Ask any one who knows me and I am sure they will tell you I am a bit of a procrastinator. I have a tendency to leave things till the last minute. I’ll get out of bed at the last possible moment.

I’ve tried various tricks to get me out of this habit. I’ve tried setting my alarm to go off that little bit earlier than I need it to. But some how it doesn’t seem to work with me, my brain remembers that I set it early and I subconsciously set the alarm to snooze when it goes off.

Today I’ve come across a brilliant solution to this problem. Over at David Seah’s Blog, he’s put up a post about a Chindogu Clock for Procrastinators. Whats Chindogu I hear you asking. Well basically Chindogu is the Japanese art of designing something to is next to totally useless. Basically the clock can be anywhere up to 15 minutes fast at any given time. The clock has a randomly updated time buffer, the value is changed every so often so that you can not get used to the idea that the clock is always x minutes faster than a normal clock. Sometimes it is 5 minutes slow, sometimes it’s a minute and sometimes it is dead on time. If you are like me and have trouble getting up before the last minute, this is idea. Top marks for making this one.

Bigfoot and the Hendersons

While it might not be the most iconic of films, the first one on a list makes it simply for the fact that it is the first film I can ever remember going to see at the cinema. I also remember falling asleep watching it! It’s not the most complicated of plots, basically George Henderson (John Lithgow) takes some road kill home. Only when he gets home he realises that it’s not actually kill! The ‘road kill’ turns out to be Bigfoot (or Harry). The story revolves around the idea that the ‘beast’ is just as human as the rest of us! It’s by no means the best film out there but it works well as a sentimental family piece.

E.T: The Extra Terrestrial

I’m sure even people who didn’t grow up at the same time as me have heard of this one. E.T. is an iconic film for a lot of people, to some extent it is the most memorable film of my childhood. It’s another sentimental family film, about an alien who comes to earth and befriends a young boy. It’s notable for a few reasonsm it’s one of the first Steven Spielberg Films I watch for a start but it also gave us the star that is Drew Barrymore as well as having future Baywatch girl Erika Eleniak.

The Lost Boys

A bit of a departure for my third film. It’s probably not the first 15 plus movie I saw but The Lost Boys stands out in my mind as the first vampire film I saw. It’s what defined my interest in horror films, it also what perked my interest in vampire stories, leading to me reading such things as Bram Stokers Dracula! It’s not the best acted film out there, or the best written. The final twist is hideously stupid but still I thank this film for a lot of what I am now.

Flight of The Navigator

Are you noticing a patten yet? I like a little sci-fi in my films, even from when I was a kid. Flight of the Navigator always sticks in my memory for the premise. A young boy gets carried 8 years into the future, awaking to find his family have aged while he hasn’t, his younger brother is now older than him. Now he has remarkable knowledge of the galaxy and the power to fly a shiny space craft, it’s a growing boys dream I tell you!

The Boy Who Could Fly

I don’t know why I like this film. Actually I don’t know if I’d actually say I like this film, it just sticks in my head. The story of the boy who couldn’t speak but did actually fly. It’s kind of got a romantic story link (yes sometimes I have a romantic side to me shock horror) but it also has a bitter sweet ending where the boy has to leave before he’s taken away to be studied.

The Goonies

Every boy (and quite a lot of girls) dream about going on an adventure, all the excitement, the thrills, the spills and the chances of finding treasure! What growing boy wouldn’t want that. Basically every boy dreams of being a Goonie. A gang of kids who have the adventure that we all wanted. It’s got humour, its got the thrills. It’s definitely a film all children should be forced to watch growing up.

Got any others to add?

Use a CRM tool: The one thing that gives a customer a sense of trust like nothing else is the idea that the person at the other end of the phone has a good idea of their past contact history. Giving your staff this information at their fingertips gives them the ability to better support the customer. Letting them know what a customer has bought previously lets them know what best to recommend to them next. There are lots of CRM solutions out there that can perform this task for you. My personal preference is either Sage ACT or Sugar CRM. The Sugar CRM solution is a web based application which can be run on your own server. An added bonus in my book is that is also an Open Source software with the possibility of purchasing a payed for version with additional benefits.

Support Ticketing System: No matter how good your product is, there is an no doubt that at some point in time your customer will need to contact you for support on the product. Be that to question functionality or to simply track the delivery of their order. If you supply a product you will have to support it some how. To provide good support your staff need to be aware of the issue your customer has raised, implementing a good ticketing system is a good way to achieve this. With a ticket system that can be linked to a customer your staff can easily see when a customer phones for an update just what the customer’s problem is as well as what work has been carried out to remedy it. It’s even possible to distribute your ticketing system over the web to allow your customers to access it and see the status of their issue without the need to call your help desk. Again there are plenty of good ticketing systems out there on the web. The one I currently use is actually part of the Sugar CRM software mentioned above, it doesn’t offer all the functionality of a dedicated ticketing system, but it does have the core of a decent ticket system there. Plus it gives the support desk access to the previous history from the sales staff.

Support Forums: Nothing increases customer confidence in your company like the ability to get fast and accurate answers. No matter how high you staff your office there are always going to be cases where all your operatives are busy. Providing your customer with a secondary means of support can help to mitigate this circumstance. By having a forum available for customer support, not only do you give your customers the option of looking to other resources for support you also open up your support so that your customers can help each other. Using a customer support forum your customers can search through previous problems experienced and picking out relevant answers to help them. In truth most companies tend to have their staff running the forum, providing fast answers to the questions raised by their customers.

Be Reachable: The last recommendation I have for you is to make it easy for your clients to contact you. Firstly if at all possible don’t make it so that your customers have to punch in something resembling a console game cheat code to reach your support desk. Instead of a computerised answering system, have a receptionist, let them answer the calls and route them as needed. Yes it might be more costly than a computerised answering machine but it’s worth it to give the customer that feeling that they matter to you. Have generic email addresses, email addresses that your clients can use to access the relevant departments, once you have these addresses set up make sure they are monitored (even if that means making them forward automatically to all the members of that department., see my soon to be added post on using Outlook to man a support desk). The easier you are to reach the more a client will come to appreciate you.

The key to improving your customer retention is to make the customer feel that they matter to your business, make them believe that they are more than just a number to you, even if in fact they are not. What other suggestions do you have for improving customer retention?

• Video recorders: Before the war over Blu Ray and HD DVD we had the VHS Betamax war. Just like the BR vs HD DVD no one other than the techies really understood the difference (or cared). At the end of the day it didn’t matter which format you had, both are now next to extinct. DVD recorders and Hard disk recorders have put an end to need to record to tape, and media centres have killed the video market.
• Audio Tapes/Vinyl: Tape killed vinyl as I was growing up, I can honestly say I’ve never owned a piece of vinyl in my life. But at least I’d heard of it. CDs replaced tapes and even those have now been replaced. Nowadays most people download their music in mp3 format (either legally or illegally).
• 56K modems: The wide spread use of broadband and wireless Internet has put an end to the 56K modem’s main use. Gone are the days of waiting an age to load a web page, gone are the days of the scream as the modem negotiates with it’s counterpart at the other end of the line.
• Phone Boxes: There was a time when you couldn’t walk 10 yards without seeing a phone box some where nearby. The advent of mobile phones put pay to that. Now that everyone carries a phone in their pocket who wants to use a pay phone?
• Map Reading: I have to admit, this one is nearly something I didn’t experience myself. With the widespread use of sat navs the reading of maps is all but extinct. Unless your child is in to orienteering there is a good chance they will never use a map.
• Thinking a 1GB Hard disk was big: My first computer had a 500MB hard disk, my first brand new one had 3.2GB. It’s not uncommon in these days of 1TB hard disks to find a PC with 4GB’s of RAM. The drastic grow in hard disk size (and memory) is unbelievable at times.
• Burning a CD/DVD: It’s not quite gone yet, but pretty soon it’s unlikely people will be burning stuff to optical disk. Why would you need to when you can get an 8GB flash drive for peanuts. Maybe you want to play it in the car, well now that more and more cars are coming with MP3 player connections why burn to CD when you can just plug in your iPod.
• Having to arrange things by phone: The mobile phone might have replaced the pay phone. But sizes like Facebook and Twitter mean we no longer have to call our friends to find out what they are currently up to. Want to arrange a get together? Create and event and invite them. You can even find out what celebrities are up to in some case.
• Been able to walk somewhere without being recorded: The big brother society is no longer a thing of the future, it’s here now. According to the BBC the average UK citizen is caught on CCTV 300 times a day.
• Forgetting to develop the holiday snaps: We’ve all done it, gone on holiday and taken lots of photos but then when we come home we don’t take the films to be processed for weeks afterward. With digital cameras being common place who needs to develop films any more. Heck you don’t even need to wait just watch them back on the LCD screen.
• Having to wait to watch the next episode: Losing this might not be a bad thing. Growing up, having to wait a week between episodes of a TV program I liked could be very annoying. Faster broadband saw an end to that, services like BBC iPlayer make it easier to watch them all at once. Or if you are really impatient you can find places to download them before that.

Kind of inspired by this article.

Other Employees

This is by far the biggest distraction in our office. I guess it’s probably the same no matter where you work. I tend to find that other employees have no grasp of the fact that you might be dealing with something just as important as what they need you to deal with right away. You could be working away on something that requires your full attention, maybe some piece of code or those all important figures that needed to be out yesterday. Someone will still come to disturb you and try to interact with you on something else, quite often it might even be irrelevant.

The solution: There’s not a right lot you can do prevent this distraction. Short of being down right ignorant and telling them to get lost when they come to see you (effective but sure to get you a reputation as an ass) there isn’t a lot you can do about it. Sometimes the rude approach might work but it’s not one that is advisable for constant use, instead try the nicer option of explaining to them that you will be sure to come see them as soon as you are finished with what ever it is that you are doing.

The Phone

The phone, as with most of the other annoyances in the office, is still related to other employees as a rule. The difference is it’s very hard to avoid being distracted by a phone call. When some one comes to you while you are working it’s only a short break to remove the distraction. If the phone rings it’s got the whole annoying noise of the ringer which can really throw you off. Also on the phone people cant see your body language, they cant see you longingly turning back towards your computer screen to continue working.

The solution: Set the phone to do not disturbe, busy or what ever option it gives for making sure it does not accept calls. If there isn’t an option for this, turn the ringer volume right down as low as it will go. Obviously you’re probably not going to be able to ignore the phone constantly by making out you are seriously busy. Sometimes you are going to have to deal with you colleagues but at least this way you can dilute the disturbance to your work.

Instant Messaging

This one can be a distraction without the interference from other employees. I know plenty of people who have MSN or something similar on while in the office, using it to talk to friends and family. IM can be very useful in the office, at work we using skype to pass messages around the office, it saves on pieces of paper going missing with phone numbers on and it also means people. The problem is that people cant confine it to only this, they add none work related people to their contacts list and things go down hill from there.

The solution: IM’s are a less intrusive way for your colleagues to contact you than phone calls or coming to see you. But sometimes you need to learn to ignore them. Unfortunately you cant just turn them off as this just means they will try calling you instead. I use skype on my Mac book pro and the best approach I have found is to set it to be open up on a different space (virtual desktop) to the one I am using as my main work screen, that way I only have to look at an incoming IM during a lull in my concentration cycle.

Email

Email is a very useful tool in a working environment. It can be an easy way to keep in contact with people. Getting people to contact you through email can also be a lot less disturbing and distracting. The problem is, email in it’s self can be distracting especially if you have access to your personal email account. The other issue is, quite often a person can get to be pressing send and receive every two seconds, or being desperate to respond straight away when an email comes in.

The solution: Set yourself a strict schedule for checking your emails. Look at them maybe once in the morning, once at dinner time and then once in the afternoon. People don’t usually expect instant answers to the emails they send you. Doing things this way will at least cut down the amount of time you spend looking at spam

Open With: We’ve talked about Open With before. When you have a file with an extension you know it’s a great place to search to determine what program made the file and what open source programs there are there might be able to open it for you. Sure it has it’s faults, it might not always have the right programs type associated for with your extension but thats usually because more than one program might use that extension type. Usually when this happens it tends to be the case that the two programs are completely different so you can determine which one you are looking for.

Alternative to: Open with is great for just determining the file type, but what if you are just looking for an alternative to a particular program, say Photoshop. Well Alternative To is a site for finding alternative to many popular software packages. Simply go to the site, type in your software and click search to be presented with a list of alternative products that perform the same function. It’s list both free and open source alternatives to the program. Can be quite useful for getting some ideas of what to look for.

Wikipedia’s List of Open Source: Yes you should never use Wikipedia as a serious source of research for a college project but when it comes to information about the various different open source packages out there, you cant go far wrong. It’s always been updated by numerous contributors and the links then to always be the latest versions.

Downloadpedia’s Alternative’s to Commercial Software: Another often updated list. Broken down into sections and then in alphabetical order, the commercial software is listed with it’s alternatives beneath.

