After a 50-minute phone call to Optus technical support yesterday, my enquiry was answered in 140 characters or less by the Optus Social Media team.

This is the sad tale of an Optus support call. I’m kicking myself I didn’t record it, because you just can’t invent this stuff. It’s so absolutely absurd that no-one, except those who’ve had the misfortune of ringing Optus for technical support, will believe you.

The problem was quite simple: a customer couldn’t send email. Outlook had just “stopped working”. Receiving email was fine, but sending email was not. The customer is connected to the internet with an Optus cable modem, and uses the Optus mail server and DNS server. This was the error being displayed in Microsoft Outlook when he tried to send a message:

All other internet services were working fine. I stopped and started Outlook, checked the account settings and checked the internet connection. All looked OK.

I could ping the Optus mail server, so I tried to telnet into port 25. (‘Ping’ and ‘telnet’ are basic network diagnostic and management tools.) The response I got from the Optus mail server was: ESMTP not accepting messages. To the technically-minded, and even the not-so-technically-minded, this means there’s a problem with the mail server. It’s “not accepting messages”. Pretty simple. Not much room for negotiation there, and not much more fault-finding to be done at this end.

I Googled “optus outage information” and found this site which told me there were no current issues with Optus email.

I thought (naively, in hindsight) I should ring Optus and at least alert them to the issue, and find out if I could use a different mail server in the interim. I was actually hoping to hear a canned message, like, “If you’re calling in relation to email difficulties, please be aware we are experiencing problems at the moment with… blah blah blah.” That’s all I wanted: a quick explanation, an expected outage time and a possible remedy.

My call to 1800 780 219 was answered promptly and it was pretty good quality to Mumbai. I provided the customer’s account details, and I explained to the helpdesk operator I was a technical support person, that we had a mutual customer, and it appeared the Optus SMTP server was down. I told him the error I was getting in Outlook, and the error I was getting by connecting via telnet. I asked if maybe there was an alternative mail server I could use, until the problem had been fixed?

At that point the call derailed rather badly. The next fifty minutes consisted of questions and suggestions (and my responses in italics) like the following. These were all interspersed with BEING PUT ON HOLD for up to 5 minutes at a time:

“We’ll try deleting all your mail in Outlook, and restarting Outlook.” “We won’t be deleting any mail today. It’s not a problem with Outlook, or the customer’s email. It’s a problem with your SMTP server.”

“Let’s create a new mail account in Outlook, that should fix the problem.” “It won’t, but I’ll do it anyway if helps to escalate the problem at your end.” Surprisingly, a new mail account with the same settings didn’t fix the problem.

“I will change the password on the customer’s account, let’s try that.” “But SMTP doesn’t need a password, we’re not using SMTP authentication.” (Password changed anyway.)

“You need to delete all your cookies and browser history, that should fix it.” “Ummm no it won’t. But I’ll do it anyway if it progresses your script.” (Done anyway FWIW. No difference.)

He asked if I could try the same test from another mail client, or on another machine on the customer’s network. I didn’t think that would achieve anything either, other than to check DNS resolution on an independent machine, but did it anyway. There was (predictably) no change in the response from Optus’s SMTP server.

I asked if the mail server name I was using was correct. He assured me it was.

I asked if I could email the help desk operator a screen-grab of the error messages. ”No, we don’t have email here.” (“Where are you, are you in Melbourne?” “No, I’m in Mumbai.” “Hmmm we have email in Melbourne, are you sure you don’t have email in Mumbai?”)

I asked if he could ping the mail server from his end. “No, we can’t do that from here.”

I asked if he could telnet into the mail server. “No, we don’t have telnet here.” I asked if he was familiar with telnet, and if he understood the tests I was performing here. He assured me he was, and that he understood. Then he asked me to check settings in Outlook again.

I was pinging the mail server name, and read out the IP address of the mail server. I asked him if the mail server name was resolving to the correct IP address? He said it was.

I asked him if the mail server name resolved to a different IP address on *his* network. He said he didn’t know, and suggested making more changes to Microsoft Outlook.

And then, my favourite, about 40 minutes into the call: “Actually, can I just check that you have access to the internet please?”

After this last question I forced myself to take a deep breath, and appealed (in a calm, steady voice) for the operator to think before the next time he spoke. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “After all the tests we’ve done, I guess you do have internet access.” Yep. Good guess.

The help desk operator steadfastly refused to concede there may have been a network problem. I honestly don’t know how I could have explained the issue any clearer. He seemed to understand what I was saying – there was no language barrier – but he kept repeating he had checked with “the engineers” and there was no issue with the Optus mail server.

I asked if there was a better network outage page I could monitor, in case an issue was discovered and later resolved. He said there was nowhere I could go on the World Wide Web to monitor service disruptions or outages on Optus Internet. I asked him if he was serious, and he laughed.

Eventually I said I’d just have to wait to see if the server came back. I said I’d like to wait on the line to answer a few questions in the automated customer survey at the end of the call. He said, “Okay, thankyou for calling Optus.” Click. Beep beep beep.

Now for the kicker: just as I was explaining the situation to my customer, Optus Social Media replied to a tweet they had seen. (I was tweeting vehemently about this sad and sorry tale whilst on hold). Here is the response from Optus Social Media:

I was speechless, dumbfounded, flabbergasted and a little bit pissed off.

To ask the most obvious of obvious questions, why couldn’t the help desk operator have told me this 50 minutes previously, in the first 90 seconds of my phone call?

Here’s what have I learnt from this experience:

• Social Media and Lazywebs will now be my first port-of-call for any technical support enquiry with Optus;
• I will actively discourage people from becoming Optus internet customers; and
• I will actively encourage existing Optus customers to churn to an ISP that offers better technical support than this.

What the hell would have happened if the customer (not being technically minded) had called Optus Support and followed their instructions? He would have deleted all his email, probably his mail account settings, screwed-up Outlook, and never actually achieved anything. This was not a difficult support call to resolve, from the point-of-view of the customer. There should be mechanisms in place for outage information to be shared across call centres, help lines and web sites. Quite clearly, at Optus, there isn’t.

No-one really cares if ISPs have a service disruption. Unplanned outages are inevitable in the IT industry. But for goodness sake, Optus should be able to manage them a lot better than this. If this is characteristic of the help desk support afforded by the telco, it probably goes some way to explaining news headlines we’ve seen throughout the year, like this and this.

Credit where credit is due, and kudos to the Optus Social Media team for monitoring Twitter and responding appropriately and in a timely fashion.

Unfortunately, after 15 years of providing cable internet to Australian subscribers, the rest of the organisation still has a lot to learn.

awkward moments · customer support · email · fail · help desk · Internet · internet support · mail · mail.optusnet.com.au · Optus · outage · poor customer support · SMTP · social media

This is a cursory, “first impressions” post about the latest social networking craze, Google+.

Facebook should be very concerned.  So should LinkedIn.  Google’s latest foray into social networking has all the hallmarks of a Facebook-esque social network but with safety and security at the forefront of the user experience.  Maybe they’ve learned from the failed Google Buzz in this regard?

Then again, maybe not.

Here are a few things I just had to get off my chest:

Gripe one: Instant Upload.

I’ve loaded the Google+ application on my Android-powered smartphone. It’s nice and uncluttered, and easy to use. It looks a bit like this:

However, without informing me or asking permission, the Google+ application uploads any photo I’ve taken to my Google+ account. Granted, it doesn’t publish these photos or make them visible, but when I log in to Google+ I get a notification which alerts me to the fact that new photos are waiting to be published:

You can turn this off in the Google+ app, by going into photos, pressing Menu, and unchecking “Instant Upload”. The problem IMHO is that when it installs, it defaults to ‘on’.

This is a bit spooky, like the uncle you always avoided as a kid, that said inappropriate things at Christmas dinner. It just makes you uncomfortable, and there’s no need for it.

Gripe two: User Invitations.

Whenever you share something with a “circle” (in Facebook-speak, post something on your wall), Google+ defaults to asking if you want to “Also email 124 friends not yet using Google+” or however many friends are in the circle but don’t have a Google+ account.  My 124 friends are now complaining that I am continually sending them Google spam, because every time I undertake a task or share something new, all my non-Gmail friends get a Google+ invitation.

It might be more user-friendly to send an invitation to a non-Gmail friend as a once off, rather than every time I do something.

I understand I can just uncheck this checkbox, but again, I don’t think it should default to being ‘on’.  And anyway, a mouse click is a mouse click, right?

Gripe three: Duplicate Contacts.

This isn’t strictly a Google+ problem; but we all have duplicate contacts in our address books, and the problem is exacerbated by Google+ and its circles. If you create a “Tech Talk” circle for example, you might find you’re dragging Dr Ron into the circle three, four, or maybe five times, because of separate contacts you’ve saved for Dr Ron with different phone numbers, email addresses, Facebook accounts and so on.

This is where I think Android has nailed it, with its ability to link multiple accounts and address book entries. Despite five “Dr Ron” contacts, they only appear as one consolidated contact in my contact list. (Thank goodness.)

And seeing as my Android contacts are my Gmail contacts, and my Gmail contacts are my Android contacts, can we somehow get these links pushed into Google+?  Thanks, that would be awesome.

To be continued…

Otherwise, Google+ is working well. It’s also still in beta, and has a long way to go. But I think it’s got a lot more promise than previous social networking attempts like Wave and Buzz.

More soon.

facebook · google · Google Android · Google Phone · HTC · social media · Social Networking

Well.

Where do I start?

I’ve been joking recently about having three full-time jobs. I’ve been employed by the Victorian Government in my current role for nearly seven years. This has been hugely rewarding and I have enjoyed the job immensely. It’s a job which involves shift work, overtime, on-call duties, and accounts for a large portion of my life. It also pays the bills, lets me buy clothes, food, that sort of stuff. I will refer to this as Full Time Job #1.

Also about seven years ago, I caught-up with a long-time friend who I had known since high school (let’s call him Andrew). Andrew has worked in the television production industry for many years. We’d been chatting over coffee about computers, mobile telephones and the state-of-the-fledgling internet. We marvelled at Pentium-powered desktops, the brilliance of Microsoft Office 2003, and how you could access email from your mobile telephone using a technology called GPRS, without making a phone call.

Andrew had, at the time, been speaking about technology on Melbourne radio station 3AK with Brett de Hoedt. Andrew suggested we continue our coffee-talk in front of microphones at a community radio station. I thought that sounded like fun, and on the 29th of November 2004, Tech Talk Radio was born. Tech Talk Radio is a lot of fun, but it’s very time-consuming. It’s akin to a full-time job, which for the purposes of the exercise, I shall call Full Time Job #2.

I’ve always wanted to do a lot more with Tech Talk Radio, in terms of production, interviews, sponsorship, syndication, guests and research. I think we all do as much as we possibly can at the moment, but tempered (and rightly so) with a view to maintaining our sanity, our families, our other full-time jobs, a healthy amount of fibre in our diets, and so on.

Recently, the opportunity arose to help Andrew with a small television project*.

“But,” I said, “This sounds like another full-time job. I already have a full-time job. I’ve got two, in fact.” I shall call this fledgling proposal Full Time Job #3.

So a decision needed to be made.

After much soul-searching, spousal negotiation and visits to the accountant, I’ve devised a cunning plan; just how cunning, only time will tell.

FTJ #1 has been good enough to let me take leave without pay, while keeping open my existing position. The leave period is effectively until the end of this year. I started leave at FTJ #1 yesterday, which was Friday the 27th of May. I will have to go back in for a few days here and there, but that’s part of the deal. I am effectively now on leave from FTJ #1 for seven months.

FTJ #2 will now combine with FTJ #3. I have registered a new company, and will be working until the end of the year doing full-time Tech Talk.

