David Kellam

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Well, I’ve got 2 of the 3 taboos covered, but there was probably another somewhere I’m not supposed to mention…

Personally, in four years time, I’m looking forward to the Liberal Party being able to answer one simple question:
“What are you FOR?”

I think we have a pretty good idea what they’re against. It was enough to get my vote, but only ‘cos I don’t think much of the incumbent (being only about 1 wrung down the mismanagement chain from the guy who approved the US$36,000 toilet seat at NASA) and the rest of his staff. Of course, that’s not reason enough to give it to the Liberals (at a macro level), but it is reason enough NOT to give it to Braksy. Or at least to decline enough of it to make him think “Hmmm… mismanagement BAD mmmmkay?!” rather than “MUNCH! MUNCH! MUNCH! Fast Rail! MUNCH! Scorseby MUNCH MUNCH! Consultants MUCHMUNCHMUNCHMUNCHMUNCH! Cronyism MUNCH MUNCH!

Obviously, a highly reasoned political post, but you get the idea.

My prediction for the next election? Unless Bracksy does something completely unforgiveable (as opposed to just incompetent, which seems par for the course), he’ll win a record 4th term. Ironically, the only way we’re going to get a State Liberal and Federal Labour government (my vote-winning combination at this point - don’t call me partisan) is if the economy goes so far to shit that the incumbents take the blame, which, again ironically, they won’t deserve*. So we lose either way. So seems the natural order of things.

* I refer to Kennett and Keating as stalwarts for economic reform.

So, what we have is a disconnect between effort and result; intent and outcome. Mix that in with a little bit of “we stand for this -vs- we stand for this+1!” and no wonder you’ve got a thoroughly disinterested electorate.

Personally, I’ll vote for whoever can offer a sustainable transport model (even the Greens didn’t get that one right) and has a decent chance of getting it enacted (i.e. major party or holds balance of power). At least that will leave something semi-permanent as a legacy…

This e-mail I received today is solid gold. Needless to say I am not a Sun Theatre employee and am subscribed to their mailing list.

Some things that immediately come to mind:

• Pure incompetence
• What a b****
• Perhaps they should use specialised mailing list software…
• Perhaps they should issue an apology…
• Cool! Now I know how to scab free seats!
• “Hi, Anne told me I could have a free ticket. Yes, that’s right. She sent me an e-mail this afternoon…”

Update

Yes, oops.

Apologies for yesterday’s email regarding Borat, which was meant to be an internal email to our staff rather than broadcast to you all at “sun mailing list.”

For the record, the email was sent as we were taken a little by surprise when the Friday night preview of Borat sold out, and we turned dozens of people away. So for Saturday night we wanted to make sure that anyone who came wanting to buy a ticket didn’t miss out.

Regards, The Sun.

I have just signed up for a BigPond Movies trial. The link I got sent was:
http://www.bigpondmovies.com/user/homeExistingUser.php

This is curiously similar to the think for my old (2004) service, Webflicks:
http://webflicks.com.au/user/homeExistingUser.php

Hmmm… more than a superficial resemblance (look at the URLs, not the sites). Let’s delve closer:

<form name="form1" method="post" action="movieKeywordSearch.php" enctype="multipart/form-data">
</form>
+<input type="hidden" name="form_cache_buster" value="1162012356"/>
-<input type="hidden" name="form_cache_buster" value="1162012341"/>
<input type="hidden" name="form_task" value=""/>
<input type="hidden" name="form_display" value=""/>
<input type="hidden" name="form_movie_id" value=""/>
<input type="hidden" name="form_search_id" value=""/>
<input type="hidden" name="form_search_type" value=""/>

This shows a section of the rendered html, differing only by bits in bold. But wait, there’s more:


<option value="-1">&gt; All Genres &lt;</option>
<option value="1">Action & Adventure</option>
<option value="2">Animated</option>
<option value="3">Anime</option>
<option value="156">Art House</option>
<option value="140">Australian</option>
<option value="4">Children & Family</option>
<option value="5">Comedy</option>
<option value="14">Documentary</option>
<option value="6">Drama</option>
<option value="154">Erotic</option>
<option value="149">Foreign</option>
<option value="7">Horror</option>
<option value="8">Music & Concert</option>
<option value="155">Reality</option>
<option value="9">Romance</option>
<option value="10">Sci-fi & Fantasy</option>
<option value="13">Sports</option>
<option value="12">Suspense & Thriller</option>
<option value="150">Television</option>
<option value="11">Various</option>
<option value="15">Western</option>                      


This Webflicks list is slightly larger than the corresponding BigPond Movies one:

<option value="-1">&gt; All Genres &lt;</option>
<option value="1">Action & Adventure</option>
<option value="2">Animated</option>
<option value="3">Anime</option>
<option value="140">Australian</option>
<option value="4">Children & Family</option>
<option value="5">Comedy</option>
<option value="335">DVD Games</option>
<option value="14">Documentary</option>
<option value="6">Drama</option>
<option value="149">Foreign</option>
<option value="7">Horror</option>
<option value="8">Music & Concert</option>
<option value="9">Romance</option>
<option value="10">Sci-fi & Fantasy</option>
<option value="295">Short Films</option>
<option value="13">Sports</option>
<option value="12">Suspense & Thriller</option>
<option value="150">Television</option>
<option value="11">Various</option>
<option value="15">Western</option>                                          


Look at the striking similarities between not only the categories, but the option values ascribed to them (there is no technical reason for these having the same absolute numbers - it’s just a ranking mechanism). Anyway, you get the idea. Identical site infrastructure.

So far, it remains to be determined whether Webflicks have merely licensed the infrastructure to BigPond (which came later) or whether BigPond is essentially a reseller of Webflicks’ service. At the very least, they have different member databases. Webflicks is based on your email address whereas bigpond is based on your username (although it also asks for your email address). It also appears (as the following images attest) that they have different user ratings databases as well. In fact, whilst the vast majority of their library appears identical, there are some differences (also below):

BigPond Movies search for “Teenage” (Looking for TMNT):

Webflicks search for “Teenage”:

Both returned 9 results, but with slightly different titles and ratings. Evidence of separate databases. The code for these results pages is largely similar as well. Heck, even the html output has not only the same elements, but the same names (e.g. Top Movie Title Matches)

I tried Googling for any evidence of an overt partnership between the two, but found nothing (comment to update this view). Now, from here one can assume:

• Covert partnership/Out-sourcing arrangement
• Violation of copyright and trade secrets (e.g. BigPond could have poached some of the WebFlicks developers
• Theft of publically-available HTML output only
• Mere coincidence

The last two are not likely. You just wouldn’t steal html structures and not the design. It would be much harder to code the site to produce syntactically identical html output than it would be to rewrite it, and you open yourself up to massive amounts of litigation in the process. Mere coincidence is just not probable. BigPond violating trade secrets? Hardly likely.

What we have on our hands here is a SCOOP my dear readers. BigPond movies is at best a fork of Webflicks and at worst a reseller/front.

According to The Age, The Victorial Liberals plan to make public transport free for students (pretty much any eligible concession card holder). Fantastic in principle. Great if you own the Infrastructure. Terrible if you don’t.

Using the $285m figure over 4 years to provide free public transport to 90,000 students (all data sourced from the article. Accuracy not guaranteed). This equates to $792 per student per year. This is $295 higher than 12 x Zone 1 monthly tickets. Zone 1&2 would cost $916.80. My guess is they’re using rough geographic data to determine who’s in zone 1 (most), zone 2 (lots) & zone 3 (a few). They come up with an average of $792 per student per year. What about the students who don’t use enough to justify a yearly (12xmonthly) ticket? Options:

1. Let them apply for reimbursement
2. Build that into the formula
3. Use real ticket validation data to determine real cost
4. No longer require a concession holder to purchase/be given a ticket

You can pretty much guarantee they’ll be using option 4. If they’re smart they’ll use 2 - use existing ticketing data to predict average trips, etc. I’ll wager the machines can recognise concession/full-fare travel already. It’s probably built into the ticket ID.

Now, if the public transport system were under government control, you wouldn’t have to worry about any of this. Sure, they still would, but only from an internal budgetary perspective. The net government cost and societal benefit would be the same. Under the public/private model, the real opportunity cost is too difficult to determine, too costly or else nobody really cares beyond the promise.

This is just one reason why The Government should reappropriate public transport and re-evaluate public/private partnerships for anything involving a per-user subsidy.

I receive the following e-mail (or some variant) periodically:

Dear Reseller,

I’ll start off by thanking our resellers who send their orders to the
correct email address, formatted per our requested specifications.
Your cooperation is greatly appreciated. It makes our job easier
and helps us to process your orders more efficiently.

As a reminder to resellers who send their orders in many and varied
weird and wonderful ways, our ordering procedure and preferred
format is clearly set out below . . .

1. You email us the end user’s name and payment details.

Payment is by EFT or Direct Deposit to:
ANZ Bank - Strathpine 4500
BSB : 014271
Account Number : 198960794
Account Name : Antivirus Australia Pty Ltd
ACN 076 367 890
ABN 53 081 436 151

* Copy & Paste the EFT receipt provided by your bank into the
body of your order email.

* Please do NOT send us HTML email … use Plain Text only.

* Do NOT attach PDF/XLS/DOC/etc files … attachments will
delay processing.

* Do NOT send orders and EFT receipt information separately!

2. We return the License and associated Tax Invoice to you by email.
(Note that the Tax Invoice is not numbered. It is tied to a unique
License Number which meets ATO requirements. This is our ONLY
invoice. We do NOT provide pro-formas or separate invoices.)

3. You deliver the License to your customer.

PROPERLY FORMATTED ORDERS GET FIRST PRIORITY . . .
Sorting out who’s who and which license belongs with which order in a
mailbox filled with email from “Info/Admin/Sales/John/” or addressed
to “NO32 Australia/Nod32 Reseller/Nod32 Order/NodAV/whatever” is a
nightmare for us.

Turnaround time will be much shorter if you

(a) send your order to us as a Plain Text email with your
company name (or your plain and simple email adress)
in the “From:” field;

(b) use plain and simple reseller_orders@nod32.com.au
in the “To:” field;

(c) put “Reseller Order - customer’s name”
or
“Reseller Renewal - customer’s name”
in the “Subject:” field;

(d) identify your company in the body of the email.

The ONLY address for orders is reseller_orders@nod32.com.au
Orders sent to any other email address will be delayed.

Licenses ordered before 17:00 Monday-Friday are usually delivered “same
day”. If you need a license urgently, a quick phone call will put you on
top of the waiting list.

IMPORTANT! WE DO NOT SEND SPAM!
Our information emails and monthly evaluation keys are sent via a bulk
email processor. We have neither the time nor the inclination to re-send
email rejected by spam filters set to levels that block legitimate traffic,
“validation required” filters, or poorly-maintained “professional” anti-spam
“services” that often cause more problems than the spammers from whom
they claim they’re protecting us. Your email address will be deleted from
our mailing list after ONE such rejection, so we suggest that you whitelist
nod32.com.au and antivirus.com.au to prevent this from happening.

Regards,

Bill Main
MainLink IT
Acting Manager - NOD32 Australia

Let’s take a poll. What do you think of the above?
[ ] Sounds reasonable enough
[ ] Sure sounds like a lot of effort
[ ] WTF?
[*] OMG! *Incompetence Alert!* Bzzzrt!

The star above may have unduly biased you. So be it. One of the key tenets of HCI/UI design is to limit the exposure of your system model to your end users. Take Google for example. There are two possible (public) classes of sign-in: gmail account & other. This is the systems side. Do you see it exposed anywhere in a way that causes the user to a) notice or b) have to think about it? No. To sign into google using a gmail account, you can enter either ‘username@gmail.com’ or simply ‘username’. You don’t need to select a radio button providing {Google, Other} options; you aren’t shown an “invalid login” if you sign in without the @gmail.com. No, Google has designed this process to be customer-focussed. Not so NOD32.

First impression? It reminds me of being told off in High School. Second impression? It’s long. It may be in my Inbox today, but it will be gone tomorrow. Let’s assume I read it at all and don’t have a vehemently negative reaction to it (big assumptions here). EVEN SO, it’s unlikely to make any difference to my behaviour.

OK, let’s take a closer look:

1. They refer to a “clearly set out (format) below” but only actually get to it 200 words later (if you recognise their (a), (b), (c), (d) points as being a “format” at all
2. HTML only mail? How many people know how to do this? Even if they do, how many people (who order Anti-Virus for Windows) would have Plain Text as their mail default (think Outlook users here), causing additional work every single time they e-mail NOD32.
3. Changing the From: field. OK, so let’s think about that. For the other 499 e-mails you send out each week, you’re going to want what you normally user {Sales, Company X Sales, Joe Bloggs, etc.} which they want you to change to {Company X, user@companyx.com} just for e-mail to them. Bzzzrt. Not going to happen. Secondly, this is inconvenient to just about everybody not using mutt. In Mac OS X Mail, it involves: Mail:Preferences; Accounts; (Account X); alter Full Name; Close; Compose & Send e-mail; Mail:Preferences; Accounts; (Account X); revert Full Name. I’m sure the process is similar on other platforms.
4. “IMPORTANT! WE DO NOT SEND SPAM!” - that’s really comforting to know. It’s at the bottom of an e-mail (which aside from displaying correct English, looks pretty Spam-like to me) and thus is highly unlikely to be read by someone considering it Spam! Further, they then insult you or your IT staff for having “poorly-maintained” anti-spam systems, yet the people who actually DO have these systems, aren’t reading this e-mail. Score 3 for insulting your customers yet again.

Now, back to system models. We’re now intimately familiar with their sales process. From the above we can deduce that:

• The entire system (in this age of computer automation) is run manually during standard office hours
• They use an e-mail client to process orders (or else use some kind of CRM, with all the ‘defects’ being redirected to a normal e-mail account)
• They are clearly frustrated by the failure of their ordering process
• It is clearly an expensive process or one which should be more efficient (and hence cheaper), or they wouldn’t be bothering trying to change it
• They presumably have somewhere between 10 and 100 staff and somewhat more than 10,000 customers. Rather than change the behaviour of 100 people over whom they have motivational, financial and legal control, they are seeking to change the behaviour of thousands of disparate entitites
• The best case scenario is still only a reduction in the number of exceptions needing to be handled, rather than designing a system that doesn’t let them happen in the first place (although if they came up with this process for a manual system, I’d hate to think what it would look like for an automated one, but at least they’d stop directly insulting us)
• They believe sarcasm is an effective tool to inspire more sales through their reseller channel

and probably much more. Here are the two immediate ways they could improve (level 0 parse):

Manually
By letting their customers submit their order any way they like, as long as it contains the necessary information (EFT, Name, License type). Much easier to remember than 500 words of rambling text. Wear the cost.

Automatically
Like 99,999,999 other businesses on the web, provide a web-based form with validation that forces this input. N.B. I hate this when it’s not done right, but I’d take an imperfect form over this any day.

These basic recommendations are so obvious that a $12/hr minimum wage worker would likely be able to figure out a much better system in less time than it took to compose that e-mail.

Just when you thought System Architecture didn’t really count…

http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/accidents/20-mishaps-maybe-caused-nuclear-war.htm

Joel Spolsky’s rant is an absolute classic. I rant like this about restaurants (although with less clarity!) - expect a social reviews site soon.

DRK

LiveVault have produced a promotional video featuring none other than John Cleese.

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