OSalt: For a long time OSalt has been my go to place for finding open source alternatives to commercial software. It might not be as pretty as Alternative to but it has an open source slant. Like Alternative to it shows commercial alternatives along with open source but unlike Alternative to the open source ones appear at the top of the page. It also makes it easy to tell which are paid for software and which are open source by colour coded dots (red for paid, green for open source). It’s an easy site to use and it’s given me many useful additions to my software library over the years.

Where do you go to find these alternative programs?

1. IIS in Windows Server: On a windows server you can enable IIS and this gives you a server you can test your files on to some extent, especially if you install asp.net at the same time. ISS doesn’t have PHP installed by default but it is possible to add it once your server is up an running and if you want a database engine you will need to install SQL. As a rule though, IIS tends to require one of the Windows Server operating system, although it is possible to install it on XP.Unlike the other applications on this list there is the associated cost of having a Windows server.
2. Install Apache: IIS is great if you have Windows, but what about if you are using Linux/OS X? Or how about you just don’t like Microsoft products? Apache is an open source web server that runs on all three major opperating systems. It’s also much most widely used to run web sites, in fact current Netcraft figures show it as having a market share of 47% (June 2009). Just as with IIS you will still need to install PHP and SQL.
3. XAMPP: If you want an easy way to install a web server on your PC that runs PHP and SQL then XAMPP is one of the easiest ways to do this. It’s a zero configuration Apache server with PHP and My SQL installed by default. It even comes with phpMyAdmin for controlling your SQL databases.
4. Server2Go:Server2Go is another zero configuration web server that runs PHP and My SQL (depending on which version you download). The difference between XAMPP and Server2Go is that Server2Go is designed to run on write protected media i.e. CD-Roms. There Windows service, it’s all controlled by an executable which can be started up when needed and then shut down when you are finished with the server. If you prefer you can also install it on to a USB datastick.

At the end of the day, if you are serious about being a web developer then you should at least attempt to setup your own server from scratch, installing SQL and PHP by yourself. However sometimes if you are in a hurry, or if your wanting something a little more portable then the option of Server2Go or XAMPP might well be the way forward for you.

Watching this old time favourite of mine got me thinking of what other shows I used to watch, shows that I just simply couldn’t miss. If like me you’re a geek who grow up in the 80’s and 90’s some of these shows probably defined your childhood just like they did mine.

1. Transformers

Probably the show of my childhood, keep your Turtles, keep your Power Rangers, nothing will ever take the place in my heart held by Octimus, Jazz, Bumblebee and the rest of the Autobots. When the Transformers movie came out a few years ago I remember getting a tingle when I heard the sound of a transformation taking place. For a moment I was 6 again, getting up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons. I remember watching the original cartoon movie when it first came out, sure now I realise that whole thing was a marking ploy to sell more toys, but back then I didn’t know. Did I cry when Octimus Prime died, did I cheer when Hot Rod opened the Matrix of Autobot Leadership, became Rodimus Prime and kicked Galvatron’s ass? Damn right I did, along with the rest of the kids in the cinema at the time! The originally movie has possibly one of the best 80’s rock soundtracks as well. You’ve Got the Touch and of course Dare.
Autobots, transform and roll out

The A Team

2. The A Team

If Saturday morning’s belonged to the Autobots then Saturday afternoon’s belong to another set of A’s, the A Team. BA, Face, Murddock and of course Hannibal. I think every boy I knew growing up used to watch the A Team, on a Saturday afternoon I used to be at my Grandparents while my mum went shopping with my Gran, for me it was a welcome way to break up and afternoon with no friends to play with. It formulated nonsense, you knew that no matter what situation you knew that along the way the guys would get captured by the baddies, locked up somewhere there just happened to be a full mechanic’s workshop (including welding equipment) in which they would construct a complete weapon from household objects. This would usually take the form of a vehicle which they would use to escape and deliver the bad. The one thing everyone always remembers about the A Team is that no matter how good the weapon was they built, no matter how many bullets were fired and no matter how many vehicles were overturned, no one ever died or got injured! (OK that’s not strictly true, two people did die, still got to be one of the lowest body counts going, heck even Transformers had death, see the mass murder taking place in the cartoon movie!). No matter how predictable it was it was still a show I couldn’t miss!

