[if(is_geek)…]

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a usability expert and, in general, I think that there is too much talk about usability with little real benefit. However, as a good computer scientist, I believe that it is an important part of software engineering. There are people who know a hell of a lot about it and I tend to rely on them to make the appropriate decisions regarding how I should be making my software more usable. This is quite odd. In most other aspects of development, I like to question things and learn the bits I don’t know very well. When it comes to usability, however, I have always been happy to let someone else do the thinking.

Recently though, I have started to pay more attention to usability – in software and in other aspects of life. The image to the right is of my television and associated devices (apologies for the blur). I was looking at this tonight and I started wondering why those of us who work with software are so concerned with usability when it seems like no one else is. Let’s take a look at the various indicator lights that are visible in this picture. First off, there’s my Wii. It is in standby mode and is displaying an amber light. That makes sense, right? It’s not fully on and not fully off. So, amber indicates standby. Below that is my stereo receiver. It is on and has a green light on it. Again, this makes logical sense. Then there is my TV. It is on but it sports a red light to indicate the on state. Finally, in the lower right is my satellite receiver which has both a green and an amber light on it. This would seem to indicate a state somewhere between standby and on, but the device is fully on.

So, has a single sale of one of these devices ever been lost due to the lack of usability the indicator lights represent? I highly doubt it. I also don’t know anyone who has ever test-driven a television’s menus before purchase. Sure, we probably see the menus when the sales guy is talking to us about resolution and contrast ratio, but we’re not paying attention to that. We completely ignore the usability aspects of these common items because we are more concerned with how well the device does its primary function. In the case of a television, we only care about how good the picture looks.

Why then do we as software developers hold ourselves, in theory anyway, to such a higher standard? Why is usability so much more important with software than other products? Could it be a hold over from the days when there was resistance to computers from older generations? Perhaps when there was widespread resistance to anything to do with computers there was a much greater need to make the applications on the computers so amazingly easy to use in order for their benefit to be readily apparent. If so, do we still need to try so hard?

Perhaps it has nothing to do with the user and everything to do with the software. With non-software items it is usually very easy to describe what they do in a short sentence. What does your television do? It allows me to watch shows and movies. What does your razor do? It shaves my facial hair. Now, think about the software you use. Can you easily describe the function of the software the same? Firefox lets me view web pages. It also lets me search Google. It shows me videos. It plays Flash games. The list goes on. Could usability be a problem for software because we are simply trying to jam too much functionality into our applications?

There is an example from the non-software world which makes me think this might be the case. Think of a Swiss Army Knife. You can’t easily describe all of its functions in a single sentence. You also cannot say that the damn thing is in any way a usability success. It is a pain in the ass to use, but it saves you from carrying more stuff. Maybe the answer to software usability is not massive amounts of research and testing to make a Swiss Army Knife application a little more usable. Maybe the answer is to make our applications simpler and make more of them. The popularity of gadgets/widgets and the thousands of wee little Facebook applications could be an indication that this is true.

I don’t know if any of this is really relevant to a discussion on usability, but it is the way things look to me. I have many powerful applications on my computer, but I do tend to prefer using a dashboard widget if available. I tend to frequent websites that focus on one thing and do it really well. It might very well be that what we perceive as usability issues are just a case of Jack of all trades, master of none. If anyone more enlightened on the subject that me has some additional insights, please leave me some comments.

This is the last post on my battle to get an iPhone for myself and a Blackberry Pearl Flip for my wife from Roger’s wireless. Previous episodes: Episode 1: The Phantom iPhone, Episode 2: A Lack of a Phone, Episode 3: Revenge of the Pissed, Episode 4: A New Phone, Episode 5: The Empire Bills Back, Episode 6: Return of the Mad Guy, Episode 7: Seeing Red and Episode 8: Resolution

Altogether it took several months and endless frustration for me to get everything sorted out with Roger’s. Going just by the numbers, I actually made some money on the whole ordeal, if you assume that all of the time I wasted was without value. Of course, all of the time I was forced to waste on this is time that I wish I had not lost. Despite the massive amount of time I have lost to this, I still think that they got the worse end of the deal. I have heard from about a dozen people who have sworn, after reading this saga, that they will never deal with Roger’s themselves. Countless other people have told me that they have made similar oaths prior to ever reading of my experiences. I just cannot understand how a company can be so cavalier about treating customers so poorly.

So, where do I find myself now? Well, there have been a few more phone calls to the beast since the official end to this saga (I consider getting them to refund half the cost of the phone to be the true resolution). First of all, it took me a while to get the two $10 / month credits working properly. At some point along the line, someone removed and re-added these credits, but they only managed to get them to stick to one phone, not both. Also, I have found it more and more difficult to actually contact them when needed. It appears that they have made it so that their 1-888-ROGERS1 number is not accessible from devices on their network. I even had a couple of other Roger’s customers I know try and they got the same “this call cannot be completed” message that I did. The number works perfectly from a land line, so they have obviously blocked access in favour of calling *611 from a Roger’s device. That would be great if they still had the *611 number listed on their site anywhere. Useful.

Finally, and perhaps most depressing, it turns out that the Blackberry Pearl flip is a ripe piece of shit. The Pearl was the sole reason why we went with Roger’s for the iPhone instead of Fido, like a few people recommended. Lindsay has had no end of trouble with the damn thing. So, maybe I didn’t come out on top after all.

I will now finally be able to get back to blogging about tech stuff without this mess hanging over me. There has been plenty I have wanted to touch on but have not because, well, I really wanted to finish this damn story once and for all. As the final word on it all, I’ll quote from a comment on Episode 8…

Here’s your epilogue, “Don’t Buy From Rogers”
–Ralph Marchildon

This is part 8 of a multi-part post on my battle to get an iPhone for myself and a Blackberry Pearl Flip for my wife from Roger’s wireless. Previous episodes: Episode 1: The Phantom iPhone, Episode 2: A Lack of a Phone, Episode 3: Revenge of the Pissed, Episode 4: A New Phone, Episode 5: The Empire Bills Back, Episode 6: Return of the Mad Guy, Episode 7: Seeing Red.

The last episode ended with me being seven business days from finally getting the last issue with Roger’s resolved: the missing six months of warranty. After waiting with great anticipation, I dialed the phone. Even after all of this time (four months in total by now) I was somehow still optimistic that they would finally come through for me. The number I dialed was the direct line to the Resolve department and it connected me with the ordinary phone queue and eventually an ordinary customer service rep. Oh well, I didn’t really need to talk to someone in the Resolve department, right? Any old monkey could check my account to see if everything had been resolved. Sure enough, the woman I was talking to was able to look up my account and….nope. There was no resolution to the UPS investigation. No credit on the account for the original phone. No new phone inbound to me. I started over and told my whole story for the umpteenth time. She couldn’t help me. All of that, especially the new phone, would have to be handled through the Resolve department. So I waited patiently for a transfer.

The Resolve department rep I was connected to told me her name was Megan. Megan had a great deal of trouble entering my phone number into the system correctly. After three tries she finally got it right and put me on hold for 10 minutes while she read over the history of my file. I know that the music they play on hold is chosen to be soothing and put me at ease. Somehow knowing that just made me really angry. I was not wanting to be soothed, I was wanting to be helped.

Megan returned to the line to give me some good news: the charge for the original iPhone had been reversed! Excellent! How about the late payment charges? (I might have forgot this bit in the last episode – they had been charging me for late payments ever since the extra $250 appeared on my bill. I had explained to them there was no way I was going to give them an extra $250 just to avoid being unfairly charged for late payments. They didn’t get it and kept on charging me.) Negative on the late payment charges. How about the new phone? Nope. Megan told me that had to be done through customer service, not resolve. Exactly the opposite of what customer service had said. Awesome. Transfer time.

Megan hung up on me.

I call again, this time trying to get to customer service. Katherine is there to assist me. Yet again I tell my whole tale. Can she help me? Nope. It isn’t customer service that can help me, it is customer relations. Customer relations is also known as the resolve department. sigh. I hold my breath this time as I am transferred to…

Isabel. Again I tell my tale. I am no longer in the mood to be helped. I am in the mood for an ultimatum. “Isabel,” I said as politely as I could, “you really only have three options now. I paid for a brand new phone with a one-year warranty and I did not get it. So, you can either 1) send me a brand new phone with one-year warranty intact, 2) credit my account for one-half the original cost of my phone since I am only getting half of the warranty I was promised or 3) extend the warranty on my current, refurbished phone to a full year.” She told me she would see what she could do and placed me on hold.

