Anyone that knows me knows that I'm big into surround sound for music.
It is a huge deal for me. I buy recordings in surround and quadraphonic sound. I convert quadraphonic materials to modern formats for easy playback. I share some of my work with friends also into these things. I tell everyone about surround sound and do anything and everything to try and spread awareness and interest in what to me is an awesome, cool, fun thing.
You'd think I'd be a person that would naturally get along with others that are involved in music and audio.
And yet, time and time again, I find myself completely at odds with the music industry, and just about against anything and everything they do.
The suits running the industry have completely and totally lost touch with their customer base.
Oh, sure, they make money by tapping into the latest fads and trends, and manufacturing and mass producing catchy crap that the teens are into. And hey, I have nothing against catchy crap, I have quite a large collection of bubblegum music, which is the same idea, manufactured music. Some fun to listen to stuff can be manufactured. There are so many different kinds and types of music, and different ways to create and make music.
But the industry has just about ignored all those other ways, and the manufactured music just gets worse and worse, in a system that doesn't award and doesn't care about creativity.
But, this rant isn't about the quality of the music the kids are listening to these days. This is about the music industry fucking up in every way they can when it comes to surround sound.
It all started with a composer by the name of Karlheinz Stockhausen, who made a brilliant observation that sound doesn't come at us all from one point, but it surrounds us. And so when he was composing music, to him the spacial aspect of where the sound you hear comes from was something he wanted to take into consideration with his compositions. And so one of the earliest major works of electronic music was composed and performed in surround sound. "Gesang der Junglinge" was originally created to play on 5 groups of loudspeakers, two in the front, two in the back, and one from above. After the first performance, he determined the 5 channel format was problematic, and reduced it to 4, which is how it has continued to exist to this day. There have been recordings released, first in mono, later in stereo of this work. But, to really hear this work as intended, one must attend a performance in a concert hall with properly setup and calibrated loudspeakers arranged around the hall.
This was in the 50s that Stockhausen made what should've been a major breakthrough in music. But, it wasn't until the 70s that any real attempts at releasing music in a surround format were made. And, they were an unfortunate flop. For two major reasons:
1. The technology wasn't quite ready for it.
2. The industry couldn't get it's shit together and agree on a standard.
There have been many times where the industry has fought over standards and formats, with each company trying to copyright their own idea and reap the benefits of royalties by establishing their format as the standard. But, a format has only succeeded once everyone got on board with it. Beta failed, and due to porn being a huge influence, VHS gained popularity, everyone got on board with the standard, and it took off, with everyone, even Sony, profiting from the sale of playback devices. Sure, Sony could've gained much more if betamax took off. But, they kept charging everyone a license, allowing VHS to swoop in there and offer a cheaper alternative. Sony fucked up, which was a shame, as they had the superior product. And they learned nothing, and history would continue repeating itself for them.
So, when it came time to establish a new standard in audio delivery of recordings beyond 2 channels, it was easy to establish a tape standard. Although, behind the scenes in the studios, that was even fucked up. Consumer tapes all met a standard, Reels of tapes in the studio, however, didn't. I've come across 3 different standards of track assignment layout on reel to reel tapes, all of which make sense for one reason or another. But, that doesn't matter, there needs to be standards. The Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center CD-4 LP is a perfect example of what can happen when people won't agree on a standard. Just about every piece on that record has an incorrect channel layout, and no one seems to have noticed until I came along and managed to talk to the composers and take some notes and do some comparisons. This is primarily because the standard track layout for masters in the studio and consumer reels is this:
1 -front left
2 - rear left
3 - front right
4 - rear right
This is primarily because when making a reel to reel deck that will playback stereo and quad tapes, the front stereo pair are on the same tracks as a plain stereo pair.
In the world of electronic composing, the standard that was developed was this:
1 - rear left
2 - front left
3 - front right
4. - rear right
This makes sense because they're looking at a widened stereo field, that goes around the room from rear left to rear right. Also, this allows them to have their tracks layed out with both lefts together and both rights together, which helped when running sound at a concert.
Ok, this discrepancy in standards is understandable, due to 2 different industries and 2 different backgrounds coming to 2 different standards that make sense for each of them. But is something that one needs to take into consideration when dealing with tapes, and be observant of.
However, when we get different standards, or no standard in one industry, things become a mess.
As it is, there is no real standard that exists today in the music industry for 5.1 surround playback of music. None. Nada. No one has come to any agreement or consensus of a standard. And I believe this has been a problem that has contributed towards surround not catching on.
Right now, the growing and becoming the primary method of music distribution has been digital files. Discs still exist, and will continue to be with us for some years. But, it is easy to see that the direction the industry is moving is more and more towards digital files, and less and less physical medium.
And when it comes to digital files, what is the standard? The mp3 currently.
Show of hands, how many people have ever heard of, heard, or played back a surround mp3?
Ok, I'll put my hand down and continue explaining, since you're all looking a bit confused.
Yes, mp3 does do surround. But, if I sent you a surround mp3 file, would you know what to do with it?
(I hear you all grumbling "yes, delete it, and stop reading your stupid blog entries")
Also, I'm completely against mp3 being the standard of audio distribution, as it is inferior to CD in all ways except one, convenience. With today's technology, there is no reason mp3s should even continue to exist. We now have a format, and have for quite some time, called flac, free lossless audio code. Flac files are bigger, but they don't throw away the majority of the data that you will never get back, like mp3 does.
Sure, for most people mp3 is good enough. But, a good industry shouldn't cater strictly to the lowest common denominator. Us audiophiles have supported the industry with our many purchases, and shouldn't be ignored. If you want to take us along with you into the new era of less physical media, then you are going to need to make flac a standard, not an exception.
Of course, flac does allow for 5.1 surround playback. And I do know how to create 5.1 surround flac files, and I know how to play them back. But do you?
If I were to stop making dvds, and release all my hobby conversions via flac files, I can just hear the questions starting of what in the heck they are supposed to do with that. Because, the only way most people have to listen to surround, if they have a way to listen to surround at all, is on the home theater system, which has been taylored for 5.1 surround playback of movies. Which means the primary format that allows surround easily is compromised.
Dvd is the most common way an average consumer would be able to playback surround in their home. And most of those will only do dts or dolby digital, which are lossy compressed formats. Which, in this day and age with the technology available to us, shouldn't even exist anymore.
Sure, bluray is catching on, and can do surround lossless, but it's still an exception rather than the norm, so if one wants to get their things in the most homes as possible, when it comes to surround, you're still living in a dvd world.
Yes, the music industry did try to utilize the available technology in the early 2000s and make a new disc based audio system that allowed better than CD sound quality and surround sound. But, they fucked it up big time. They released 2 competing formats, didn't promote them, and hardly released any titles for them, causing them to fizzle out and be niche formats that still somewhat linger on.
This has allowed one compromise to exist, when it comes to distributing 5.1 surround sound to consumers, the dvd-a/v hybrid disc. A disc that will play in dvd-audio players with lossless mlp compression, but is backwards compatible with regular dvd players to play in dts and dolby digital.
Of course, this has become a nightmare in dvd authoring. Now, don't get me wrong, I can author a disc, and it's not too complicated once you get the process down. But, today I found myself questioning.....why am I still doing this?
I've gotten to a point where I'm fucking sick and tired of dicking around with menus for audio discs. The CD...you put it in the player and just push play, and music comes out.
Why am I dicking around with menus?
At this point, I'm moving away from physical media myself. I still buy CDs, but the first thing I do is rip it to flac on a 2 TB hard drive which contains flac of all my CDs, and iso images of all my dvd-audio, and some music dvd-video. Which means, when I create a new disc, I don't even burn a disc anymore, I save an image of a disc on my hard drive.
I'm creating emulated physical media, just to stay compatible.
Why do I do this?
Because the fucking music industry can't establish a standard in 5.1 audio playback.
They didn't stand behind the SACD or DVD-Audio, so neither of them is a standard one should consider a reasonable expectation for a consumer to be able to playback.
They haven't established flac a standard in surround playback, or even stereo playback. Sure, lots of things can playback flac, but can you play it in an ipod? Why not? Huh, apple? If you're so fucking cool, why can't you playback the obvious choice for a lossless standard? What, apple lossless? Please. You're not an authority in audio standards, your just a creater of colorful devices that do things that aren't new, with a really good marketing department.
As it is, I'm limited to what I can do with flac. My oppo bluray player will playback flac, and 5.1 surround flac, but it won't do it gapless, which means I either have to listen to gaps in between every track on Dark Side of the Moon, or rip my albums into one huge flac per disc and lose the ability of selecting what song I want to listen to on demand. So, dvd-audio has continued to be the only viable standard for me in my system, I'm stuck emulating an old physical format that never caught on.
The only affordable device I've found that will do gapless flac is boxee box, and with a little research I found out that it won't do 5.1 properly, because it hasn't been programmed to playback the standard channel layout properly. This bug was reported a year ago, and boxee has continued to ignore it. Way to go, assholes.
Which means, if one wants to listen to 5.1 surround flac, you need specialized equipment, or a computer hooked up to your audio system (still counts as specialized equipment I suppose), or you need to know how to author a disc from it.
So, that leaves me stuck. I'd like to say to hell with this ancient technology, to hell with dvd, to hell with dvd-audio, to hell with menus, to hell with disc images, and just convert everything to flac and only create flac.
But then, those that I share with would for the most part not know what to do with the flac I provide. Which is understandable, I still can't find a way to use it without having to deal with conversion.
So I say.....come on music industry.....get with it. Establish a standard in flac. Ditch mp3, go flac all the way. Or at least make it a standard option. Also, establish a standard in 5.1 surround playback of flac, make devices that are able to detect and playback flac properly on home theater systems.
Yes, it would take time for a standard to work it's way into people's homes. But, if it's ever going to happen, it needs to fucking start. Establish the standard, make equipment that does it, release files in the format. Get the ball rolling already.
Do it.
NOW!
NOW!
NOW!
NOW!
NOW!
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Tipping is getting to the tipping point!
Growing up, you learn certain customs in our society. One of which is tipping. It's a topic one learns about from observing your parents leaving money on the table before you leave a restaurant, and then you learn more about in math class when learning how to calculate percentages.
As I learned it, the standard tip is 15%, with 20% for excellent service. 10% for poor service, or lower for exceptionally poor service. Of course, one is welcome to be more generous if they wish. But, that's the general rule.
This is a concept that I understand, having part of a worker's wage depend on the quality of their service is a good way to promote quality service.
I do recall a former co-worker of mine, someone that was a bit older, who had this real attitude about tipping. She wouldn't tip, or would tip real lousy. She would always gripe "don't make me pay your workers". I tried to point out the concept, and pointed out that if they did pay their workers more, that would result in the prices being higher, so in the end you still pay it, just that this way you have control over it and can determine your price based on performance. She didn't care, she was set in her ways, as far as she was concerned, tipping existed because employers were just too cheap to pay their workers.
Well, I still think the tipping system is fine by me, but she may have a point...
Now then, as we all know, people that work for tips are allowed to make less than minimum wage, due to the way that tips supplement their income. But, every now and then, reports come out that tips are too low. And, I can understand that as prices go up, wages need to go up, we all understand that concept. But, in theory....tips shouldn't need to go up. Not the percentage anyways.
As prices increase, tips automatically increase, since we would now be paying 15% of a larger price as places increase their prices. So, a worker's pay automatically goes up with a places prices.
However....this morning I read a story that now places in NY are calling for 30% tips, as they had already been calling for 20%.
Ok, NOW I'm agreeing with my former co-worker. I think the problem here is the below minimum wage pay hasn't been going up. And now, employers want us to pick up the rest of their workers pay, rather than increase the hourly wage.
Well, fuck you! I'm sick and tired of minimum wage staying low while prices of everything continue increasing. I'm sick and tired of prices of our basic needs increasing at a far faster pace than our wages.
And now....you want us to pay more for your low wage workers?
FUCK YOU!!!!
I'm sick of this attutitude from the wealthy and business owners, that those of us that aren't wealthy are leeches, and that they are entitled to even more of our money.
Pay your own damn workers, and leave our tip rates alone.
As I learned it, the standard tip is 15%, with 20% for excellent service. 10% for poor service, or lower for exceptionally poor service. Of course, one is welcome to be more generous if they wish. But, that's the general rule.
This is a concept that I understand, having part of a worker's wage depend on the quality of their service is a good way to promote quality service.
I do recall a former co-worker of mine, someone that was a bit older, who had this real attitude about tipping. She wouldn't tip, or would tip real lousy. She would always gripe "don't make me pay your workers". I tried to point out the concept, and pointed out that if they did pay their workers more, that would result in the prices being higher, so in the end you still pay it, just that this way you have control over it and can determine your price based on performance. She didn't care, she was set in her ways, as far as she was concerned, tipping existed because employers were just too cheap to pay their workers.
Well, I still think the tipping system is fine by me, but she may have a point...
Now then, as we all know, people that work for tips are allowed to make less than minimum wage, due to the way that tips supplement their income. But, every now and then, reports come out that tips are too low. And, I can understand that as prices go up, wages need to go up, we all understand that concept. But, in theory....tips shouldn't need to go up. Not the percentage anyways.
As prices increase, tips automatically increase, since we would now be paying 15% of a larger price as places increase their prices. So, a worker's pay automatically goes up with a places prices.
However....this morning I read a story that now places in NY are calling for 30% tips, as they had already been calling for 20%.
Ok, NOW I'm agreeing with my former co-worker. I think the problem here is the below minimum wage pay hasn't been going up. And now, employers want us to pick up the rest of their workers pay, rather than increase the hourly wage.
Well, fuck you! I'm sick and tired of minimum wage staying low while prices of everything continue increasing. I'm sick and tired of prices of our basic needs increasing at a far faster pace than our wages.
And now....you want us to pay more for your low wage workers?
FUCK YOU!!!!
I'm sick of this attutitude from the wealthy and business owners, that those of us that aren't wealthy are leeches, and that they are entitled to even more of our money.
Pay your own damn workers, and leave our tip rates alone.
Friday, September 14, 2012
If you aren't going to provide it, don't sell it!
I know what some of you will say to this. So before I start this, I'd like to say in advance, that this rant is about a current service, that we pay thousands of dollars for every year. Every year, the bill comes, and we pay it.
So, in my job, one of my responsibilities has been with the document imaging system. I suppose it is kind of fitting, in my last job I was very involved in administrating and maintaining the document imaging system. At that job, it was OnBase, which is a nice system that I found easy to use, a little complicated to figure out at first since I was thrown into it without basic training, but once I finally got some proper training it all came together.
But then I came here, and we had this system called ixos. Now, I can't really fairly compare the two systems, because the ixos system we are on is a rather old version of the system.
Currently, the system runs with a unix server that has a 4 drive 64 slot juke box attached to it. The juke box is loaded with optical platters that hold somewhere around 5 gigs on a platter.
Holy fucking shit, that's outdated.
But, we must archive these documents to a write once read many type of media. So, replacing it wouldn't mean just grab a server with disk space, turn it on, and start saving there. We would need to get in a new array for this purpose. Plus, changing out hardware would basically be a project, which would probably require help from ixos support, which would mean we'd need to upgrade to a new version....so, getting rid of that juke box would mean an expensive time consuming project.
Which means, until that day comes, if it does, it needs to keep working.
For the most part, I don't mind owning this responsibility. Adding platters, finalizing platters, swapping them out as requested.....basic stuff, and it puts something on my plate that involves logging into a unix server every now and then, which isn't a bad thing.
But, when it goes wrong......holy fuck.
Not holy fuck, it really goes wrong. Holy fuck, it's a bitch to get fixed.
Now, this wasn't always the case. The first few times I needed to call for support, I would get a call back from someone within a few hours, and over the course of a phone conversation, the problem would be fixed.
There have been a few times that the problems were quite involved and complicated. One time, it was determined we may have a bad drive in the juke box. So, the tech guided me through unix to edit a file that would comment out all but one drive, and then run a command that requires the use of the drive, to determine whether or not that drive is working. And one by one we determined, we had 3 bad drives. And then the 4th failed before we got the tech in.
