My attention has been elsewhere, Pocket Blog v0.1.4 isn't going out the door tonight. Tomorrow, I promise.

9:04:09 PM | Comments:

I'm not the only one who thinks that "Web Services" is a bad name. Dave Eby nails it while explaining why SOAP is better than XML-RPC.

2:44:39 PM | Comments:

allNetDevices: Microsoft Notches In-Car Win. Volvo will use CE-based navigation devices in the S60, S80, and Cross Country. The BMW 7-Series iDrive is also CE-powered.

9:58:10 AM | Comments:

Mozilla loaded up for browser wars, according to Rex Baldazo at ZDNet. Catchy headline, not much substance. Mozilla is going to sweep all of the desktop platforms that aren't Windows or PDAs due to the simple lack of competition. Hopefully the Mozilla team will put some effort into PDAs; the more time that I spend using Pocket IE and Opera/Qt, the less I like them.

Might be time to look at Konqueror/Embedded.

2:12:51 AM | Comments:

Two good Slashdot stories. PDAs For Kids points to a Wired story about the Pixter, "a sort of etch-a-sketch/palm love child." The beauty of technology is that eventually it becomes cheap enough to turn into genuine toys for children.

Tech Support Getting Even Worse points to an CNN story titled "Helpful support on tech endangered list?" Plenty of comments worth reading, a rarity on today's Slashdot. I climbed out of technical support myself, and I'd hate to have to try it again. The call center mentality has pretty much destroyed the possibility of using a support job as an entry point within a company, while simultaneously reducing support's value to users through a dependency on "call scripts" instead of detailed product knowledge.

Outsourced call centers are the worst. One of my friends started working for TAG (The Answer Group) about a year ago. When I was starting out, in the vicinity of 1996, many of my peers were bringing home large pay checks from TAG. They offered a clear path from consumer-level support to move advanced areas. Starting pay was good and smart people advanced quickly to higher paying roles. Today there is virtually no advancement path, pay is well below industry norms, and employees are valued only according to their call statistics.

The only thing saving my buddy from burn-out is that fact that he isn't a highly technical person. He is TAG's dream employee, it'll be years before his knowledge grows beyond the job and he realizes that his only way to move up is to move on.

The quality of technical support can only decline under such circumstances.

12:20:15 AM | Comments: