05.09.08
Posted in life, tech at 8:11 pm by mridley
For the past few years I have used speakeasy as an ISP. Although they are pricier than other DSL options, I don’t mind paying a premium for the excellent support and service they provide. A week or two ago my DSL went out. That almost never happens. I called Speakeasy’s 24 hour support line, but it was after hours and so there was a short wait until I could speak with someone.
Instead of making me wait on hold for 10 minutes, their call management system asked if I would like to keep my place in line and receive a call back when they could assist me. I have not had experience with that option before, but it sounded like a great idea so I pressed the button to do that. Sure enough, all I had to do was enter in my phone number and in a few minutes their system called me back and connected me to a support person who resolved my technical issue. For those who are curious, it turned out that some setting in the PVC had become mysteriously mismatched.
While I would rather not have to wait at all when calling customer support numbers, if I have to wait I’d much prefer to have the system call me back than to sit around listening to hold music. I hope many other businesses upgrade their call center telephony applications to support this feature.
On a side note, while I have been a happy speakeasy customer, Verizon FiOS is finally available in my neighborhood so I suspect I will be switching from DSL to fibre in the near future. I’m sure I will miss the speakeasy support, but the faster speed and lower cost of fibre is hard to resist.
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05.05.08
Posted in life at 9:33 pm by mridley
I’ve started my new position doing HP-UX systems engineering for a large defense contract. Normally I shy away from government contracting as it tends to be more politics and less work. But in this case, I’m really enjoying the position. The people are great and there actually is plenty of interesting technical work to do. My background is more with Solaris and Linux so it’s great to have an opportunity to get up to speed on HP-UX. I have used HP UNIX in the past, but it’s been a few years and I’ve never worked in an exclusively HP shop.
In other news, I bought a new car. I had been driving a 1990 Lincoln Town Car, but alas I was driving over to pick up a friend a week ago Saturday, April 26, and a woman driving a PT Cruiser crashed into me and destroyed it. That made me sad. I was thinking of picking up another $500 car on craigslist, but instead I decided to take the plunge and get a car loan.
I have avoided driving new cars for the past number of years, as I got stuck with a high interest new car loan back in 1998 that was an albatross for five years. This time I was a bit savvier and so far am very happy with my decsision. I’m now driving a new 2008 Hyundai Sonata Limited. The 2009 cars were available but much better deals were to be had on the 2008 cars and the difference between the two model years was not sufficient to matter to me.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had a new car and I’m enjoying it. I went with the 6 cylinder engine which is quite sporty. Much sportier than what I really need, but I didn’t want an underpowered car. Although my gas mileage won’t be as fantastic as it would have been with the 4 cylinder, it’s still a big improvement over the Lincoln.
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