The tech came, with 4 refurbished drives, of which 2 were bad after we tested those.
So, yeah....keeping this thing alive is a bit of a chore, and at times a nightmare.
But then....the techs that actually knew how to do this stuff, moved on. And nowadays, I open a ticket, and usually at some point in the first 5 minutes of any discussion, it is pointed out to me that the version we are on is no longer covered by support, however, they will see what they can do.
Now, at first that sounded fair enough. But then I found out, we pay thousands of dollars a year in support for this.
So, let me get this straight......every year, when it's time for us to renew support, you do offer support, being that you sell it to us. But, then when we call for it, you don't support it, but only do so out of the kindess of your hearts?
That's absolute bullshit!
You do too support it. You just want to give a bullshit line that will let you weasel out of difficult situations. If you don't want difficult situations, then either keep on the techs that know what they're doing, train people on these things, or stop selling the support. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
So, nowadays, I find it is more and more difficult to get anyone on the phone. It used to be so simple, open a ticket, get a call back, fix the problem. Now, I open a ticket. I get an email asking to see the logs. The first few times, I had to go around in circles to find the logs. I would ask, how do I get the logs. They don't know.....could be anywhere. I didn't set this system up, so I don't know where they are. Past techs.....usually didn't even ask for these logs, or if they did they knew how to get them in a remote session. So, after a few times going through this song and dance, I have an ftp setting saved to get right to the logs folder, so I can grab them all, zip them up, and send an email.
Then this song and dance goes on, with them asking me to do things I don't know how to do, so I have to get clear instruction, which either does something or nothing....and basically things go around in circles until I lose it, and start calling supervisors.
Now, it used to be that once I pulled in a supervisor, they would defend themselves, pointing out this is above and beyond the normal support they provide, and they've already gone beyond their normal scope of things, and if I want the type of support I'm asking for we'd have to pay more for that level of support.
I push back pointing out the many times in the past I've had people do these exact same things, without having to ask for it, and in the first call.
Usually they would say, oh, ok, we'll make an exception, and get you in touch with that tech again....and then things would get done.
Well, 2 weeks ago, I opened another ticket. This time for failing backups.
Next thing I know, I'm going on a wild goose chase to try and test our drives. Now, I haven't seen the typical behavior for a failing drive. But, they looked at the logs, and have seen errors that they want to focus on. Errors.....which are different from the problem I opened the ticket for. So now I'm 2 weeks into solving THEIR problem, and I still can't get an answer to my problem.
And, I already am familiar with the process that would satisfy what they are trying to do. Except that, I don't know the details of it since it was done by better techs of their on remote sessions, and it has been a while. So, I try to explain to them that, yeah, so-and-so had walked me through this before, I need you to give me the right procedures and commands to do this.
They don't know them.....the ones they give me, don't work.....
Well.....is so-and-so still with the company?
Yes....but she's in the consulting department, you'd have to pay to talk to her.
Um....she works for your company....she has knowledge that would help your department adequately do their job, on this ticket, and future tickets......you can't get in touch with her to get that knowledge....
No, can't do it, wish I could.
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD?
I think next time they come looking for us to renew the support, we should demand a lower price. The quality of support has greatly deteriorated. Why should we pay the same rate?
So, in my job, one of my responsibilities has been with the document imaging system. I suppose it is kind of fitting, in my last job I was very involved in administrating and maintaining the document imaging system. At that job, it was OnBase, which is a nice system that I found easy to use, a little complicated to figure out at first since I was thrown into it without basic training, but once I finally got some proper training it all came together.
But then I came here, and we had this system called ixos. Now, I can't really fairly compare the two systems, because the ixos system we are on is a rather old version of the system.
Currently, the system runs with a unix server that has a 4 drive 64 slot juke box attached to it. The juke box is loaded with optical platters that hold somewhere around 5 gigs on a platter.
Holy fucking shit, that's outdated.
