Comcast is the largest and most respected cable provider, Internet service provider, and one of the biggest telephone service providers in the world. Despite all these accomplishments, Comcast is one of the most hated companies today, and a customer service episode doesn’t help matters much.
Controversy and fallout continue after an embarrassing service call. A customer named Ryan Block calls to cancel his Comcast service. Instead of complying with Block’s wants, the Comcast rep demands, borderline bullies Block, for an explanation. The conversation leaks into social media and becomes a national headline. Now, COO Dave Watson has gotten involved, posting a heart felt letter on the company website. Mr. Watson says he’s embarrassed by the call, he also says the rep was trained to save customers anyway he/she can. He admits the rep fell short in respecting the customer. Mr. Watson vows in the statement to review and refresh training programs and to better reward customers about doing the right thing.
I hope COO Dave Watson means what he says, and this isn’t some temporary band-aid until the media stops focusing on this. I understand business is business and the goal is to get and keep customers. But respecting customers’ rights and wishes should take precedent over that. Plus, Comcast is the biggest telecommunications company in the world. They even own NBC, several cable channels, Universal studios, and trying to get Time Warner. Why were they so worried about one consumer? They’ll probably get at least 10 more before the rep’s shift is over that day. Their customer relations reputation isn’t that good, but they’re too big to fail. That’s why I cringe when I hear the word merger. Companies get so big they don’t have to care. There’s another lesson here. Be careful of how you talk to your customers. In this era of sophisticated technology, your conversation can get leaked and played all over the world, especially if it’s a bad one. Then what? What other lessons can be learned here?
There’s a smart watch out there called Moto 360, made by Motorola. From a distance, it may look like a cheap watch you had in childhood, but don’t let the look fool you.
That look is done intentionally. The intention is comfort. It fits on very smoothly, easy to put on, and feels like you’re wearing air. The pictures I’ve seen of it are great. Imagine being at the airport and your watch telling you what time your flight leaves and out of what gate. The up/down and right/left commands are easy, fast and smooth. It’s simple to read, navigate and handle.
But there are a few things that bother me abut Motorola’s Moto 360. There’s so much we don’t know about. We don’t know how much this will cost. We don’t know what’s on the back of the watch; they won’t let us know. It’s been speculated it’s a heart rate monitor. It needs to be if they want to compete in this smart watch game. But I like what I see so far. I like how the Moto 360 makes technology look simple. When some people think smart watch they think hard steel, expensive prices, and complicated technologies. I hope the Moto 360 proves people wrong. How much do you think this smart watch will cost?
This week, I’ve been reporting a lot about other countries, like China and Israel. That got me thinking; which are the most Technologically Advanced Countries?as of May 2013? So here we go the top 10 as seen by Computer Geeks
10. The Netherlands: Over 33 percent of her residents have a computer in their home, one of the highest ratios in the world.
9. China: Many tech products are made there. They’re known for hacking into US systems. They’re perhaps the biggest technological consumers. They’d be ranked higher if there was more online freedom.
8. Finland: It’s where Nokia, the world’s biggest cell?phone provider was founded. ?Eighty-four percent of her citizens use the Internet regularly. During the last several years,?Finland has helped?lead the world in tech innovation.
7. United Kingdom: Online access and smartphones are easily accessible. It has Microsoft’s second highest market. And notice how often those Brits get the latest smartphones before us Yanks do!
6. India: Now before you laugh, keep in mind how much software comes from there. Like China, they’re booming and their consumer power for computer related products will only get bigger. When you call customer service for that broken machine, guess whose probably going to answer?
5. Israel: Their Waze could merger with Facebook. Their Tel Aviv tech startups rival those of the Silicon Valley.?Did you know?35% of their exports are tech related?
4. