markwilson.it

Category: Technology

  • Resources to help get started developing Windows Phone apps

    Yesterday, I tweeted to see if anyone had any resources to help a non-programmer create a Windows Phone app (I haven’t written any code in anger since I graduated 18 years ago, although I did used to write Basic, 68000 assembler, Modula-2, Turbo Pascal, COBOL, C, and C++):

    [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/markwilsonit/statuses/157422139505512448″]

    I got quite a few responses asking me to share the findings so here’s what’s been suggested so far:

    Now to find some time to make my application idea a reality…

  • Giffgaff – why did no-one tell me about this before?

    Get a free giffgaff SIMOver the Christmas holidays, I completed my new year rationalisation of mobile contracts by switching my mobile phone from O2 (£16.50 for 200 minutes and a 500MB data bolt on, monthly rolling contract) to Giffgaff (£10 for 250 minutes and “unlimited” data). Having done so, I really don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner (apart from the fact I didn’t know about it!) – especially as Giffgaff not only runs on O2’s network but is actually owned by Telefonica/O2! Indeed, O2’s own careers website describes Giffgaff like this:

    “Giff-what? Yes, we know it’s a funny name. Giffgaff is a brand new mobile network that doesn’t play by mainstream rules.

    Instead, the company’s customers help run the company in return for cash rewards. Hence the term ‘giffgaff’, which means ‘mutual giving’, as any ancient Scot will tell you.

    Customers can earn rewards for helping other customers with queries, designing marketing materials or by recruiting new members.

    The business runs a tight ship – it has no call centres, high street shops and doesn’t splash out on expensive, glossy ad campaigns.

    The result of this is that giffgaff keeps its costs low and and is able to pass the savings on to all its customers.

    Although giffgaff is owned by O2 it is run as a separate company by a small group of passionate, full-time employees based in Beaconsfield just 8 miles north of Slough.”

    This sounded good – and with a referral code that earned both me and the referrer a £5 credit I signed up. If you’re interested in signing up then we can both earn a fiver too!

    So, what’s the catch? Surely there has to be one? The only difference that I can see is the support framework if things don’t work as they should. There is community support and you can “ask an agent” from the Giffgaff website but there is no call centre (which, depending on your view of call centres, may be A Good Thing).

    Once I received my SIM, I activated it, including adding a £10 Goodybag to my account and then started to plan for transferring my number. I’ve had the same mobile number for a long time (10 years or more) and I didn’t want to lose it but there was clear guidance on the Giffgaff website setting out  the steps I needed to take to transfer my number and setting my expectations for the day of transfer (although I did panic a bit when the number still  hadn’t ported at the end of business hours – it finally became live in the early evening). I also needed to cut down the Giffgaff SIM to fit my phone (most phones use the standard SIM but my Nokia Lumia 800 uses a micro SIM) – there’s a template for this but I bought a SIM cutter for a few pounds on the Internet.

    With my voice services transferred I needed to set up the APN for mobile data access on my smartphone, set up mobile messaging, and set up voicemail. All of this was covered in a handy Giffgaffer’s guide to Windows Phone 7(.5) – I’ve sure there are similar guides for iOS, Android, etc. too.

    All in all, I’m really pleased with my switch to Giffgaff. If you’re not happy messing around with SIMs and entering a few settings in your phone, it may not be for you, but for anyone who is out of contract with their current mobile provider, is happy supporting their own technology, and who can get an O2 signal (the O2 status checker provides coverage details for a given postcode) then Giffgaff might be worth a try.

  • Gorilla Glass may be tough – but that doesn’t mean your screen won’t scratch

    When I bought my a new mobile phone last month, I made a conscious decision to keep it in the case it was supplied with, and not to use a screen protector. Why? Because it has Corning Gorilla Glass, which is described by its manufacturer as follows:

    “Gorilla Glass features exceptional damage resistance to the scratches, drops, and bumps of everyday use. It’s cool to the touch, and cleans easily – making it the perfect solution for sleek, seamless designs. And it’s sensitive enough to enable today’s most sophisticated touch applications.”

