As usual, google did not disappoint, Chrome is much faster than FF or IE.  I go to tmy google apps email and gmail pops up quickly, users working in a google docs spreadsheet no longer see refresh issues like we saw in FF, spreadsheets fully load in less time than it takes to even load MS Excel and the overall layout is so plain and clean that even FF3’s minimal UI looks cluttered.  I have actually worked to try and crash this browser, I had 20 tab’s open, my computer was acting a little slow but never did it crash, large graphics, nothing, finally I was able to make a tab crash after I gave up and I was upset thinking I would loose all of my tabs but instead it simply closed the single tab having issues and all was well.

Now, this isn’t to say that there aren’t things that I dislike.  First, no plugin’s yet, I miss many of my FF plugins, the biggest being the GTDInbox plugin.  Second, well…um…crap, that’s really it actually, I miss my FF plug-ins.

I do like that fact that Google has made this all open-source for everyone to use, at first it seemed like an odd thing for them to do, however, what is google’s business??  The web, they have made an empire out of makeing search simple, getting content users need and makeing users depend on the web.  Sure people have made improvements to browsing since the early 90’s, but nobody has just stopped and started from scratch, re-written the browser into what we need today instead of just cobbling things together from code written in the 90’s.  That’s what Google did, we all knew Java was slow as fuck, we all knew that it sucked when your browser with 5 tabs opened just crashed and took everything with it, we all know that the three browsers(IE, Mozilla, Opera) all had features that we liked and wished our favorite browser had.  Google took that and just threw it all into a blender, plug-ins will be there someday, it’s just too new for developers to have anything just yet.  The great thing about google makeing this open source is that there is no reason why IE, Opera, or Mozilla can’t take feature x, y or z and put it into their browser as well.  And that’s google’s point, because at the end of the day they make money on people using the web, they don’t care how you view it, just as long as you view it and click a few adword’s in the process.

Thanks Google, I’m sure I’ll find more that I dislike but the speed improvments and crash management have made me not really care.

I know a lot of educational IT admins, and it amazes me the things that schools can accomplish with the limited budgets that they have.  While the business sector plans on 3-5 years out of a server I currently have 2 servers on year 8 and another 2 just hitting year 5 and no plans of upgrading in sight.  It’s not just this though, it’s all of the equipment.  I ask why they run such old hardware and the answer is simple…money.  In business we can justify spending money on a new computer, faster computers equate to a more productive worker which equates to higher profits for the company.  In the educational sector this isn’t the case, everything is based on tax dollars, when state/local tax incomes are good then you’re budget stays the same, when it’s bad it get’s cut so you learn to make every cent count.

One other thing that I have noticed, not as much with the local IT admins but in the ESU’s and in the software companies that many schools use is the utter lack of business procedures.  Now part of this may be that my background is in telecom which is known for its very strict business procedures.  The school just switched to a new software platform to take care of their grade books, class schedules, student rosters..etc.  The company had the school on a hosted platform for training and was working to migrate them to an in-house server that was still owned/operated by the software company.  The company migrated all of the data over and finished at 5:15 PM.  The next morning users came in and started using the new site/software, within about 10 minutes of using the web based software my phone rang.  Users were having issues adding new students into the system.  I called and opened a ticket with the software company (their name is Infinite Campus), they pulled some diags and then told me that I migrated the data wrong.  I then had to argue that I hadn’t actually migrated the data, that Infinite Campus had in fact done this and that it was their issue to fix.  They escalated the ticket and right at 24 hours after I had first opened the ticket finally were able to make the software work.  I don’t think I would have cared except that they never once called me out of the blue to give me an update.  I had to call them every 3-4 hours to have my ticket updated so a technician could call me back with an update.  In a business this simply wouldn’t fly, especially if the company had JUST migrated the data over not even 24 hours prior, their excuse was that they were really busy and they were quick to point out that they had pushed my ticket ahead of two others in the queue to make sure itw as fixed before noon the following day!!!  Unfortuantely this is not the only vendor that this has happened with, in the past month alone I’ve lost count of vendors who simply don’t call for 2-3 days and when they do finally call tell me that 2-3 days is their standard interval to resolve trouble.  Could you imagine that in the business world?  Microsoft Word or Excel break and it takes Microsoft 2-3 days to call you back, your computer just dies and Dell pushes you into a voicemail box and might call you back in 2-3 days….it’s horrible!!!  What get’s me is how upset these companies get at you when you do call them out, tell them 2-3 days is unacceptable, middle of the day equipment upgrades are unacceptable…etc, they get very deffensive, insist that nobody else has a problem with it blah, blah, blah.  I’m staying the course, K-12’s need the exact or better support than the business sector, I may not change much but I’m sure somebody will give a damn and maybe push back the next time a vendor is an ass.

Recently I got a blackberry curve, I love it, it does almost everything I want.  The one thing that it will NOT do is teathered modem.  I sent an email in to Viaero and had a customer service agent get back with me, they advised that they would see if there were were plans to offer teathered modem services.  After a month of waiting I finally got a reply(right after complaining on my blog about not having heard anything).  I was advised that Viaero has NO plans to offer teathered modem support on the blackberry but that they would were working to offer this on other phones.  Let’s think about this, the customer who has a blackberry obviously needs to be in contact quite a bit more than your regular cell phone cusotmer and would more than likely utilize teathered modem more than a regular celll phone customer.  Not having teathered modem support on the blackberry is completely stupid!