But, we must archive these documents to a write once read many type of media. So, replacing it wouldn't mean just grab a server with disk space, turn it on, and start saving there. We would need to get in a new array for this purpose. Plus, changing out hardware would basically be a project, which would probably require help from ixos support, which would mean we'd need to upgrade to a new version....so, getting rid of that juke box would mean an expensive time consuming project.
Which means, until that day comes, if it does, it needs to keep working.
For the most part, I don't mind owning this responsibility. Adding platters, finalizing platters, swapping them out as requested.....basic stuff, and it puts something on my plate that involves logging into a unix server every now and then, which isn't a bad thing.
But, when it goes wrong......holy fuck.
Not holy fuck, it really goes wrong. Holy fuck, it's a bitch to get fixed.
Now, this wasn't always the case. The first few times I needed to call for support, I would get a call back from someone within a few hours, and over the course of a phone conversation, the problem would be fixed.
There have been a few times that the problems were quite involved and complicated. One time, it was determined we may have a bad drive in the juke box. So, the tech guided me through unix to edit a file that would comment out all but one drive, and then run a command that requires the use of the drive, to determine whether or not that drive is working. And one by one we determined, we had 3 bad drives. And then the 4th failed before we got the tech in.
The tech came, with 4 refurbished drives, of which 2 were bad after we tested those.
So, yeah....keeping this thing alive is a bit of a chore, and at times a nightmare.
But then....the techs that actually knew how to do this stuff, moved on. And nowadays, I open a ticket, and usually at some point in the first 5 minutes of any discussion, it is pointed out to me that the version we are on is no longer covered by support, however, they will see what they can do.
Now, at first that sounded fair enough. But then I found out, we pay thousands of dollars a year in support for this.
So, let me get this straight......every year, when it's time for us to renew support, you do offer support, being that you sell it to us. But, then when we call for it, you don't support it, but only do so out of the kindess of your hearts?
That's absolute bullshit!
You do too support it. You just want to give a bullshit line that will let you weasel out of difficult situations. If you don't want difficult situations, then either keep on the techs that know what they're doing, train people on these things, or stop selling the support. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
So, nowadays, I find it is more and more difficult to get anyone on the phone. It used to be so simple, open a ticket, get a call back, fix the problem. Now, I open a ticket. I get an email asking to see the logs. The first few times, I had to go around in circles to find the logs. I would ask, how do I get the logs. They don't know.....could be anywhere. I didn't set this system up, so I don't know where they are. Past techs.....usually didn't even ask for these logs, or if they did they knew how to get them in a remote session. So, after a few times going through this song and dance, I have an ftp setting saved to get right to the logs folder, so I can grab them all, zip them up, and send an email.
Then this song and dance goes on, with them asking me to do things I don't know how to do, so I have to get clear instruction, which either does something or nothing....and basically things go around in circles until I lose it, and start calling supervisors.
Now, it used to be that once I pulled in a supervisor, they would defend themselves, pointing out this is above and beyond the normal support they provide, and they've already gone beyond their normal scope of things, and if I want the type of support I'm asking for we'd have to pay more for that level of support.
I push back pointing out the many times in the past I've had people do these exact same things, without having to ask for it, and in the first call.
Usually they would say, oh, ok, we'll make an exception, and get you in touch with that tech again....and then things would get done.
Well, 2 weeks ago, I opened another ticket. This time for failing backups.
Next thing I know, I'm going on a wild goose chase to try and test our drives. Now, I haven't seen the typical behavior for a failing drive. But, they looked at the logs, and have seen errors that they want to focus on. Errors.....which are different from the problem I opened the ticket for. So now I'm 2 weeks into solving THEIR problem, and I still can't get an answer to my problem.
And, I already am familiar with the process that would satisfy what they are trying to do. Except that, I don't know the details of it since it was done by better techs of their on remote sessions, and it has been a while. So, I try to explain to them that, yeah, so-and-so had walked me through this before, I need you to give me the right procedures and commands to do this.
They don't know them.....the ones they give me, don't work.....
Well.....is so-and-so still with the company?
Yes....but she's in the consulting department, you'd have to pay to talk to her.
Um....she works for your company....she has knowledge that would help your department adequately do their job, on this ticket, and future tickets......you can't get in touch with her to get that knowledge....