    So, imagine my horror when, despite having been incredibly careful about not placing my phone in the same pocket as keys, money, etc. I spotted a small (about 3mm) scratch on the display of my two-week old phone.

    I started to research this and found that, whilst GorillaGlass is practically shatterproof, above the glass are the touchscreen electronics and then another coating – and that’s what’s scratched (not the glass itself). I’ve tried to polish it out with Displex Touch Screen polish (which might have had some effect, but it’s still visible – incidentally there is a similar product for non-touch screens – the one you need is in a yellow tube).

    I also tried to buy a screen protector for the Lumia 800 but, annoyingly, despite claiming that they were:

    “for Nokia Lumia 800”

    and that:

    “Our Vikuiti screen protectors are cut by laser in Germany on state-of-the-art machinery. Exact tailoring to forms and excellent border adhesion are guaranteed”

    I found that the 3M Vikuiti covers I ordered did not cover the entire screen area – and others have made the same complaint for the official Nokia covers. I contacted the manufacturer and retailer (Bedifol GmbH), who said:

    “because of the curvature display there is no other crop for this device possible”

    So much for a precision cut with state-of-the-art German machinery. I’ll be sending that back for a refund.

    I’m sure I can protect the screen with something like an Invisible Shield but I have that stuff on one of my iPod and its a) not invisible and b) has a strange texture.  I think I’ll stick with naked glass and hope for the best.  After all that works for my iPad (although the case I use for that covers the screen). I’ve also seen an anecdotal report of using car polishing compounds to remove scratches but that sounds a little risky to me…

    So why bother with this post? Well, because it might serve as a lesson to others who, like me, assume that a scratchproof glass means a scratchproof touchscreen – and unfortunately that’s just not the same thing!

  • Hardware lineup for 2012

    Last year I wrote a post about my “hardware lineup” – i.e. the tech I use almost every day so I thought I should really do the same for 2012.  Much of it’s still the same but there are some changes – it will be interesting to take a look in retrospect next year and see how my plans for 2012 have worked out. So, here’s the tech that I expect my life will revolve around this year.

    Car: Volkswagen Tiguan 2.0 TDI Sport

    My company car is due for replacement in the spring and I’ve ordered a Volkswagen Tiguan to drive for the next 3 years. I really like the Audi A4 Avant that I drive at the moment but it’s recently had a lot of money spent on it (new clutch and major service costing over £2,500 – thankfully not paid by me) and I’m not sure that a three-year-old car with 60,000 miles on the clock is  worth the money the lease company wants for me to take it on…

    Due to price increases, another A4 with the same spec will cost me quite a lot more each month and, whilst the Tiguan is a little smaller, it’s also more practical (I looked at the Q3 too – but it’s “fugly”, overpriced and there is limited engine choice at the moment). With my growing family the addition of a towbar should allow me to take 4 bikes around on a carrier without scratching the car too.

    Verdict who knows – it’s not been delivered yet!

    Phones: Nokia Lumia 800 and Apple iPhone 3GS

    Apple iPhone 3GSNokia Lumia 800I recently joined the 1.5% and jumped into the Windows Phone market. I like it – and want the platform to succeed – but really feel Microsoft has a long way to go. Thankfully I still have an iPhone 3GS provided by my employer (and my iPad) to fall back on when apps are not available or when the Lumia is just too infuriating…

    It was a risk buying the Nokia Lumia but the hardware is lovely, the software will improve, and it was a major investment so, realistically, it’s likely to remain with me for the next 2 years! Meanwhile, I’m still hoping to get myself an iPhone 4 or 4S to replace the 3GS but the chances are best described as slim.

    (Lumia) Verdict 7/10. Hold.
    (iPhone) Verdict 3/10. Not mine to sell!

    Tablet: Apple iPad 3G 64GB

    Apple iPadNo change here – the iPad is my media tablet of choice and no-one else even comes close. I may be tempted by an Amazon Fire or the new (rumoured) baby iPad but at the time of writing this device is still great for occasional surfing, a bit of TV catchup, and social media on the move.  It’s also great for the kids to play games and catch up on vital episodes of childrens’ television programmes that they missed (using BBC iPlayer)!

    Verdict 8/10. Hold.

    Everyday PC: Fujitsu Lifebook S7220 (Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 2.2GHz, 4GB RAM, 250GB hard disk)

    Fujitsu Lifebook S7220I’m still hoping for a BYOC scheme at work, but this PC is my main computing device. I’d love a ThinkPad, but the Lifebook is a perfectly capable, solid, well-built notebook PC, although I frequently find myself running out of memory with the number of tabs I have open in a typical browsing session!

    When it comes up for replacement, I’ll see if I can blag something smaller (really need to be a grade more senior for that) and reduce the weight of my work-bag…

    Verdict 6/10. Holding out for a BYOC scheme at work.

    Netbook: Lenovo S10e (Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB hard disk)

    Lenovo IdeaPad S10Netbook, schmetbook. I hardly used this in 2011. I did install Ubuntu 11.04 on it and have a couple of blog posts to write before I use it to play with Windows 8. I bought the S10e for Windows 7 testing 3 years ago so it owes me nothing but the netbook form factor has been usurped by tablets and low-cost notebooks. My kids have one too but even they are frustrated by the small screen and tend to use my wife’s notebook PC instead

    Verdict 2/10. Not worth selling, so keep for tech projects.

    Digital Cameras: Nikon D700 and Coolpix P7100

    Nikon D700Nikon P7100I still love my DSLR and the D700 will be with me for a while yet. Indeed, it’s more likely that I would buy some new lenses and a flashgun before I replace my camera body.

    The P7100 joined me this year as a device to carry everywhere and it’s been pretty good, offering entry-level DSLR levels of control in a small package, although it’s not as responsive as I’d like.

    (D700) Verdict 9/10. Hold.
    (P7100) Verdict 7/10. Hold.

    Photography PC: Apple MacBook MB062LL/B (Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2GHz, 4GB RAM, 750GB hard disk)

    Apple Macbook White (late 2007)This MacBook needs to last a while longer before I can justify its replacement but I did upgrade the hard disk in 2011 and it may get another upgrade this year. 4GB of RAM is starting to feel a bit light for big Photoshop jobs but new Macs are expensive. I’d better get saving for something new in 2013…

    Verdict 5/10. Hold.

    Media: Apple Mac Mini MA206LL/A (Intel Core Duo 1.66GHz, 2GB RAM, 120GB hard disk)

    (+ iPad, Lumia 800, iPhone 3GS, various iPods, Altec Lansing iM7 iPod speakers)

    Apple Mac MiniNo change here since last year – although both disks in one of my NASs failed and I need to re-rip my CDs for my music library (iTunes had already done a good job of mangling it). I still haven’t bought the music keyboard (maybe this year) but it’s lasting well as my multimedia PC for the office with Spotify, iPlayer, etc.

    It may not be the most powerful of my PCs, but it’s more than up to this kind of work and it takes up almost no space at all.

    Verdict 6/10. Hold.

    Gaming: Microsoft Xbox 360 S 250GB with Kinect Sensor

    Microsoft Xbox 360sI don’t play this as much as I should to make full use of it (although I am enjoying my latest purchase: Lego Pirates of the Caribbean). Hopefully the next few months will finally see iPlayer land on the Xbox at which point it will become a really useful media centre for the living room (it works with my aging SD TV).

    Verdict 9/10. Hold.

    Servers and Storage: Atom-based PC, 2x Netgear ReadyNAS Duo

    My Dell PowerEdge 840 has been retired to save energy (although it could still be wheeled out for any virtual machine workloads to test infrastructure scenarios) and, as I already mentioned, one of my ReadyNASs has suffered a multiple disk failure (waiting for me to sort out some warranty replacement disks) but, once recovered, these machines will remain as the mainstay of my computing infrastructure. Cloud storage for my photos is still too expensive so I’m likely to add another NAS at a family member’s house to maintain an off-site backup.