The mind boggles. Am I serious? Yes. Am I insane? Probably. I’ll be doing some freelance I.T. and telecommunications consulting as well, to keep the bills paid and food on the table.

It’s a nervous and exciting time. I’m in an extraordinarily fortunate position of being able to return to FTJ #1 if things don’t work out. But I’m feeling very optimistic about things, and I’m looking forward to the next seven months with copious quantities of zeal.

As one learned colleague said to me last night, “You don’t want to die wondering.”

Words of wisdom indeed. Stay tuned.

*to be continued....

social media · Tech Talk Radio · TTR

Like many of you in cyberspace, I’ve spent hours… days… weeks… even months of my life, wilfing on YouTube.

There’s the occasional smirk-worthy video, there’s the all-too-common blatant copyright ripoff, and there’s a heap of garbage which you BACK or NEXT after the first few seconds. I’m certain that I’m guilty of posting each of these types of material at various times.

On rare occasions, you actually find something on YouTube that’s worth adding as a Favourite. Sometimes you even hit Play Again. Occasionally, you literally LOL, and you’re compelled to share a YouTube link on Twitter or Facebook.

Here, then, are ten YouTube videos that I consider worthy of sharing.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

The Mummy / Daddy Song

Every parent’s worst nightmare. Watch until the 1st minute mark.

Be warned, the tune is strangely addictive.

VW commercial

This is hilarious. Darth Vader uses The Force, in his own inimitable fashion.

It’s only clocked-up a lazy 29 million hits.

Ford Sportka commercials

Cat lovers, ornithologists, look away now.

Were these really released by Ford? Yes and no. See what Snopes has to say.

The Man Cold

A short clip from the British TV comedy sketch show, Man Stroke Woman.

For women everywhere that don’t understand what it means for a man to have a cold. And for men everywhere, who know exactly what it means.

Torn

Mr Johann Lippowitz, an “interpretative mime”, performs Natalie Imbruglia’s hit “Torn”.

…and of course, with the great lady herself:

Toto’s Africa by Perpetuum Jazzile

Who needs foley artists when your choir is this talented?

Pomplamoose

The Pomplamoose channel has a heap of home-crafted cover songs, arranged and performed by talented musicians Nataly and Jack.

Their catchy, quirky, toe-tappin’ tunes will keep you amused for hours.

You mightn’t be a fan of Lady Gaga, but you’ll be sure to love this arrangement.

Eddie Izzard’s Death Star Canteen & Lego animation

(Audio not safe for work!)

With nearly 13 million hits, this is a YouTube classic.

A Lego animation of comedian Eddie Izzard talking about the ‘Death Star Canteen’.

Every Day … Telstra needs to Go Forward

Former Telstra CEO and oft-described Mexican Bandit Sol Trujilo says a very odd thing.

Notice what he said? He wants to make sure that ARPU sustains itself, or even grows.

The Honda Cog Commercial

And last but not least: this one has been around for a while, but it’s still very clever.

That is all. Now back to work.

facebook · funny · social media · Social Networking · telstra · Twitter · YouTube

I was forced to get cranky last week, when a trip to Village Gold Class at Doncaster proved to be a disappointing and nauseating experience.

It was nauseating quite literally, as someone appeared to have propped-up the projector with an old washing machine stuck permanently on its unbalanced spin cycle.  From the moment we were shown to our seats when the infomercials, advertisements and trailers began, the picture on the big screen was blurry, unfocussed, and appeared to have some sort of “vertical hold” problem; it was jittery and altogether unwatchable.

Hoping it was just the trailers, we waited until the movie started: The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter. After ten minutes of flicker and flutter, I hit the call button and politely informed the attendant (or do you still call them ushers?) that the picture was jumping around. She said she’d “place a call to the bio box,” or words to that effect.  Other people complained too.

Unfortunately, for the remainder of the movie, the problem was neither fixed nor improved. It was blindingly obvious against titles, where clear white text against dark backgrounds should have looked crisp and clear. Instead, it looked fuzzy and just made me feel motion sick.

We waited around at the end of the movie to voice our discontent, as did several other patrons. A manager, feigning interest, refused to refund the cost of our tickets, as if it was our fault somehow, but offered to record our details and have someone “investigate the problem”.

The next day I received a phone call from someone purporting to be a projectionist at Village Cinemas. He was most apologetic, and said the problem was due to “poor film stock” and “a misaligned screw in the projector”. He offered to send us complimentary Gold Class tickets and thanked me for bringing the problem to his attention.

The complimentary tickets are yet to arrive.

Sadly though, I can’t re-live the experience of seeing a movie for the first time. There’s a reason why people pay the extra bucks to enjoy the experience at Gold Class, and contrary to the description on their website, they’re still a long way from providing the “ultimate in movie indulgence”.

awkward moments · gold class · village

Over the Christmas / New Year break, Tech Talk panelists are taking time away from the studio.

During this time, we’re running a “best of” series which showcases highlights from the last few years.

So far, we’ve heard from:

Georgia Simmons, representing the Telstra Foundation;

Graham Henley from GetData;

Michael Crimean, a professional audio engineer;

Adam Turner attending the launch of the HTC Magic in Sydney, as well as the launch of Apple’s iPad and the opening of Apple’s Bondi store in Sydney;

George Pongas, the COO of ISP Domain Central;

Dr James Chon, representing Swinburne University;

Alan Eade from St John Ambulance (Victoria);

Mark Mayer, retired QANTAS airline pilot;

Jeff Alexander and David Glover from Microsoft;

Closet Tech Geek Sally Cockburn (aka “Dr Feelgood“);

Sandrina Branton from BMC Software;

European Correspondent Matthew Robinson;

Gaming expert Leena van Deventer;

Luke Durham from Switch Media, and Adrian Britton from HostWorks;

Independent technology journalist Anthony Caruana;

…as well as select Panel discussions, websites, gadgets and Odd Spots, and entertaining and informative Views from the Couch.

Next week we’ll re-visit the last episode of 2010, and Tech Talk’s inaugural Outside Broadcast, which went to-air live from the Sofia Family Restaurant in December.

We’ll all be back live in the studio on the 14th of February.  Rumours that former Tech Talk panelist Mark Diggins is back in the country are largely founded… stay tuned!

adam turner · apple · Microsoft · Outside Broadcast · social media · Social Networking · Summer Series · Tech Talk Radio · telstra · TTR · Twitter · windows 7

And they said it’d never happen!

After much speculation, rumour and conjecture, it all become a reality on Monday the 6th of December.  The first Tech Talk Radio Outside Broadcast took place at Sofia Family Restaurant in Burwood East.

We were all blown away by the massive turnout.  It was a lot of work, but heaps of fun.  For the first time we could put faces to names, and had a chance to meet “the regulars” who lurk in the chat, post on the forum and send email contributions on a weekly basis.

View from The Panel. OMG... who *are* all these people?!

Importantly, the O.B. was a successful proof-of-concept for us, from a technical standpoint.  We were using traditional audio equipment (a mixing desk, headset microphones, wireless microphones, effects microphones, speakers, amplifiers, compressors and limiters) as well as new linking equipment that we tested for the first time on the 22nd of November in Episode 47.  We used professional STL software called AudioTX Communicator.  This software provides bi-directional high quality audio over any IP-based network.  A laptop in Sofia was our “transmitter” and this connected to a computer in the radio studio at 3WBC via the Telstra NextG network.  The entire 2-hour programme used about 200 MB of data each way.

Graeme's mixing desk, microphone switch and CD players

Long-time friend of Tech Talk radio, and US correspondent Lidija Davis was hooked-up via Skype on Andrew’s laptop.

We even installed some impromptu lighting to brighten-up The Panel:

DIY studio lighting, the Tech Talk Radio way!