I am not sure what I was expecting to hear when she came back online, but I wasn’t expecting what she told me. She told me that they were placing a credit on my account for $150 to cover half the price of the phone. Furthermore, she was placing $30 worth of credits on my account for the erroneous late payment charges. Finally, she was going to put a long note on my account indicating that if I ever call in again with problems, I am to be transferred to the customer relations department where they will provide me with a new phone at the lowest possible rate.

I am not sure that I believe all of her promises, as I have been fooled by them plenty before. However, the credits she promised all appeared on my bill. All told, I ended up paying them $199 for the iPhone and $49 for the Blackberry. They then applied $320 worth of credits to my account, plus $10 / month /phone for three years (totaling $720 over the course of the contract) and whatever the unlimited local calling and unlimited data would have been worth. On the balance sheet I came out ahead of the game but I am not sure whether or not all of the pain and trouble was worth it.

Some final thoughts and reflection on the whole ordeal is next, in the Epilogue.

Update 07/27/2009: Roger’s Wars Epilogue has been released.

This is part 7 of a multi-part post on my battle to get an iPhone for myself and a Blackberry Pearl Flip for my wife from Roger’s wireless. Previous episodes: Episode 1: The Phantom iPhone, Episode 2: A Lack of a Phone, Episode 3: Revenge of the Pissed, Episode 4: A New Phone, Episode 5: The Empire Bills Back, Episode 6: Return of the Mad Guy.

At the end of the previous episode, I was left with my warranty situation unresolved due to the UPS investigation not being completed. A helpful woman had agreed, after I informed her it was not my responsibility, to chase down the issue with UPS and get some resolution for me. It looked like I was finally on the way to getting a brand new phone with a full 1-year warranty. At this point I should have known better.

I received a new bill in the mail before the call (which I just knew was going to come this time) regarding the UPS resolution had a chance to come in. Upon opening the bill I was greeted with a new horror to get my blood boiling. This bill had a brand new $549 hardware upgrade charge on it. You see, they had originally charged me $250 for my new iPhone. Here now they charged me $549 for the lost/stolen replacement phone. I was given an account credit of $300 to bring the $549 down to the $250 that the phone should have been. However, they never bothered to reverse the original $250 charge. So, I was being charged $500 for a $250 phone. I dialed them up.

It took the guy on the phone 20 minutes to get everything figured out. His answer was that I was not charged $500, I was charged $250 and I was forgetting about the $300 credit. I told him I was not forgetting it. I explained that $250 + $549 – $300 was $499. The phone was supposed to be $250. He was silent. I repeated the math for him a little slower this time. He asked me to hold. I sat on hold for 20 minutes until an automated voice came on to tell me that the location was now closed and I was disconnected.

I dialed again and was connected to a call centre that was still open. A quick summary of my previous call got me a $15 account credit and a transfer to the resolve department. An automated voice told me that I could expect to wait around 30 minutes. I didn’t have 30 minutes so I hang up.

The next day I called in and asked for a transfer to the resolve department and found myself transferred to the track and trace line. The woman on the line, Kelly, told me that I did have the right place. Apparently their building is called “Resolve” so everyone calls their department that, even though it is not called that. Exciting information! I explained everything again from the top. She seemed to be following me better than the others had. She found the discount that was applied to the BlackBerry, was that the missing piece? Nope. I told her to check the dates on the various credits. Having all of the bills I had received from them in front of me while on the phone was an immense help. Telling Kelly to check the memo from a specific date allowed her to understand what they were all for in a very short time. Finally, she understood what was going on. She actually said “So, we never reversed the original $250, did we?”. Finally! Now she just needed to put a credit on my account for $249 and everything would be all good (on the billing side of things if not the warranty). Would she do it? Nope.