No, can't do it, wish I could.
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD?
I think next time they come looking for us to renew the support, we should demand a lower price. The quality of support has greatly deteriorated. Why should we pay the same rate?
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Think before you call
Livemeeting.....what the fuck is wrong with the assholes that created this piece of shit?
Some time ago, the parent company started holding certain training meetings, and would send out these livemeeting requests. By doing so, certain assumptions were made on both sides. The person sending these requests seems to have assumed that everyone is automatically setup or knows how to use livemeeting.
Now, to be fair to the person sending these requests, these requests come with links to the installer for livemeeting, which means in theory the request sends one all they need in order to join the meeting, so long as the recipient reads the thing, and runs the install well in advance of the meeting.
Of course, there are 2 problems here.
1 - Everyone runs this installer as the meeting is starting, and then calls me in a panic
2 - The installer isn't all that is needed
So, we kept getting these panicked calls, and by the time we got the install completed, the meeting was done, cancelled, or rescheduled, leaving us going "well, if you had called us in advance, like you're supposed to do.....but, you should be all set for the next one"
But then we kept getting repeat calls from people with vague messages about not connecting.
At this point, I became a middle man in all of this, because I don't know how this thing works, I don't know how this system was all setup and configured by the parent company, and all I can do is tell the end user to follow the damn instructions on the webpage, which I found people weren't following. And, for some people it worked, so I figure, "just follow the damn instructions, like so and so did, and it'll work. Stop calling me now"
This then resulted in a bunch of people going around in circles. A problem would be reported. We'd look into it, find instructions, send it back. They'd report that they'll try that. We hear nothing for weeks and assume it is fixed. Then, just as everything would calm down and we think we have it solved, the calls would come back in.
After months of going around in circles over these livemeetings, I was at a point where I was ready to grab the nearest heavy object and throw it through a window if I heard the word livemeeting uttered, hoping that would get people to just shut the fuck up about this stupid livemeeting crap that, I just plain and simple don't know what the fuck is going on about. At this point, I told them, don't call me, I don't know, talk to the parent company, it's their damn system, so it's their damn problem.
So, next thing I know, helpdesk tickets opened about this on the parent company's helpdesk system start getting assigned to me.
WHAT
THE
FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THIS ISN'T MY FUCKING SYSTEM, THIS ISN'T MY FUCKING THING, WHY ARE YOU ASSIGNING THEM TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!
And, it turns out, while the parent company's helpdesk can assign tickets to our helpdesk, we can't assign them back to them.
Way to go, assholes!
So, after weeks of going around in circles calling various different people at the parent company to try and find the person that actually is responsible for all this stuff, we find out a few key pieces of information:
A. In order for a user to be able to join a live meeting, their network account must be configured for it. this is not done by default.
B. There is a document with configuration settings that must be filled in after installing livemeeting in order for it to work.
Well, that's just great.....WHEN IN THE FUCK WAS ANYONE PLANNING ON PASSING ALONG THIS INFORMATION TO US?
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG AND HOW MUCH WE'VE BEEN GOING AROUND IN CIRCLES BECAUSE WE DIDN'T HAVE THIS NECESSARY AND VALUABLE INFORMATION?
So, alright, we requested this be enabled on all network accounts, and now we have the configuration information.
And now, the parent company has been sending out massive invites to just about everyone, flooding me with confused people calling since they can't get into the livemeeting, since they don't have their livemeeting properly configured. Well, at least now I know how to fix it, but still....requests are getting sent out to people, and people expect it to just work. Why isn't this configuration able to be automated with the install, or at least the instructions sent with the requests? These requests come with a link to install, as if it has all you need to join the meeting. But, without this info, you don't, you won't get in without a call to the helpdesk if you haven't already been setup.
But, ok....I can work with that.
But I have to ask one question......
WHY IN THE FUCK WOULD YOU CALL ME WHEN YOUR COMPUTER ISN'T EVEN STARTED UP YET?
I get a call this morning, I try to shadow the session to set it up, and I can't......oh, my session is still loading up.
