It’s always DNS

Last week I had a call from a client who was reporting slow internet speeds. In particular, their yahoo email start page was really dragging. I arranged for a remote session to see if I could find the cause easily. I also instructed the client to reboot their modem, router and switch. Nothing obvious came up in my troubleshooting session so I arranged for an on-site visit.

After performing some routine maintenance, I stopped and just looked at the problem with a “beginner’s mind”. As I watched the page load ever so slowly, I noticed in teeny tiny writing at the bottom of the Safari window “resolving host….” As the light bulb went off in my head, I said to myself it’s DNS!

I called their ISP to see if there were any particular issues with the standard DNS servers.  Of course their answer was no and that their servers were working just fine. So after using this very cool utility from Google http://code.google.com/p/namebench/ I replaced  AT&T’s DNS server entries with Open DNS which was reportedly 300% faster.

Wow, what a difference. It’s pretty rare that I change the DNS servers from the ISP, but I’ll be doing it more often after this experience.

Blackberry Desktop Manager Incompatibility with Outlook 2010

The consulting community seems excited about Office 2010. There are lots of great features and some significant improvements. I’m writing today about a particular configuration issue that will only be applicable to people in Exchange environments that access another user’s folders.

In prior versions of Outlook, in order to see another user’s contacts in your “windows address book” you had to follow a convoluted 10 step process that was a nightmare to implement in any reasonable amount of time. Now we can simply add a second exchange account and see the additional address book. This is a big time saver.

With BES services, we can wirelessly sync your Blackberry to your Outlook folders. However sometimes we need to sync the Blackberry to a different folder, perhaps your boss’ contacts folder. Now we have to install Blackberry Desktop Manager and disable wireless sync on your contacts. Then we can specify an additional folder to sync.

Throughout the different versions of Outlook, there have been lots of issues with compatibility with Blackberry Desktop Manager, most notably in the scenario above, we cannot use cached exchange mode. But now with the release of Outlook 2010, the desktop manager won’t connect at all. There are various workarounds, none of which are realistic for consultants or clients for that matter.

I believe that this failure of RIM to stay in compatibility with what I consider their main partner is just another reason they’ll continue to lose users and market share. If I as a consultant, cannot do what my clients need and expect, then I won’t use or recommend the product anymore. The most frustrating part of this is that in many stores, I can no longer purchase Office 2007.

Great Customer Service

What does it mean to provide good customer service?  In my work, I am constantly on the phone with vendors. As a service provider, I make those calls for my clients usually because I want to protect them from bad service. I think the key to doing it right is to listen twice as much as you speak!  If you’re in contact with customers by phone, pay attention to how you feel as you begin to speak with a customer. If you find yourself unsympathetic, angry, irritable or annoyed then it might be time to make a change.

Now for the good experiences… I was so pleasantly surprised today with a call I had to make that I just needed to share it. A year or two ago, my husband gave me a Skil iXo2 drill. This little screwdriver has made my work so easy, I just love it. Well all of a sudden it would not charge. I take very good care of my equipment so you can imagine my frustration. I called the company, was only on hold for a few minutes and spoke with a representative. I expected to pay for a new charger base. Surprise and shock when the rep said she’d be sending me a new charger at no cost. I said she didn’t have to do that but it was very kind. I’ll never forget her words. “I don’t want anyone out there to be unhappy with our products”.

Thanks to Skil for not only making a great product, but taking the time to make it right when there is a problem.

The HTC Incredible on Verizon

What is it?

This phone is arguably the most hotly anticipated device release since the iPhone. For the most part, the biggest question people have is “what is android”?  It’s probably easiest to say what it isn’t. It is not iPhone, it is not Blackberry, rather it is Google’s operating system designed for mobile devices. There are “apps” like the iPhone but not as many.

I was excited about the ability to finally use my Google Voice number natively on a device. This handset has that feature built in and I can toggle whether to use Google Voice for all calls, international calls, or prompt before all calls.

Costs: The phone carries a typical smartphone cost of $199 on a 2 year contract. I opted for a 1 year contract and paid $269.

Setup: Within 15 minutes, I had entered my exchange credentials, my facebook and twitter accounts and was generally thrilled. It has a great voice recognition feature and wherever I would normally type, I can just speak and it’s transcribed quickly.

Uh Oh: Fast forward a few days and I have a major problem. The battery lasts about 5 hours. Literally, from the time I unplug it in the morning; I have about 5 hours with even light use! A call to Verizon tech support leaves me wondering if I should just return the phone. Because of all the great features I decide to research the issue to see if I can find an acceptable solution. I came across a great app called “Juice Defender”.

http://www.thegeekengineer.com/juice-defender-how-to-save-battery-of-your-android-phone/

http://www.androlib.com/android.application.com-latedroid-juicedefender-pFAx.aspx

I paid a few dollars for the full version and basically it tweaks quite a few settings and extends the battery to about the next morning. This is again, light use, hourly email checking, 3-5x a day twitter updates/ facebook, etc. I use Bluetooth in the car and wifi at home, so I also use a handy widget that makes these easy to turn on and off.

Must have apps: Advanced Task Killer, ShopSavvy, Goodlink, Remote Desktop, WifiAnalyzer, WordPress, Google Voice, Zendesk and TimeDroid.

I’m really enjoying the vastly improved reception on Verizon so with all the great features and the improvement of the battery life issue, I think I’ll keep this phone (at least for now).

The Why and the How of Cable Management

It never fails. I will come to your home or your office for the first time and 9 times out of 10 I will see how badly neglected your cable management is.  Sometimes I feel like I am the only IT person who gives a darn about ugly cables.

Next I will solve 98% of your computer issues and then I’ll politely ask your permission to spend 30-60 minutes re-doing your cables. Why should you let me do this? Because I’ll sleep better at night. No, really, the real reason is that it IS actually important. You have 16 power strips daisy chained together and that is going to be a problem someday. You’ll unplug or step on the switch in the middle of THE most important work you’ve ever created. Then you’ll curse everything and everyone and that gets you nowhere (Trust me). One thing you’ll never see me using is cable ties though. If your IT person uses cable ties, you should fire them immediately. The best tool for the job is Velcro.

You’ll feel better knowing what plug is what and you won’t trip and fall. The best benefit of all? It just looks better.

So Long AT&T

After a few years of incredibly poor network coverage in LA, I have finally decided I’ve had enough.  But if you wanted an iPhone, there simply was no other choice and it doesn’t look like this will change anytime soon. I have tolerated hundreds of dropped calls over the past couple of years. If anyone reading this has tried to carry on a conversation with me while in my car, I simply can’t talk to you. AT&T drops so many of my calls along Sunset Boulevard that I just no longer have any expectation of a call not being dropped.

Perhaps this is a secret plot to get us Los Angelenos to stay off the phone whilst in the car. While I truly believe it’s safer to not use the phone in the car, for small business owners who need to stay in touch with clients, there aren’t a lot of other options.

I found a great site www.cellreception.com where you can read actual users experiences with the different networks in and around Los Angeles.

Just google “at&t dropped calls los angeles” to see how bad it really is.

I’ll be taking my business lines as well as those of my family over to Verizon. I will hopefully have much better results!

Smartphones – Part 3 of 3

Last week I talked about my experiences with the iPhone. Now let’s have a look at a phone few people talk about, at least in the US. The Nokia E71 – unlocked and using on AT&T network in Los Angeles.

Nokia E71

My Thoughts: Nokia sure knows how to build a beautiful, solid device with excellent aesthetics. I get so many compliments and questions about this phone! I ordered this after being frustrated with Blackberry and Apple.

Smartphones – Part 2 of 3

This is  a continuation of last weeks post on smartphones. Last week I talked about the Blackberry and today I’ll be roasting the iPhone. Let’s have a look.

Apple iPhone

My thoughts: Apple sure knows how to do marketing. People line up for everything they produce! As a long time Blackberry user, I too was sucked in to the hype. I waited for the 2^nd generation though and this is my experience.

Smartphones – Part 1 of 3

In my work with clients, I have to know all the ins and outs of nearly every smartphone on the market. Over the years, I have been fortunate to experience firsthand all of these phones and help my clients bring convenience and mobility to their lives. Since I am mostly on the road every day, I also use a smartphone to stay in touch with my clients, my office and my email. Being in this position, my standards tend to be a little higher and I’m a bit more demanding of technology.  In this series, I’ll describe my experiences with each phone I’ve used in the past few years. I’d like to know what you think; perhaps we can all find a phone we’re happy with.

A call from a client “Someone hacked my email account!”

In the past week, several clients have had their email accounts hacked and the overwhelming feeling is one of shock. Questions emerge, how did this happen? Why did it happen to me? I hope to answer some of those questions, as well as describe just one incidence with the hope that you’ll begin to recognize patterns and be able to prevent this from happening to you. First I want to credit a CNN story that ran a few days ago that describes a real situation where a friend’s email was hacked and the culprit sent out a very real sounding request for help. Fortunately, the author noted some issues that just didn’t feel right and because he listened to his gut, was able to avoid making a bad situation worse.