the gate we were quite near to the front. I figured about 25 groups in front of us and I looked behind to see the queue starting to stretch through the airport

The flight was slightly delayed so people were getting hot and bothered. Especially when staff appeared near the gate but the gate remained closed (presumably they were waiting for the all clear from the plane)

Finally one of the members of staff came forward and asked for the Speedy Boarding group

She wasn’t letting people on but checking passports against boarding passes to save time when the gate actually opened which seemed like a nice gesture but the problem was the queue

The speedy boarding passengers started to come forward but the people who already had a place in the queue didn’t want to move. There was also only one lady checking tickets so everyone surged toward her thinking they were boarding so wanted to be seen first

She gave up and escaped and there was then some mumbled announcement which only came once and I never heard it properly

Since Bryony I had a 3 year old and 5 month old, hand luggage and a pushchair we started to move forward but stepped out of the surge as I was worried about losing Alice. We’d taken Evie out of the pushchair as she’d started to get upset during the wait.

The queue now lost all shape and when they finally started to board the Speedy Boarding group our place near the front had disappeared. Again the other boarding groups didn’t want to move so there was a lot of pushing and shoving as people tried to get on and I actually saw one group who weren’t in the Speedy Boarding group (the large family I mentioned earlier) trying to get through at the same time so they’d be at the front of the queue for the second boarding group!

Eventually I interrupted one of people trying to push past my wife (she was holding a baby! and they still pushed!) and he looked me straight in the eye with a look of contempt and said

“Are you a Speedy Boarder??”

It would have been really easy to be rude at this point and get into an argument but I replied with a simple

“Yes, yes we are”

Which seemed to take him by surprise and he stopped and let Bryony though

We managed to squeeze through only to see people rushing down the boarding ramp. While Speedy Boarders get on ahead of everyone else it’s still very much first come first serve on the plane. We were trying to fold up the pushchair in the middle of all this and no-one really cared about the fact we had two small children with us

While this happened Alice did actually get separated from us. I managed to grab her before she went onto the plane on her own. The door down the steps and onto the tarmac was slightly ajar but thankfully I managed to keep her away from that

Under other circumstances there was potential for the kids safety to be under threat. When Alice got pulled away from us she could very easily have been trampled and during the all the pushing and shoved in the queue Evie could have been hurt by arms, elbows or hand luggage on people’s shoulders or worse if Bryony had been pushed over.

I also have no idea what Bryony would have done if she’d stayed on her own as originally planned. She wouldn’t have heard the mumbled announcement and wouldn’t have heard the lady at the front trying to check tickets (though in my opinion airports, train stations and bus stations make very poor arrangements for the deaf anyway)

So what could have made it better?

Some ideas…

1) Organisation – Before announcing the gate put up some “posts & ropes” to clearly indicate where each boarding group should queue. The main problem I think started as there was one long queue of mixed boarding groups – However this wouldn’t stop people rushing down the boarding ramp

2) Clearer information – the lady who tried to save time by checking tickets either;

Shouldn’t have done it,

Made everyone aware of what was happening

and / or asked everyone to stay where they were in the queue and she could have walked along checking them as she passed

The token mumbled tannoy announcement was a waste of time too. It ideally would have come before she called people forward

3) Allocated seats – nobody rushes for a seat that is already theirs

4) Limited Speedy Boarding numbers – there seemed to be quite a few people in the first boarding group which is possibly why they were rushing down the boarding ramp. What if everyone on the plane paid for Speedy Boarding? Where is the benefit then?

I think allocated seats would have been the answer myself but EasyJet seem to see it as a benefit to choose your own seat

I don’t quite agree with this as there are only one to two “good seats” on a plane and the rest are all the same after that. The odds of getting the exact seat you want are quite slim. As we had Evie and Alice we ideally would have liked something with a little more legroom (especially as Bryony is breast feeding) but as soon as the pushing and shoving started I realised we had now chance of this. As we got on the place we thought about asking the people in the front seats if they’d let us sit there but I thought if they’d fought and pushed to be in a position to get those seats they wouldn’t give it up for a baby!

My theory was proved correct when almost everyone was sat down. The cabin crew announced that there was a mother with two children. They must have been at the back and were unable to find seats for them to sit together. The crew announced safety regulations meant they couldn’t sit apart and if there were any adults that could sit apart or if a couple were taking up two seats in a three seat row could they give up their seats. We couldn’t take off until this was sorted but they had to ask three times!

It would also mean they wouldn’t be able to charge for Speedy Boarding

A did a couple of searches and found similar experiences to my own – which sound even worse when there is a bus involved. Everyone bussed out at the same time but Speedy Boarders allowed out first. Madness (two from the Times website here and here – they are both worth a read)

When i was reading the in-flight magazine I spotted an email address that welcomes customer feedback so I’ll be sending a link to this post

There is a also a twitter account (@easyJetCare) so I’d be interested to hear any comments they have

I’ll definitely be thinking twice about using EasyJet in the future