Now I get to spend 2-3 minutes sitting on the phone with nothing to talk about while we wait for a computer to load up.
So, people, for the love of god, don't call your helpdesk until you're ready to be helped.
Thank you.
Some time ago, the parent company started holding certain training meetings, and would send out these livemeeting requests. By doing so, certain assumptions were made on both sides. The person sending these requests seems to have assumed that everyone is automatically setup or knows how to use livemeeting.
Now, to be fair to the person sending these requests, these requests come with links to the installer for livemeeting, which means in theory the request sends one all they need in order to join the meeting, so long as the recipient reads the thing, and runs the install well in advance of the meeting.
Of course, there are 2 problems here.
1 - Everyone runs this installer as the meeting is starting, and then calls me in a panic
2 - The installer isn't all that is needed
So, we kept getting these panicked calls, and by the time we got the install completed, the meeting was done, cancelled, or rescheduled, leaving us going "well, if you had called us in advance, like you're supposed to do.....but, you should be all set for the next one"
But then we kept getting repeat calls from people with vague messages about not connecting.
At this point, I became a middle man in all of this, because I don't know how this thing works, I don't know how this system was all setup and configured by the parent company, and all I can do is tell the end user to follow the damn instructions on the webpage, which I found people weren't following. And, for some people it worked, so I figure, "just follow the damn instructions, like so and so did, and it'll work. Stop calling me now"
This then resulted in a bunch of people going around in circles. A problem would be reported. We'd look into it, find instructions, send it back. They'd report that they'll try that. We hear nothing for weeks and assume it is fixed. Then, just as everything would calm down and we think we have it solved, the calls would come back in.
After months of going around in circles over these livemeetings, I was at a point where I was ready to grab the nearest heavy object and throw it through a window if I heard the word livemeeting uttered, hoping that would get people to just shut the fuck up about this stupid livemeeting crap that, I just plain and simple don't know what the fuck is going on about. At this point, I told them, don't call me, I don't know, talk to the parent company, it's their damn system, so it's their damn problem.
So, next thing I know, helpdesk tickets opened about this on the parent company's helpdesk system start getting assigned to me.
WHAT
THE
FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THIS ISN'T MY FUCKING SYSTEM, THIS ISN'T MY FUCKING THING, WHY ARE YOU ASSIGNING THEM TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!
And, it turns out, while the parent company's helpdesk can assign tickets to our helpdesk, we can't assign them back to them.
Way to go, assholes!
So, after weeks of going around in circles calling various different people at the parent company to try and find the person that actually is responsible for all this stuff, we find out a few key pieces of information:
A. In order for a user to be able to join a live meeting, their network account must be configured for it. this is not done by default.
B. There is a document with configuration settings that must be filled in after installing livemeeting in order for it to work.
Well, that's just great.....WHEN IN THE FUCK WAS ANYONE PLANNING ON PASSING ALONG THIS INFORMATION TO US?
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG AND HOW MUCH WE'VE BEEN GOING AROUND IN CIRCLES BECAUSE WE DIDN'T HAVE THIS NECESSARY AND VALUABLE INFORMATION?
So, alright, we requested this be enabled on all network accounts, and now we have the configuration information.
And now, the parent company has been sending out massive invites to just about everyone, flooding me with confused people calling since they can't get into the livemeeting, since they don't have their livemeeting properly configured. Well, at least now I know how to fix it, but still....requests are getting sent out to people, and people expect it to just work. Why isn't this configuration able to be automated with the install, or at least the instructions sent with the requests? These requests come with a link to install, as if it has all you need to join the meeting. But, without this info, you don't, you won't get in without a call to the helpdesk if you haven't already been setup.
But, ok....I can work with that.
But I have to ask one question......
WHY IN THE FUCK WOULD YOU CALL ME WHEN YOUR COMPUTER ISN'T EVEN STARTED UP YET?
I get a call this morning, I try to shadow the session to set it up, and I can't......oh, my session is still loading up.
Now I get to spend 2-3 minutes sitting on the phone with nothing to talk about while we wait for a computer to load up.
So, people, for the love of god, don't call your helpdesk until you're ready to be helped.
Thank you.
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