Kelly then told me that she could not reverse the original $250 charge because that charge was for the stolen phone and the UPS investigation was not yet complete. I asked her if she could check on the status of that in case UPS had let them know the status and no one had gotten around to calling me yet. After a brief stint on hold she returned to tell me that they had not received the investigation report from UPS because no one at Roger’s had requested it yet.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Kelly had been so good to me the whole time I had been talking to her, I would have stayed on the phone until I made her cry. I was that angry. It had been somewhere between 2 and 3 months since my first phone had disappeared and no one had bothered to contact UPS to request the investigation report. It was a huge effort to not take my frustrations out on the woman who had been very helpful up until this point, and I am glad that I was able to keep my temper in control. She continued to dig into things and found that UPS had never contacted Roger’s about the phone at all. They logged it as within the UPS network but noted that something unexpected had happened. No report of it being stolen, no indication that any follow-up was needed. At this point I cannot tell which is a worse company Roger’s or UPS.

Kelly managed to find the correct tracking number for the original MIA iPhone and she sent out the investigation report request form. She told me that it should be another 7 business days for the report to be provided and that I would need to contact Roger’s yet again to get the credit placed onto my account. I felt like arguing that they should be contacting me, but I was feeling very defeated by this point.

Kelly finished up the call by placing a $25 credit on my account for my troubles. She told me that this was the first account credit she had ever issued as she had only been there three months. I told her I was surprised that she had managed to go that long without encountering someone who was abused like I was.

Seven more business days and I’d be back on the phone…for the last time I hoped…

Update 07/13/2009: Episode 8: Resolution has been released.

Update 07/27/2009: Roger’s Wars Epilogue has been released.

At VendAsta we use automated build scripts and a TeamCity server for continuous integration. Whenever someone commits code to a project, a whole suite of automated build targets are run against the code base to check things like unit tests, python syntax (via pylint) and code coverage. One thing that was missing from the mix was the automated running of jslint to check the syntax of our ever-increasing corpus of JavaScript code. As it turns out, adding this to our ANT targets wasn’t all that difficult.

The only real difficulty you are likely to encounter in creating a JSLint target for your build scripts is that JSLint is, itself, written in JavaScript. Other helpful libraries such as JSMin or the YUICompressor from Yahoo are distributed as jar files and can be executed easily with an exec block with the executable set to java. With JSLint, however, you are going to need a JavaScript engine which you can execute from the command line in order to run the JSLint script to validate your JavaScript code. THis actually sounds harder than it is.

For our implementation, I chose to use the Rhino engine since there is documented support for JSLint on it, and even a handy helper file to include in your system: rhino.js. Grab a copy of Rhino (the actual file you’ll want to include is js.jar), the Rhino helper script I just mentioned and JSLint itself. Place them all together into some sort of tools directory in your project. Ours is located in /tools/ant.

Now comes the fun part, writing the actual target in ANT. For our purposes, we want to process all .js files contained in a particular location, as defined in a build property called jsdir. We also want to ignore any files that are contained in a vendor subdirectory of jsdir, as we should not need to worry about third-party scripts that don’t pass JSLint. Let’s get things started with our basic, empty target:

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<!-- 
jslint - Runs lint checks on js files
-->
<target name="jslint">
 
</target>

Listing 1: The basic, empty jslint target

Within the target there are two things we are going to need. First a way to reference all of the files we want to operate over and second, the actual call to run JSLint on those files. For the first requirement we’ll use a pathconvert tag with a nested fileset. The pathconvert will allow us to generate a space-separated list of files and stuff that into a property which we’ll call jsfiles. The fileset block will do the actual work of finding the files in question. It will operate over ${jsdir} including all .js files and excluding all .js files in the vendor subdirectory. Listing 2 shows the pathconvert block added to our empty target.

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<!-- 
jslint - Runs lint checks on js files
-->
<target name="jslint">
    <pathconvert pathsep=" " property="jsfiles">
        <fileset dir="${jsdir}">
            <include name="**/*.js"/>
            <exclude name="vendor/**/*.js"/>
        </fileset>
    </pathconvert>
</target>

Listing 2: The pathconvert block added to our target.

Finally, it is time to add the actual call to JSLint. To allow our build scripts to work for multiple projects, we have pushed as much information into properties that get defined in project-specific files as possible. The location of the Rhino jar (js.jar) is placed into the property js.jar and the location of the JSLint script (jslint.js) is placed into the property jslint.js. With those properties suitably defined elsewhere, we have the final piece of our puzzle: the exec block. We have the executable set to java and failonerror set to true, so that our target will appropriately fail when JSLint fails to give our code a passing grade. The final target, including the exec block can be seen in listing 3.