    Verdict 6/10. Hold.

    Potential new toys: Nest learning thermostat, Romotive Robot, Raspberry Pi

    These have taken my fancy and I’m seriously considering them all in 2012. Only time will tell what I buy (and when) but I’m sure you’ll hear about my exploits on the blog!

  • Useful Links: December 2011

    A list of items I’ve come across recently that I found potentially useful, interesting, or just plain funny:

  • Making an “ordinary” O2 3G data SIM work in an iPad without a tariff change

    The history of my various mobile telcommuncations contracts is a long one, so I’ll spare readers the details but after my recent customer service debacle with Three, I’ve cut them loose (they tried to offer me an iPad 2 for “free” to stay with them… the sort of “free” that involves a 2 year contract… no thanks…).

    I planned to use an O2 SIM that was already activated for mobile data in my iPad so I cut it down to micro SIM size, using a cutter that I bought on the ‘net for a few pounds. After booting the iPad with the new SIM, it found the O2 network but told me that I didn’t have a data contract and gave me a number to call O2, and a reference to quote (the identifier for my SIM).

    O2 told me that it would require a tariff change and that iPad data is different to mobile broadband. I’m sure they meant that it’s billed differently, rather than that it’s different in any other way (special Apple “iTCP/IP” or “iHTTPS”?) but Tim Biller (@Timbo_Baggins) suggested I look at the Access Point Name (APN) settings.

    It took a while to find the right ones – googling for APN O2 iPad told me to change from ibrowse.o2.co.uk (username/password: browse/password) to idata.o2.co.uk (username/password: vertigo/password) but they didn’t work. I needed to think of this the other way around: my SIM works in a 3G dongle so I googled APN O2 dongle and found an extensive list of APNs for UK mobile network providers. Changing the APN in my iPad to mobile.o2.co.uk (username/password: web/web) did the trick, as tested by browsing the ‘net (albeit only GPRS where I live) with Wi-Fi turned off.

    The advantage of this approach is that the same SIM now works in my iPad or in my dongle (using an adapter) allowing 3G data access from either device, on the same bill, but only one at a time (that’s fine).

    Next step is to switch my phone over from O2 (£16.50 a month including 500MB data) to Giffgaff (£10 a month with unlimited data, same network…). I already have the SIM, just waiting to get Christmas out of the way before I try to transfer my phone number!

    [Update 16 January 2012: Some time over the last few days, this stopped working for me. The SIM is still active and works in my 3G dongle, but I guess O2 have made some changes in the network that stop this simple APN change from working with an iPad – madness, as my iPad must place less load on the network than a dongle with a Windows PC, albeit more than a smartphone would…]

  • Windows Phone 7.5 on a Nokia Lumia 800, one week in

    The number of Windows Phone-related posts on this blog recently is a pretty big clue that I have joined the 1.5%.

    After a year or so of waiting for the platform to go somewhere, I was finally seduced by some rather nice hardware in the shape of a Nokia Lumia 800, inspired in no small part by Tim Anderson’s review of Nokia’s flagship Windows handset.

    The Lumia 800 is slightly more expensive than I would like, but I still managed to get it contract-free for just under £400 (and I can’t get an iPhone 4S for that money, much as I’d like to for my wife…).

    So, what’s it like? Well, before I answer that, I should explain how I got to this point:

    • I’m a heavy Apple user (two Macs, a succession of iPods, iPhones and an iPad) but I’m not religious about it. If anything, the evangelical approach that Apple fans tend to exhibit turns me off (I know that Apple devices have their faults too) and, frankly, after 4 or so years, I’m bored of iPhones (although I still use a 3GS at work, and my iPad is my social media triage/e-mail catch-up/media on the move device of choice).  I think iOS has become stale – generations of iterative updates have confused the interface in places and it’s in desperate need of an overhaul.
    • I’ve considered Android smartphones but I’m confused by the plethora of devices and operating system versions that may or may not be available for a given device and, frankly, more than a little alarmed by the lax security in the Google Android Market.
    • Blackberry is on a fast track to no-where: as far as I can tell they are in the middle of a transition between two operating systems (Blackberry OS and QNX); their tablet was a complete failure; and the company is now worth less than Apple’s App Store (just the App Store, a small part of Apple’s business).
    • Then there’s Windows Phone, which offers something different. A really innovative user interface, designed around the things we do with our phones; not about the device but about the data.  Except that no-one (well, nearly no-one) is buying it. The channel wasn’t ready (or sufficiently incentivised) and Microsoft has a huge hill to climb but they simply can’t afford not to have a mobile platform. I just hope they don’t try and kill it next year to put Windows 8 onto phone hardware. And I hope that the tie-up with Nokia helps to reverse the platform’s fortunes…
    If you want an objective review of the phone and it’s operating system then check out the one that Tim Anderson wrote. Aside from the comments on screen capture (I managed to get around that with a third party unlock – although that option wouldn’t have been available when Tim wrote his review), there’s little there that I disagree with. Meanwhile, Charles Arthur goes into a lot of detail on Windows Phone in his review of the HTC Titan – and he’s not entirely complementary (although he is probably fair). [Mary Branscombe also has a review of the operating system in general, not on any particular device – although TechRadar spreads it over 8 pages so some might just want the verdict.] One thing’s for sure, it’s not for everyone. Maybe Microsoft can sort out some of the usability issues in the next release – after all, it’s always the third version that’s a success, right?
    So it’s a good phone with a bad OS then? Well, no, not exactly. I still really like it but here are a some of the comments I have:
    • Hardware:
      • Nokia’s Lumia 800 unbox experience is as good as for the Apple iPhone. In fact, it’s better: Nokia includes a protective case for the phone and there is no need to connect to a PC to activate the handset. Unfortunately it did tell me that I needed to connect to a computer to install an update – I found the Windows Phone Connector for Mac to be horribly buggy (locking up the computer mid-update, at which point I risked bricking the phone by restarting everything…) and I resorted to installing the Zune software on a Windows PC.
      • The handset is attractive and well-made. It feels solid, but not too heavy (just 2g more than the iPhone 4S) and the 3.7″ AMOLED screen features Corning GorillaGlass, so I don’t use any screen protection. I’d like to have seen NFC and a multi-core CPU in the Nokia Lumia 800 specifications but I guess those features will come in a new handset next year.
      • The Lumia 800 takes a micro SIM, which means you might need to work with your mobile operator to get a replacement (I dropped into an O2 store and, although they said it could take up to 24 hours for the SIM swap to take place, it was done in a few minutes) – or you can cut down a regular SIM (as I will be doing later this week when my SIM cutter arrives…).
      • Charging is via a micro-USB cable (supplied in-box, with a mains adapter) but there is a flimsy cover to flip up and expose the socket. I can see that getting broken off and it’s a bit of an annoyance (although arguably it improves the aesthetic appeal of the phone). The port is also recessed which means that not all of my micro-USB cables will work with it. This means I take the Nokia-supplied one everywhere with me (can’t leave one at home, one in the office, etc.).
      • The supplied headset is much better quality than Apple’s stock earbuds as supplied with iPhones – and the earpieces stay in place when I’m running, which is a bonus. I do wish there was a volume control on the headset though, rather than just a play/pause button.
      • Based on my use of the Runkeeper app, GPS seems more accurate than on my iPhone (although the app itself is not as good as the iOS version).
      • Battery life is not fantastic either but it does get me through the day and seems to have improved since Nokia released a firmware update last week – I understand there will be further improvements in January (although I’m not the only one experiencing lock-ups after the phone goes into low-power mode).
      • There’s a built-in hardware diagnostic tool if you dial ##634# – although this tool told me that my battery was 65535% charged… so there are clearly some issues (Simon Bisson tells me that’s a common programming error)!