It’s okay though, I found sharkmodem for my blackberry, I ran a few different tests with sharkmodem versus my vEDGE card that I pay WAY too much for considering the crappy speeds/service that I have.  With sharkmodem I had BETTER speeds than on the vEDGE even when running the crappy caching software that Viaero has you install.  Therefore, I’m canceling my vEDGE card and I’ll just buy the sharkmodem software, Viaero can stuff it where the sun doesn’t shine.  I just my hopes up that AT&T or another large carrier that gets it (please not sprint though), one that realizes that your blackberry users are going to pay for additional services to have mobility options more so than the customer who has the shitty free Nokia phone.  I already pay you $40 a month for blackberry service, another $10-20 for teathered modem would have been great.  However, that being said, the sharkmodem software doesn’t cost much, it’s a one time fee and so instead of Viaero getting additional recurring revenue they don’t….bad decision on their part!

I’m sure Viaero has noticed my posts google for viaero blackberry and my blog comes up even before they do…..I’d be more than happy to set the record straight if they would just get a clue!  You know how to contact me Viaero

Nick C

On a side note, still no teathered modem from Viaero, I talked to a manager a month ago and they are still waiting on an answer. Thanks for the great customer experience Viaero, hopefully as you continue to grow your support can equal that of Alltel so that when I switch I don’t feel so bad. A simple yes/no/maybe would be fine, but don’t make me call you for updates that is rather backwards.

Oh well, I found sharkmodem for my blackberry, teathered modem for free. What’s funny is that proxied internet through my BB is faster than the EDGE card that I have with Viaero. So I guess with no answer from Viaero I’ll tell them to stuff the $80 a month EDGE card and any teathered service. Way to loose revenue Viaero, I’ll but something cool with the money I saved.

Nick

I just need more geeks to move back this way….will it happen, probably not, give me another 5 years and I’m sure I’ll snap and move…or I’ll just stop bitching and go on with having no friends in the local area.

Time will tell!

1. Customer Service - So I got a new Sony Ericson K790a a few months back. I love this phone, I can take 3.2 Megapixel pictures with it, get RSS updates, browse the internet, and all the other general stuff that a cell phone should do. The reason for going with this phone was twofold, first, I wanted to be able to stop carrying my digital camera around and second, text messaging/internet means I can view our network status from anywhere. HOWEVER, a few problems have cropped up with this. First, I can’t send picture message on the phone, nobody at Viaero can tell me why I can or can’t, I call into the *611 and they try a bunch of stuff and then tell me to go to the store. I go into the store and they tell me to call in for additional support. Every now and then I’ll pass by a Viaero store when traveling around the panhandle and I’ll stop and see if whoever is in the store can help. Having stopped in 3 different stores now I can say that I will NOT stop into any store that is not in my home town, not because I don’t want to and not because it is not convenient. Whenever I go in to a store and the sales person doesn’t know me the first thing they want to do is sell me a phone…that’s great, they are commission based, however, as soon as I tell them that I am already a customer and that I just need assistance the walls go up. They want me out of there ASAP so they can sell a phone to the next guy. On numerous occasions my phone would just not ring and my voicemail wouldn’t pick up. I went into the Viaero store in Scottsbluff, NE, ask the sales guy who looked really tired or really stoned (maybe both) why my phone was acting strange. He looks me straight in the face and says “I don’t know we aren’t having any problems”, hands me my phone back and then turns back to his partner in crime behind the counter and finishes the joke he was telling him when I walked in.
2. While it is nice that you offer blackberries and the PC card, however, for all that is holy, figure out how to offer tethered modem support. I was told by the “blackberry expert” that Viaero was not going to offer tethered modem support because it was slower than their pc card service. At the time I had not tried the PC card service so I figured what the heck. However, now that I’ve used it for a few months I can tell you that your PC card service isn’t all that fast. Yes, I have the newest version of Venturi (think pre-caching to make me think your wireless is fast). Yes, I have disabled my anti-virus, it didn’t make a difference. And finally, Yes, I have good signal. Now, I don’t mind the slow speeds, the fact that I can get ANYTHING when I’m in the middle of nowhere Nebraska is great, that’s why I pay for it, not for the speed but the fact that if I’m driving and some network issue comes up I can stop on the side of the road and have a fairly solid connection is great. Now, if you offered tethered modem on the blackberry I would be even happier, the blackberry can do almost everything that I currently use the PC card for. The only reason I want tethered modem is so that in the rare occasion that I need my laptop I can use it, speed doesn’t really matter to me, I promise! If you could figure out how to get the Blackberry 8300 I’ll give you a one-up as then I have the camera and GPS…but I can live with the 8100.

   Now for all the ranting in this post, I must say that I like Viaero, they have done a LOT of good in the area, two years ago I was at the end of my rope with Alltel, they refused to admit that they had signal issues in the area, Viaero came in and 1 year after Viaero came into the picture Alltel now has a tower actually in Imperial.

All of that being said, I see what Grand Central is trying to do and I agree with the general concept. With a few additions the system could be even better. End-users are tired of having different mailboxes for each phone. Make a phone number that I can call-forward busy/no-answer to that sends this to my voicemail on GC. You have voicemail at home; work, on your cell phone…etc. It makes so much more sense to have one centralized voicemail box. While you can have a single voicemail box end-users still need to be able to have different greetings depending on the phone number that was dialed. On my voicemail at work I have all my cell phone and desk phone calls route through our voicemail. The nice thing is that I can designate that if someone calls my desk phone I want them to hear “thanks for calling blah blah office please leave a message”. Alternatively, if they call my cell phone they should hear “This is Nick’s Cell phone leave a message”. This way the calling party knows exactly where they were calling and so the user can change messages per-number instead of having one centralized message that’s generic for everything.

Anyway, anyone with more than one phone number I would highly recommend this to as it appears to be a great time-saver overall.