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<!-- 
jslint - Runs lint checks on js files
-->
<target name="jslint">
    <pathconvert pathsep=" " property="jsfiles">
        <fileset dir="${jsdir}">
            <include name="**/*.js"/>
            <exclude name="vendor/**/*.js"/>
        </fileset>
    </pathconvert>
    <exec dir="${jsdir}" executable="java" failonerror="true">
        <arg line="-jar ${js.jar} ${jslint.js} ${jsfiles}"/>
    </exec>
</target>

Listing 3: The final target.

Put all together, the pathconvert block stuffs the list of files to work on into the property ${jsfiles} which is then passed as an argument to the jslint.js file. The jslint.js file is itself the first argument passed to the Rhino JavaScript engine (js.jar) which is run directly by java. Running your ant jslint target should give you some nice feedback on the syntax of your JavaScript code.

No one seems quite sure which episode this is, but here it is:

Excellent work Michael and Nicole!! I think it could have used a little more of Dave’s vocal stylings though

This is part 6 of a multi-part post on my battle to get an iPhone for myself and a Blackberry Pearl Flip for my wife from Roger’s wireless. At the time of this writing, the saga is still on-going so I cannot say how many episodes there will be… Previous episodes: Episode 1: The Phantom iPhone, Episode 2: A Lack of a Phone, Episode 3: Revenge of the Pissed, Episode 4: A New Phone, Episode 5: The Empire Bills Back.

Thus far in my struggles to get an iPhone, all of my problems have been in getting the phone itself and in my dealings with Roger’s on billing and such. I had not had any problems at all with the phone itself. Considering the way everything had gone with the whole ordeal, I guess I should have expected there to be something in the works for me.

It all started with my wife accusing me of ignoring her. Several times she had called me and I didn’t answer my phone. I really was not ignoring her, I just thought that I had my ringer turned down too low. I would wake my iPhone from its slumber to find a missed call. Or two. Or three. And voicemails. I tried turning up the ringer volume. I even tried setting the ringer for my wife to be a loud klaxon alarm. Nothing. I told her that I just wasn’t hearing it when she called. She didn’t believe me so I tried an experiment – I placed the phone on the table in front of her and called it from her cell phone. It rang away in my ear but sat silent before us. As soon as I woke it, it registered a missed call.

Now, being the kind of guy that I am and dreading having to speak to anyone at Roger’s, I decided to do some searching for the problem. Fairly quickly I discovered that there were two possible issues. One was just a software glitch that could be solved by doing a reboot of the phone and the other, a hardware problem affecting a certain percentage of Canadian iPhones, would require replacement. I shut down my phone to see if I was lucky enough to have the software version of the problem and while it was restarting, I dug into the box it was shipped in to see if there was a special number to call for technical issues. What I found in the box was far more troubling than the phone not ringing while asleep.

My iPhone is a refurbished one. I was originally sent a brand-spanking-new one, but it was stolen en route to me. Since I received my replacement phone through the lost and stolen program, they sent me a refurbished phone. I knew this when I received it but I didn’t really care. First of all, I was very happy to finally have the phone in my possession. Secondly, I understand how refurbished hardware works. In fact, the MacBook Pro I am using to write this is refurbished. Refurbished machines can be anything from returned in an open box but never used to machines that had some small problem that was then repaired. Refurbished products are usually heavily tested and checked and in most cases they are just as good as new. What I didn’t notice upon first receiving the iPhone was the small red card in the box that now grabbed my full attention. This little red card stated that my refurbished iPhone came with a 6 month warranty.

It was that small red card that prompted me to call Roger’s once again far more than it was anything to do with the not ringing issue. In fact, since that reboot my iPhone has never failed to ring while asleep. Not once. In all likelihood it was something caused by an app I had installed and not rebooted afterward. I’m a bit of an App Store whore and I am loath to ever turn my phone off. Nevertheless, I called in to Roger’s to see if anyone there could kindly send me a brand new phone with a full 1 year warranty, since that was what I paid for.