    • Operating system:
      • It takes a while to get used to the user interface but it does seem to work once you have got your head around it. Charles Arthur is correct about a lack of “information density” and I can’t disagree with his usability gripes either, although I haven’t found them to be a major issue.
      • Charles’ review also told me how to switch between running apps (press and hold the back button); how to display signal strength and battery status (top the top of the screen). After over a week of using the phone I hadn’t found these so, for all it’s good looks, the Windows Phone operating system is not as intuitive as it might be.
      • I wasn’t sure which version I was running – was this 7.5 or 7.1? It turns out that Windows Phone 7.5 (codenamed Mango) is a marketing name and the internal version is 7.1. This is madness, but not the first time Microsoft has let this happen (Windows 7 is Windows 6.1 – or Windows Vista R2 if you look at it another way!)
      • I love the live tiles, and that there is a QR code reader, music and voice seach built into the Bing search app (although Microsoft TellMe is not a match for Apple/Nuance Siri, yet). Local Scout is potentially useful too (although no substitute for real local knowledge).
      • Integration with Office 365 and Xbox Live is strong – which caters for my email and gaming (not that I’m much of a gamer) – and also meant that I had the phone working with my email (and other social media) pretty quickly.
      • The ability to link accounts in the People Hub is a great feature too, auto-suggesting potential links (like the same person on LinkedIn and Twitter) as well as letting me put husband and wife contacts together. Unfortunately the groups facility is severely handicapped, with a maximum of 20 contacts per group (and when you follow hundreds of people on Twitter, as I do, I’d like to be able to use groups to control my contact list).
      • Both the People hub and the applications list could become difficult to navigate as they grow in length but once the reach a certain size (I think, the behaviour certainly seemed to change after I’d had the device a few days) it become possible to click on a section heading (one per letter of the alphabet) and jump to another.
      • Getting media onto the device involves syncing with Zune (or iTunes, via the Windows Phone Connector for Mac), which is a slight annoyance as I’d like to download podcasts directly but the availability of a Spotify app (and the Nokia Mix app provided on the Lumia – more on the Nokia apps later) mean that there is plenty of music available to me when mobile.
      • Highlighting text is difficult, at best, with the cursor appearing underneath my finger.
      • The email signature can’t include HTML links (only plain text, which might then get converted to a link – but that depends on the link and generally doesn’t include phone numbers or @twitterhandle).
      • Screen capture requires an unlock, and installing a third party application that’s not in the marketplace.
    • Third-party apps:
      • The Windows Phone Marketplace is increasing in size but is no-where near Apple (or Android) in terms of app numbers but it does at least support trial purchases (something that Apple really should have implemented in its App Store by now). It’s also got far too many “trash” apps (e.g. simulating a blue screen of death). Some of my most common smartphone apps are there (Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Flickr, Amazon Kindle, Shazam, TV Guide, Spotify, Runkeeper) as well as Adobe Reader, Microsoft Lync, Microsoft Skydrive but no Dropbox, LinkedIn, etc. Also none of the apps I use for car parking are available for Windows Phone (although ParkMobile have a Windows Phone version of their app in development). Only time will tell if developers will start producing Windows Phone variants of applications in any great numbers but with limited budgets, focusing on iOS and Android makes sense given Windows Phone’s relatively low market share.
      • One smart feature is the ability to browse the Marketplace on a PC and then send an app to the phone (a bit like buying Kindle books from Amazon) but it comes over the mobile network (not Wi-Fi), which might be problematic if you live in a GPRS-only area, as I do!
      • Nokia has also put some of its apps on the Lumia 800 – I haven’t used them all, but Nokia Drive did a decent job of navigating its way to my hotel in Lincoln earlier this month and will come in handy when we drive to France next year (the maps and voices seem to be free of charge – although my data usage won’t be). Unfortunately that means I have two maps systems (Nokia and Bing) and two music systems (Nokia and Zune) – hopefully they will be more closely integrated in future.
    In summary, great hardware (aside from battery life) but the operating system is still a little rough around the edges. In addition, the quantity (but more importantly, the quality) of available apps needs to increase. After that, one final tweet from Tim sums up the situation for me:
    [blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/timanderson/status/118987786018766849″]
    [Update 22 December 2011: Added link to @marypcb‘s TechRadar article]

  • Is this how to handle customer complaints on social media? Really?

    There’s an old adage about how

    “a happy customer tells one friend, and unhappy customer tells everybody”

    I have a bad habit of telling the world (well, 1500-odd people on Twitter and a few thousand more via my blog) when something doesn’t work out for me and, over the weekend, it was Three UK (3) whose inability to supply me with a password to access my account online resulted in this tweet:

    [blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/markwilsonit/statuses/148373649827708928″]

    I’m certainly no celebrity and I don’t expect every company to roll over when I act like a petulant teenager, but they could at least try to address my issue. Couldn’t they?

    To be fair to Three, their online team @ThreeUK (which is clear about its online hours: Monday-Friday, 9am to 5.30pm) responded but their response simply bounced me to another Twitter account operated by the company:

    [blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/ThreeUK/statuses/148718612167917568″]

    They also responded to another tweet of mine arising from a discussion about the issue with one of my Twitter contacts:

    [blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/ThreeUK/statuses/148719082831745024″]

    Ignoring the grammar, if you care about customer service, what happened to owning the customer’s problem and managing it to resolution?

    Clearly Three have (at least) two Twitter accounts operated by two teams: marketing and customer service. That’s OK, but they don’t seem to be able to take a problem inside the organisation to work out the best approach – they simply bounce me from one to the other. Oh dear.

    So I got in touch with @ThreeUKSupport

    [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/markwilsonit/statuses/148736144350248960″]

    and a reply came back soon enough but it merely repeated what I already know – that their process is broken…

    [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/ThreeUKSupport/statuses/148762215674163200″]

    [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/ThreeUKSupport/statuses/148762313867014144″]

    …absolutely no response to my issues:

    “My issues here are: having to pay to speak to a customer service agent and being kept on hold for a while; getting poor advice from the agent (unless Three can tell me how to drag and drop my bill from their portal to my email, on an iPad); and not getting an answer to my problem. Visiting a store is simply not worth the effort (20-odd mile drive, pay for parking, an hour of my time) – but could well lose Three a customer.”

    I even threw them a lifeline:

    [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/markwilsonit/statuses/148776522382192640″]

    Nothing from @ThreeUK, and a “yeah, whatever” (I paraphrase) from @ThreeUKSupport:

    [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/ThreeUKSupport/statuses/148799945498042368″]

    Now, I know that implementing social media for large corporates is bloody hard. I tried – and there is a lot that we can do better where I work too… people in glass houses and all that… but this is me, responding as an individual, not as an employee, so hear me out, please.

    • Firstly, if you want to operate a corporate Twitter account (or any other “social” account), be ready to deal with complaints. For support, be ready to direct people to official channels but for customer service issues, then a little more tact and diplomacy might be required.
    • Secondly, if a customer outlines multiple issues to which they would like a response, it’s OK to ask them to supply some contact details so that you can get in touch and investigate further.
    • Finally, if all you do is provide stock answers then you’ll annoy a customer who is already unhappy with your company’s service.

    For whomever is responsible for social media at Three, there’s a really good book I can recommend: it’s called “Empowered” and it’s written by Forrester analysts Josh Bernoff (@jbernoff) and Ted Schadler (@TedSchadler). The book talks about groundswell customer service and provides real-world examples of how innovative leaders and their teams use technology to solve customer problems… it’s definitely worth a read. And Forrester released a report yesterday entitled “Twitter: the public forum for your brand”. If you don’t have access to the report, it’s author, Melissa Parrish (@melissarparrish) has some great blog posts about the use of Twitter too.

    Incidentally, Sainsbury’s, another company that recently incurred my wrath on Twitter after failing to follow up on a customer service email about the quality of the groceries they had delivered a few days previously deserves mention for fixing my issue. Their social media team took action to get my enquiry dealt with and compensated me for the problems I had experienced. Arguably, that is how to respond… Three’s example is how not to…

    I started this post with a quote, so I’ll finish with another:

    “Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.”

    [Donald Porter, British Airways]

    [Update 16 January 2012: Three have been in touch and would like to make it clear that they do care about their customers on Twitter. I’m still disappointed about how my calls and social media follow-up were handled, but it is good to know that they are at least attempting to improve the experience that their customers receive via social media.]

  • Office 365 administrators: make sure you have these details populated

    A few weeks ago, I wrote about my experience of resetting my Office 365 password/disabling password expiry after I became locked out. At the time I had some issues proving my identity because there was no ‘phone number on file for my account. I had added my mobile number to the user profile associated with my mailbox but that didn’t seem to be what the support team needed.

    I’ve since learned that the crucial field is on the technical contact details for the organisation. A Microsoft Support Engineer wrote in an email to me:

    “[…] the company information can be changed from the Online Portal. When you sign in and navigate to the admin panel, you should see your organization’s name in the upper left corner. When you click that, it brings up your organization’s information. The global administrator can edit these fields by mousing over them and clicking the small ‘Edit’ button that appears.”

    Office 365 administration contact details

    Interestingly, since my support incident, Microsoft has introduced self-service password resets for Office 365 but these seem to be reliant on two other pieces of information that are specific to an individual user account:

    • An alternate email address (one that’s not on the Office 365 system – I used a Hotmail account that is also a connected account so I still see service updates in my usual mailbox).
    • The mobile phone field in the user properties (i.e. the one that I had set on my account but which was not the one Microsoft Support were looking for!)
    If you are the only administrator for an Office 365 system, it’s worth making sure that these details have been populated.

  • A workaround for iPad users/Three UK subscribers to access their mobile broadband bills on another device

    Three UK (3) has just been added to my list of mobile operators who haven’t got a clue about customer service.

    For the last few months I’ve been using Three’s mobile broadband service on my iPad. The in-store service when I joined the network was pretty lousy but today that got a whole lot worse. I needed to store a copy of my bills and found that the My 3 portal was only available to me over Three’s 3G network from my iPad. Access from a PC, or over Wi-Fi needed a password. And resetting that password needed the ability to receive SMS, a capability that my iPad does not have…

    So I called Three. Actually, I rang several numbers for Three, trying to avoid paying for the call (I can’t use their free number because I don’t have a phone on their network…) and I spoke to someone who understood the issue but couldn’t help because they were in the mobile dongle department. He transferred me to someone in the iPad team (approx. 10 minute wait…) who confirmed I could only access my bills on my iPad and when I asked how I could download them he suggested either dragging and dropping them to my email (what?!). At this point, I think he was well off his script and just making things up but he asked me if I have an iPhone 4S. I don’t, so he suggested going into store, putting my SIM into the store’s iPhone 4S, and getting the password sent by SMS to it…

    [Thinking about the situation as I write this post, I don’t have an iPhone 4S but I do  have another phone that can take a micro SIM… but Three asked if I had an iPhone 4S]

    My issues here are: having to pay to speak to a customer service agent and being kept on hold for a while; getting poor advice from the agent (unless Three can tell me how to drag and drop my bill from their portal to my email, on an iPad); and not getting an answer to my problem. Visiting a store is simply not worth the effort (20-odd mile drive, pay for parking, an hour of my time) – but could well lose Three a customer.

    I did find a workaround though, for anyone who has Dropbox installed on their iPad…

    1. Disconnect from any Wi-Fi networks and open the My 3 portal on the iPad (My 3 loads in Safari without asking for credentials if you are connected to the Three network with a 3G connection).
    2. Navigate to Recent Bills and press/hold the PDF icon to open a bill.
    3. Once loaded, open the PDF in Dropbox – it will be saved as a file called viewInvoice.nocache, which is a PDF file, but without the correct file extension.
    4. Rename viewInvoice.nocache to add a .PDF file extension and open it as normal on any device you like.

    Interestingly, O2 (whose incompetence caused me to switch my mobile broadband to Three in the first place, but who did later take steps to address the issue) still send me an email every month to say that my mobile broadband payment has failed… that suggests my account is still live… maybe with 5GB of data still loaded… perhaps I should search for that micro SIM and try it again…