3. Knight Rider

While never holding a big a place in my heart as the A Team, Knight Rider was another show that lightened my Saturday afternoon. Just like the A Team it predictable, it was cheesy and it was kid safe, but still in it’s defence it did help implement our revenge on the German’s for World War II, David Hasselhoff’s singing career! OK true that also meant we had to listen to his pityful attempts at singing as well, but it did also give us the Hoff, who is second only to the Shatner in being a cult icon and knowing how to take the micky out of himself.

4. Quantum Leap

Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett led an elite group of scientists into the desert to develop a top-secret project known as Quantum Leap. Pressured to prove his theories or lose funding, Dr. Beckett prematurely stepped into the project accelerator, and vanished.

He awoke to find himself in the past, suffering from partial amnesia and facing a mirror image that was not his own. Fortunately, contact with his own time was maintained through brain-wave transmissions with Al, the project observer, who appears in the form of a hologram, that only Dr. Beckett can see and hear. Trapped in the past, Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, putting things right that once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.

Unlike the shows mentioned above Quantum Leap was not primarily aimed at kids. Showing in the UK on a Thursday night at 9 0′clock it was post watershed on a school night so was always going to attract a younger audience. To some extent it was a little predictable too, but it always had a feel good factor about it. The show had a good sense of humour to it and it wasn’t anywhere near as cheesy as Knight Rider and A Team. Just like Octimus Prime, Sam Beckett had some endearing qualities about him which draw you into the story and made you want him to succeed. Unlike most programs when it came time to show the final ever episode it wasn’t a sugar coated ending where everything turns out alright and things go back to how they were. Instead you were left wondering what happened to Sam as he decided to carry on leaping rather than returning home. I’m thinking it’s time to start a petition for a Quantum Leap revival!

5. The Fall Guy

I might fall from a tall building, I might roll a brand new car. ‘Cause I’m the unknown stuntman that made Redford such a star.

The stories of Colt Seavers, The Fall Guy was all about a stunt man moonlighting as a bounty hunter. A little like the A Team at times, it usually involved Colt and his buddies helping out a group of people being bothered by the thug that Colt was chasing in his role as a bounty hunter. Unlike the A Team however, rather than constructing a weapon to save the day, Colt would perform some stunt. The stunt would usually involve his truck in some way, shape or form. The show had it all, tough guys (Lee Majors plays Colt, he’s the Six Million Dollar Man they don’t come tougher), it had humour (the theme song even poked fun at Lee Major’s real life) and it had girl’s (just look up Markie Post ). All the things a growing boy needs!

That’s just some of the shows that shaped my childhood, got your own to add let me know in the comments. (Honorable mentions to Street Hawk and Airwolf!)

The PC is on it’s last legs truth be told and needs replacing with something newer. However they don’t hold a copy of the software that runs the terminals. I contacted the suppliers (its all still under maintenance) to see if it was possible to either move the software to a new PC or to get a newer version that would run the terminals they had.

I ended up with the Account Manager for the organisation. He told me that the whole system would need upgrade, basically his words were that the company that built the terminals and provided the software had gone bust. That it was no longer possible to maintain the hardware or get software updates from them. He came and demonstrated a new system to them. And again he told us that the suppliers of the old system were no longer in business. He ended up quoting them £15,000 for a brand new system

That turned out to be a big mistake. The terminals had the name of the manufactures printed on them. It was but a matter of a quick Google search to come up with their website which showed that the company was still in operation. Then it was only a matter of 5 minutes to find their UK based reseller and contact them.

With 10 minutes work I had managed to find this information. Following this with an email I was put in touch with the relevant people who could help me. They told me that the terminals were fine and would work fine for at least another 10 years. Then to really make me happy they also told me the software had been replaced by a newer version. With the installation and training the price came down to £1500. Wayyyyy cheaper than my original price.

Let that be a lesson to you, don’t take what a sales guy tells you at face value. It’s always worth doing a little of your own research. At the end of the day while it might appear he is friendly he’s still a wolf in sheep’s clothing, looking for the oppertunity to make a quick buck on you (Yes I know not all sales guys are like this, heck I do some sales work and I know I’m not like that, but its the exception rather than the rule I’m afraid).

Well now Ring 2 Skype offer this same service for free. You can register your Skype account with them and then they provide you with a telephone number in any of the 40 countries you want which people can call and then reach you on Skype. You can even have lines in multiple countries if you wish. So if you’ve got friends in other countries you would like to talk to this is the perfect way of keeping in touch