Alpine Access

[jareth-gk.livejournal.com]

Anyone hear anything bad about a company called Alpine Access? I think it is more of a Customer Service oriented type phone work as opposed to a Tech job, but I hoped some of you may have more info on it.

Their website is:
www.alpineaccess.com

I have a friend that works it from home (as apparently all of them do... mostly a telecommute job), and they say it is a great biz. Any advice from anyone about this?

x Jeremy M.

Manuals should look like Hello! magazine.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

We all know that end-users never read manuals. Perhaps it's pride, perhaps it's a lifetime aversion to print or learning.

I figure there's got to be a way to turn this around. To get these users to cleave to their precious manuals as if they were the One Ring itself.

We really need to present and market the manuals differently. Instead of making them look like scary technical tomes, they should have covers which proclaim their value to be hundreds, if not thousands of dollars (worth of techsupport's time and stress). They should have shiny gold bits and an ability to attract magpies and jackdaws. They should be able to blind the Queer Eye guys at fifty paces with their lack of taste and subtlety. Inside should be lots of oversaturated pictures of various kit

In short, such manuals should call out to these illiterate oxygen thieves to pore over each page with glittering eyes every time they have a problem, or every time they walk past. They should attract with cover headlines like "Save $1000s (sic) of dollars!" and "Never wait on the phone again!" and "Everything you need to know!" - lots of exclamation marks, you know the style.

These abominations could be mailed out to tards with a history of calling again and again. The damn things should be so desirable that the grunting mouthbreathers should steal the damn things from each other just to drool over the glitter.

Which reminds me - the same thing, in a muted 1930s handbook style, could be put together for the ancient dears with calcified mental processes who call up with the same problem they had yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. Make it look like a Mrs Beeton's Household Manual, or a radio manual for the great-grandads.

Stealth manuals, by any other name. What do you think?

Color scheme

[bamatone.livejournal.com]

Hey guys and gals,

I've been an avid reader of this community for a while, but one thing bugs me everytime I visit. The dark background and dark text just wreak havoc on my eyes. Is there anyway the moderator/admin can lighten it up a bit?

Of course if I'm in the minority here, I understand. Don't want to start a riot or anything. Just thought maybe I was part of a silent majority or something. :P

In the meantime I'll share one of the things that's causing me grief lately... We use Outlook 2003, and while it really is a huge improvement over previous versions, it has this annoying feature that allows you to "work offline." I suppose it's valuable for someone, but not for us. In fact, it's so easy to "work offline" that users here do it without even realizing it and then call us for help. All you have to do is click in the bottom right hand corner of the status bar and uncheck "work offline." Jeers to MS for making it so easy, and jeers to lusers for not realizing what they've done. (And jeers to the luser who had her status bar set not to show so I couldn't easily resolve it for her over the phone. Had to go to her desk and see why there was option, doh.) Anyway, it's not that bad. Just another annoying thing to tack on to the list.

P.S. There's this guy a few chairs down who constantly snorts... wtf is up with that? Ugh..

Can we spoof ourselves

[anivair.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine just got this jem from support.

*****
To Product Support:
"I'm having a problem with Microsoft Works 8 spreadsheet interacting with my printer. When I try to print or print preview a file in MS Works 8 spreadsheet I get an error message stating "Print driver missing or not valid. Run Windows Setup to install the printer software again." However, Works 8 spreadsheet is the only program that does not recognize my printer. All my Office 2003 programs use it without complication. Can you help me fix this?"
Printer: HP Deskjst 3740 (serial number given)
Application: MS Works 8, spreadsheet (serial number given)

Dear valued customer:
"I understand that you've recieved an error message "No default printer; Selected Printer is missing or invalid" while trying to print from Microsoft Works. When trying to print from Works 4.0, 4.5 or 4.5a you recieve one of these error messages when your print resolution is set above 1400dpi. To correct this problem, use a lower print resolution.
- Click Stat, go to Control Panel and click Printers and Faxes.
- With your right mouse button, clike the default printer, then click Properties.
- Click the Paper/Quality tab.
- Change the print quality to fast draft or normal draft.
- Click Apply, then click Okay.

Your Works document should now open, preview and print without error."
*****

Wow. I'm in awe.

(no subject)

[japester.livejournal.com]

I love it when I can convince people to throw out old broken hardware and replace it with shiny new kit.
Especially when it's a researcher. They have a tendency to get sentimentally attached to their toys and use them well past their use by date. Being short of available funding certainly has its influence there. It's a continuous problem here at Researchers are Us, getting people to upgrade their out of warranty POS.

Today, we get to dispose of:
1. powerbook 500 - busted motherboard due to repeated insertion of 'something' into the power socket and a bent chassis which causes the battery to never stay in.
2. powerbook 800 - dropped one too many times. It now has no screen.

and replace them with:
1. New 15" powerbook with fruit.
2. G5 iMac without fruit
3. 14" iBook.

I'm happy because I will no longer have to support the poor worn out powerbooks. Instead they shall join the other bits of dead hardware in my cupboard. or maybe amalgamated into a franken-puter of sorts and turned into a headless mp3 server. At work of course! Anything else would be ... unsayable.