Thankyou

There are many people that need to be thanked, and without whose help the O.B. would not have been the success that it was:

• Stephanie Stewart, at NetComm Australia, for donating the magnificent MyZone Hot Spot door prize, as well as truck-loads of pens and jelly beans;
• Microsoft’s Michael Kordahi, from popular technology podcast Frankly Speaking, for donating a copy of Microsoft Office 2010; and
• 2K Games for the massive swag including copies of Mafia 2, as well as keyrings, pens, matching cufflinks;  Bioshock; copies of The Bigs 2 Baseball; copies of Carnival Games; Sid Meier’s Pirates; Super Game Day; Civilization V; NBA 2K11; and much, much more!

The Swag - thankyou to all our sponsors for their support and generosity

Thankyou also to Phil at the 3WBC studio, for pushing faders and pressing buttons, and making sure the programme went live-to-air.

And, of course, everyone that rolled-up to make the evening what it was.  Without you, there would be no programme.

We’ll be back in 2011.  In the meantime, enjoy the Summer Series, which showcases highlights from this year’s episodes.

OB · Outside Broadcast · Social Networking · Sofia · Sponsors · Tech Talk Radio · TTR

Over the course of last week, long-time Tech Talk Radio contributor Adam Turner found himself in the middle of an “election-night social networking scandal” because of comments he posted on the popular micro-blogging service Twitter.

Or so the ABC’s Media Watch would have you believe.

In Episode 30, which broadcast on Monday the 30th of August, Adam received a lambasting from the programme’s host, Paul Barry, for making personal remarks about the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.  In the context of the Opposition Leader saying this:

“There should be no premature triumphalism tonight, there should simply be an appreciation that this has been a great night for the Australian people…”

…Adam duly described Tony Abbott as a “cocksucker”, and an “arsehole”.

Here’s the Media Watch segment in question.

Put simply, Adam made some comments which he now regrets.

Unfortunately for everyone, a Liberal Party supporter saw the comments.  The same supporter also complained to Media Watch.  Someone then complained to Fairfax, who Adam writes for.

The very same Liberal Party supporter then posted this on Twitter:

Hahahaha – I reported @adam_turner to media watch, and they’re playing it! #mediawatch

I think there are a number of issues at stake here:

• A journalist’s right to express a personal opinion;
• The issue of Media Watch running a story, driven by somebody’s political agenda;
• The issue of what is, and isn’t, newsworthy; and
• The hypocrisy of someone complaining to Media Watch about two offensive tweets, then gloating/tweeting like a child because they got someone in trouble.

It’s impossible for me to make an independent, objective comment about the situation, because I know Adam well, and he writes weekly for Tech Talk Radio.  So anything I say won’t be independent, and probably won’t be objective.

What I will say is that it must have been a slow news week.

Also; that mainstream media clearly still doesn’t understand the function of social media, and its place in our lives. Just because someone writes independent product reviews, or publishes objective commentary for a living, doesn’t mean that they don’t have, or can’t have, personal opinions.

Here, then, are some independent websites and blogs which offer opinions about (what I think is) a storm-in-a-teacup:

• Woolly Days blog, by Derek Barry, blogger and journalist working for Queensland’s The Western Star;
• IT Wire blog: Twitter becomes the new oracle of the media by Stan Beer;
• Wolfcat’s Random Rants: when does a freelance tech journo’s point of view on politics matter;
• Machine Gun Keyboard: Portrait of a douchebag: how Media Watch got used to grind an axe;

…and I’m sure you’ll find more yourself, with some judicious Googling.

Yes, of course Adam will continue to contribute to Tech Talk Radio.  His weekly opinions and insight are highly valued, by our audience and the rest of The Panel.  He is an important member of the team.

I think a popular Melbourne Twitterer summed it up well with this 140-character insight:

One day mainstream news will understand the context of social media. That day is not today.

abc · adam turner · Media Watch · Paul Barry · Robert Candelori · social media · Social Networking · Tech Talk Radio · Twitter · View from the Couch

apple · giveaway · iPad

awkward moments · funny · motivational