I dialed the hated toll-free number yet again and rambled my number (starting with the area code, always starting with the area code), name, postal code and birth date. I was connected to a woman in the customer service department. She had a moderately thick Spanish accent but she seemed to be understanding what I was telling her. I explained my saga and how it led me to have a refurbished phone. I explained about the ringing troubles and how it led me to discover my truncated warranty. She told me that I should talk to technical support but that they were not open as this was on the weekend. I explained again to her that I was not really calling about the technical problem, I was calling her because I wanted a brand new phone which is what I had paid for and I wanted my full 1 year warranty. Again she told me that I needed to talk to technical support. Again I explained to her why this was not a technical issue. I told her I wanted a brand new phone. At this point something new happened. Something which had not happened to me in my dealings with Roger’s. She started yelling at me.

I’m sure that she now realizes that this was a mistake. She started yelling into the phone that I had already had my upgrade and I could not get another one for a year. Surprisingly, I remained calm. Once again I tried to explain the situation to her – that I had paid for a brand new phone with a 1 year warranty and that was what I wanted to be provided with. She continued to be very loud and very rude to me. I believe it was at this point that Lindsay set her Facebook status to, “Listening to my husband tear someone at Roger’s a new one”. I ripped into her. I really let her have it. I unleashed all of my pent-up frustration at Roger’s and at being on the phone with one of their mindless fools for the umpteenth time. I ended my tirade with a demand for a supervisor. I am not sure how it actually sounded, but to me, hearing myself raging into the phone it was the voice of a god demanding obedience. It probably wasn’t anything that dramatic, but she told me to hold and went away.

Were it not for the accent I would have thought it was another woman who came back on the line. The essential gist is that she could not send me a new phone (I am guessing that her supervisor listened to a recording of the conversation and explained it to her properly), but that the customer relations department sometimes sent out new phones as replacements so that they might be able to help me. She apologized several times and I just got the hell off the phone. The customer relations department was also closed on the weekend.

Monday morning I called back in. A peon in customer service asked for my details and I said not to bother, just transfer me to the customer relations department. He said he needed the information to pull up my account. I asked him why he needed my account when he was just going to transfer me away? He had no answer and transferred me to Zed. Zed was a very smooth operator. I spoke to Zed for a while, telling him my whole long story and he hummed and hawed at the right times, murmured “that’s not right” a couple of times and then, when it was all done, told me that I couldn’t get a new phone through him, but maybe technical support could send a new one to replace the one I had if it was broken. He said he was going to transfer me to the Technical Support department, but I stopped him.

“Zed”, I said, “you’ve just listened to my whole sordid tale and I’ve been through a lot. The woman I spoke to on the weekend was the rudest, least helpful person I have encountered in a tortuous saga of poor customer service. I have been given many account credits to compensate me for much less than the abuse she sent my way this weekend and I want to know what you’re going to do about it.”. He sounded genuinely confused and asked me what I meant. I told him flat out that she had treated my horribly and I wanted him to put some “goodwill” credits on my account to atone. Unhelpfully, he told me that I had gotten too many credits already and he couldn’t give me any more. I told him that was fine…someone else would if he wouldn’t. He then transferred me to the technical support department.

As expected they told me that they could not swap out my phone. They did give me some ideas on what I could do if the phone continued to behave badly. Then they attempted to transfer me to the customer relations department, as they could most likely help me. Unfortunately there appeared to be a technical issue with the technical support department and my call was dropped.

I was really tired of the automated phone system at this point. I called back in and all I would say to it when it asked me what I wanted was “VINDICATION”. Three “VINDICATION”s gets you to the customer relations department, in case you were wondering. I don’t recall the name of the woman I then spoke to, because it was far less memorable than Zed. She did, however, seem to care about strengthening the relations between Roger’s and this particular customer far more than Zed, despite lacking all of his slick talking ability. She explained to me that the reason I could not get a new phone was because the UPS investigation was not completed yet. Since that had not been resolved, the system thought that I had already received a phone through the hardware upgrade process and would not allow me to get another new one for a full year. She told me that I needed to followup with UPS on the investigation and once it was done I should notify Roger’s and they could then clear my account and send me out a new phone. I told her that it was not my responsibility to contact UPS as that was between Roger’s and UPS and had nothing to do with me. She agreed and said she’d make some notes and send some emails to get things moving on their end. That pleased me.

