Last night, I lost internet connection on my Optus cable internet broadband. In short, the modem went on the blink. Waited for a while and this evening made a call to Optus, you know that 1300 number. The recorded voice message kindly told me their finance team had gone home, “Press 1 for faults and key in my cable delivered phone number so that things could be processed faster”. So I did and fairly quickly, a fellow answered. Told him I had been off air for a day, I was on Optus cable. He did a quick check and told me it was better that he pass me onto his colleagues who were more localised, whatever that meant.

A cheerful girl with an Indian accent answered after some minutes on hold. I brightened up but soon was disappointed. She said I did not exist, my two Optus phones did not exist. In my most friendly and admonishing manner, I said “Aiyoh! I have been an Optus customer since 2000” and she tried her computer some more. Then she had an epiphany – “Are you on Optus cable?”  and I then asked her “Are you ADSL support?”. We had a virtual smile and she said she would transfer me to the right department, asked me whether I wanted a direct number. I said “No, I don’t want to have more failures to need that number”.

Next, the longest wait and a fellow called Vikram answered. This time, he told me that I definitely did not exist. I did the “Ayoh” bit again and taken aback, he finally found my details, apologising for their computers and told me probably it was because one of my services had been cancelled.

Taken aback, (identity theft crossed my mind), we figured out that he was looking at my full Optus history and was reading an Optus prepaid mobile card service. I was now “not happy” and told him this was no way to treat a customer of 11 years.

Then  he started remote diagnostics and told me, it could be due to either the stuff on the pole outside, the white nexus box outside or my modem. I then asked him, with all his diagnostics, he must be able to pin down which was the culprit. After a while he told me from his logs, my modem was rebooting 42 times an hour and it was my modem. That looked like progress. Except business procedure got in the way.

I have not paid for the first modem in 2000 and the upgraded model in say 2005 but he now told me that the replacement modem would cost AUD 100 or so. I thought that was a bit stiff – firstly these are cable modems, and they are the way cable data is transferred. It is not like ADSL where the modem is not unique to the Internet Provider and you could pick up any modem from any of the electronics shops and the modem would be priced competitively because it was not a special item. This modem would be part and parcel of this unique and exclusive service – it would be worthless if you parted company.

Vikram woke up to what I meant and praised me for my allegiance so would write off the price of the unit but could not absorb the AUD 19.90 that Australia Post would charge for the EXPRESS delivery that would take 2-3 days. While he started keying in the request, I asked him whether he was in India and pondered how he could have such measurements and remote testing all the way in India. He must have raised his virtual eyebrow and said “we have this thing called TECHNOLOGY”.  I replied “Wow! – you have so much technology to do that but you don’t have the technology to spurt out a modem out into my hand? Where does the modem come from, India?”.

I then asked him “Can’t I just walk into the nearest Optus shop and grab a modem free, or pay for it and you could credit my next bill?” He laughed and said that would be a conflict procedure or whatever that was. Uh, no, then.

He then took pains to explain how there were different modem types, he had the newest gen, yadda, yadda. One option was to send a technician to me, charge me AUD 99 for the visit and still give me an inferior modem because the technicians would not have the new gen modems.

I threw in the virtual towel and surrendered, gently reminding him that I was out of an essential service for how many days, out of pocket for 19.90 – could he log this as a complaint not of him but of Optus business practice? He said he did not have such a button on the screen but he felt my pain.

I asked him, since I have an Optus mobile dataplan, could I use that and get a discount for those intervening days. Nah, I knew I had walked into an organisational silo wall before the words left my mouth.

Along the way, he gave me instructions on how to activate the modem by going to an Optus zoo website. At which time I made him aware that Optus Zoo was one of the suckiest websites through my 11 years of being a customer. The discount movie tickets webpage would refuse to work for me whatever I did, yadda, yadda. Again, no reflection of him, but of Optus. Still now complaint button? He volunteered to share this call with his colleagues and his boss since the call was being recorded.

They must be laughing somewhere in Indian until their tummies hurt and their eyes water.

Anyway, two things whilst I’ve got my nerd hat on. Synergy allows you to specify a different network card interface by typing in a static IP address when it is acting as server but if your machine has more than one network card (wireless and wired) and you want to run it as client, it doesn’t want to listen. Hmmm.

And, photographically speaking, we do care about the “look” on our LCD monitor. I’ve noticed that desktops, especially with DVI interface, automatically do their best to the LCD monitor. Notebooks on the other hand, hum and haw because they have their internal LCD screen – when you connect them to an external monitor, the display looks a little sub-optimal – neither the quality of the internal screen nor the quality of the external monitor – and that’s with the internal LCD screen off.

While those things are on the slow cooker percolating through Google searches, how’re you doin?

Update: A few hours is a very short time in IT. Just found out via The Windows Club that at Microsoft’s Garage, Vietnamese developer Truong Do has produced the Mouse Without Borders program – it offers better security, shared clipboard (inclusive of screen captures) across up to 4 Windows PCs, drag and drop files and personalised login screens.

What’s better than one PC with 2 screens? Well, 2 PCs, each with one screen each that are controlled by one keyboard and one mouse, so that CPU and Disk intensive activity are completely isolated per PC.

For some time now, I’ve passed this neglected blog on the way to the forum - we’ve been pursuing our various interests and also earning the dollar in our respective lives. Stephen does wonderful system admin work to keep the forum stable, healthy and secure - that guy just gives and gives, thanks Stephen. It’s an example of what they say about good IT guys – they are invisible and in the background doing the good things.

I haven’t chatted with Charles for a while – he has been puting some effort in updating the Bleeding Edge Facebook presence when he writes on the Green Guide. GTO is well, tirelessly being Chef and IT student. He puts admirable work into the PC recommendations.

Our forum admins and regulars stick by us – a big thank you for your efforts, unpaid and sometimes unsung – but they are real heroes, handling questions from forum members. Forum membership has tailed for for yonks – we don’t get the exposure like when Charles was on 774 ABC and thumping such topics on The Age Green Guide. But we still hang out, look after people in panic or confused.

Moi? Ananda‘s into birds of a feather Facebook groups (there is one for Melbourne Olympus Enthusiasts) and I blog away on photography and Microsoft Office. Lately, I’ve been on Google+, seems this trial social network has hit 10 million users in the three weeks of launch.

The Melbourne winter is now back to classic style – cold and wet. If you feel like sharing a yarn, come by the forum, you’re more than welcome.

What’s happened in the IT sphere? We’ve been pre-occupied with the trees that it’s time to see the forest. In the Microsoft world, we’ve grown used to experiencing a stable, effective and defensible platform in Windows 7. Unless you’re in a corporate environment mired in Windows XP. Office 2007 has proliferated, overcoming initial circumspection with The Ribbon. There are even corporates who skipped Office 2007 and are now on Office 2010. Fancy that! Jumping over an experienced version into a brand new one – again, that points to a perception that the product is stable and useful. In late breaking news, Microsoft Labs delivered that bundle of joy, Kinect. Not only is it an impressive lead over last year’s Wii controller but hackers rapidly acquired and transformed it to fulfil their dreams.

But in other aspects and in the overall personal sphere, Microsoft may have this year, finally lost the edge. Bill Gates retired and we will not see the likes of the notorious Internet Tidal Wave memo from Steve Ballmer or Bill’s appointee for head technologist – Ray Ozzie (who has since declared defeat and retired from Microsoft too).

It is a pity for Microsoft to have gone rudderless right now, when Microsoft and Bill worked so hard to establish and sponsor the actual technologies that are happening. Maybe the giant will recover and swing back but all those side ventures away from the twin orchards of income – Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office – have petered into sand, not monuments.

The Tablet

Remember the Tablet PC vision? Bill was really blowing hot on it. We survived heavy, clunky, short battery life deadweights like HP’s TC1000 and there was a second wave of products but it was a weak delivery. The Apple iPad has that lifestyle, cool dude! feel that Windows tablets never had. And the public’s bated breath is for Android Tabs like the Dell Streak or Samsung Galaxy Tab. What made the difference? Improbable contentment with coarsely multi-touch capacitive screens (instead of a fine pointing stylus), an emphasis on light (instead of do more). A downsized unit price. Converged 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS, accelerometers. The un-noticed voluntary training of users by the first wave of converged devices, the Apple iPhone.

The Windows Tablets didn’t “see” the melding of these technologies. Windows 7 Tablets are not in the public consciousness and Windows CE 6.0 occupies bottom rung status on China sourced, cheap notebooks.

The Phone

Whilst we still meet people who say “My mobile phone can’t do anything except make a simple phone call”, myriad people on public transport, shopping malls and corporate offices are flicking and flicking their fingers on iPhones, Androids, Nokia-Symbians and Blackberries. Where is Windows Mobile or Windows Phone? Gosh, the brand disappeared from view for a long while. Yes, we persevered with earlier Pocket PCs and Windows Mobile phones that dragged our pants down until our belts bent out of shape, waiting for the good version. But the good version never came. Even now, the pre-Christmas release of the latest Windows phone in the same hardware as Androids does not bring the fervour or distinction that iPhones, Androids or BlackBerrys enjoy. All we see is flipping panels completely at odds with the training carried out by the iPhone approach.

The User Interface

Windows 7 has the sweetest interface ever, for a Microsoft Windows design. Translucent Windows borders, smart behaviours, the lot. But has a new branch of interfaces based on the simplest icon begun? Remember Windows Program Manager?

It’s crude but not that different the iPhone and Chrome OS attempt

People have got used to a simple icon to launch a program. They really don’t care whether it is the proxy for a browser bookmark, a client PC hosted app or a server hosted web application. They just expect it to work.

The Cloud

Ray Ozzie’s worked really hard to conjure up Azure. Anders Hejlsberg has advanced so many aspects of software development and pushed .NET into a premier position for cloud computing considering Microsoft almost got Sun burnt. But turn around and there’s a hodge podge, ragged taggle bunch of software frameworks that just works. Google, from early naiveté in regard user privacy, has amassed a suite of email, calendar, office document apps, mapping that just works – sometimes with inconsistent interfaces but they work. And there are third parties and startups just bustin to get into action. Microsoft too has ported their apps into .NET speak and The Cloud. But that’s that uncomfortable word. “Ported”.

The Bottom Line

The thing with The Cloud is that it’s just there. It’s not visible. You need something to consume it. You need a User Interface. A Tablet. A Phone. The epiphany comes when you realise it isn’t just about the Desktop or the Notebook Computer. It’s not about Pervasive Computing. It’s about Pervasive Use.

[youtube2 id=o4MwTvtyrUQ]

Guess Jakon Nielsen’s Mental Model blogpost is relevant in the sense that as users, we need to be aware of what mental models we establish and hark back to.

Recently, two of the software giants have come out with more Cyber Security awareness education measures.

Microsoft has Own Your Own Space a downloadable PDF book for teenagers (and parents) to read.

Google has launched a Family Safety Center.

Usually, the Windows XP PC isn’t the main production / family PC any longer – it’s so cheap now to resolve the issue by going to the mall, buy a new Netbook, not so Netbook or an inexpensive Notebook / Laptop with glitzy screen, bigger hard disk, dual core processor. However, owners of old machines don’t like old machines to go to waste so if they can rope in a nerd to fix up their PC, they will – feast of a Chinese dinner at the Hakka Restaurant with some 2002 Loxton Merlot thrown in.

Moving forward in time, disinfection tools vary – the techniques remain similar, but what is free and available are updated. Enumerating the stages in reverse….

1. If all else fails, it’s time to pull out the Windows XP CD and do a clean install. It’s nice to do that, short on maintenance time spent. However, it’s also the hardest to do psychologically because owners get used to their installed programs, the arrangement of the PC and golly, they don’t even know they have placed documents all over the place. They normally say “that’s not important, we can ignore that” until you have completed fresh installation and they remember, oh, this teensy eensy bit of a file they wish they still had.
2. An “install on top” – i.e. a dirty install of Windows XP is possible, but then, that’s the intermediate “neither here nor there” that doesn’t look too thorough.
3. Booting with an anti-malware CD or USB is a good idea. Except that for an irregular rescuer, you do need to search around for what is cost free and up to date, effective. A google search found About.com’s list of three – they include Avira, BitDefender and F-Secure.  F-Secure seems like a good bag of tools running off a Linux bootable CD. BitDefender seems to have an up-to-date ISO.  AVG has a free bootable USB (you’ve got to hunt for a USB flash stick that you can spare) or CD disinfector
4. Of course, it’s a no brainer to just try uninstalling a rash of suspect-products-that-come-with-crapware and to run whatever the installed anti-virus scanner is (trying not to connect the PC to the internet but still get new virus signatures is a hop skip and jump). This can be and is very time consuming – the allegedly malware infested PC might be running like molasses, scanning is slowed down and can be defeated by resident malware that employs diverse techniques to hide itself. The current favourite seems to be Malwarebytes Anti-Malware but I’m an old Spybot Search and Destroy user and with updated signatures, it still discovers heaps of nasties.
5. I used to favour Avast (free for personal use) anti-virus – it has defended actual threats well in the past, but recently, I am encountering two machines that act slooowly and it did not, of course prevent those infections – for the time being Microsoft’s free Security Essentials seems a good balance.

For the time being, gotta, get those resources, and whip off to the machine – need to work for that dinner that has been generously given already….

Got any feedback? Make a post on the forum

Ananda

But how backward are you? Does the Internet figure in your life at all? Some people love to take out their Nokia phone circa 2000, with numbers and cosmetics rubbed off and tell the world – “Hah! I love being a Luddite – a phone is for the rare phone call, when I deem it necessary. I don’t need the Internet on my phone”  Are you one of those?

Me? I’m having an off day and reflecting on what I do to enjoy my day. I listen to music – a thing I’ve done for many years, pre-Internet. I shoot photos – an activity much invigorated by the Web of interaction with like minded folk. I watch scraps of Old Media TV but really that’s for when I want to dull my brain and go to sleep, Doc Martin and Masterchef not withstanding.  Old favourites like the cop shows, medical and House dramas – too much of the same  is getting quite, quite disinteresting.

But TED on the Web – if you haven’t woken up to a reaching out of minds, hop on and envision with the thought makers. A nice way to use the Internet speed, bandwidth and quota.