This new woman was also far more sympathetic when it came to the woman I had dealt with on the weekend. Instead of promising me that the woman would get a “coaching session” to learn from the experience, she put a $50 credit on my account. That was more like it. Finally some results. They were going to chase down the UPS investigation and I’d get a new phone when it was done. My phone in the meantime was now ringing when it should and I had another credit on my account. I thought that I might be able to see this horrid saga drawing to a close. If only that had been true. If only there had been more Star Wars movies from which I could draw titular inspiration. The next episode will see more billing shenanigans, more UPS investigation fail, more account credits and something new with my titles!

Update 07/06/2009: Episode 7: Seeing Red has been released.

Update 07/13/2009: Episode 8: Resolution has been released.

Update 07/27/2009: Roger’s Wars Epilogue has been released.

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.

If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you!

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1. I was born in Nova Scotia
2. I have never felt more at ease than when I was in Scotland
3. I am going to Mexico in 22 days
4. I miss making music
5. I like it loud
6. Except when I don’t
7. I am a solid convert – to Macs
8. I am a proud Atheist
9. I usually need spell check to spell Atheist correctly
10. I love sci-fi
11. I have an awesome family
12. Boxer briefs
13. I love chick-rock
14. I might be an author today if not for one English teacher
15. I miss writing
16. I actually enjoy programming
17. I hate to admit it but I dig Lindsay’s One Gossip Tree Girl shows
18. I am a whore for documentaries
19. I am intrigued by Eve online
20. I miss playing WoW
21. I am an introvert…
22. …but I fake extrovert fairly well…
23. …or maybe I’m bipolar
24. I think I could do a better job than our Government or any of the lame other parties we have
25. I wish I could spend more time with my wife and daughter.

I work with an amazing group of people. The project I am working on is called MyFrontSteps which is a social media application for getting and sharing Trusted Referrals to service providers in your area. We’re working on some pretty challenging stuff and, even though we are progressing rapidly, we are not quite to the point where we have anything public-beta worthy. Our colleagues at the far end of the building, the StepRep team, have reached their public beta and it is really impressive!

Whereas the side of the project I work on is focused on dealing with home owners, StepRep is a tool for Online Reputation Management, primarily targeted at the service providers that our system will help you recommend to your friends. Of course, it isn’t just people in the home improvement or real estate industries that have online reputations they need to manage. In fact, software developers and hardcore geeks have online reputations! I have an online reputation! That’s why I signed up for the beta at http://steprep.myfrontsteps.com. I know that I am a little biased by the fact that I work with the people that developed all of this, but I am very impressed with what they have done. From a technical standpoint there is a lot going on that even I find overwhelming and a little “magical”.

The main purpose of StepRep is to allow you to see what people are saying about you and your business on the Internet. This includes anywhere and everywhere that someone might be talking about you. StepRep presents you with this information and allows you to categorize the items as good or bad. The good ones are things that you can use to convince new people that you are the right choice for the work they need done. You can even place these items into a widget that can be slapped on your company website, your personal blog – anywhere you want to trumpet your achievements and build your reputation. As for the items you think reflect poorly on you, well, obviously you wouldn’t want to put them in your widget, but you can see where past customers might not have been completely satisfied and do something to change their mind. Flip them to a positive and then slap them in your widget for all to see.

I won’t even try to discuss anything about how StepRep does what it does so well. Honestly, this is because I don’t understand a lot of it. The team working on it are very smart and very skilled at what they do. Starting with the next development sprint my team is going to be working closely with that team as we bring the two systems together to help service providers reach a wider audience through the friends of their customers and to help home owners find the best service providers through people they trust. It’s going to be very exciting and I am hoping that I’ll be able to learn a few things about how StepRep works.

One last thing I want to mention is how much I love the design work that was done for the StepRep site. I got to see some preliminary designs for the MyFrontSteps site today as well and they blew me away. Marie-Louise has really done an awesome job. This is something I really love about working at VendAsta. I work with people who are very skilled at designing for the web and for maximum usability. The wireframing, mockups and designs that I have seen done in my short time there have amazed me. I came to VendAsta from a company that had plenty of graphic designers in the Marketing department. They were all firmly rooted in the world of print advertising. There were some definite growing pains going on as they started to embrace the new world of web design. Now I am working with people who understand the web and the best practices for developing rich, engaging applications for the web. It’s freaking awesome!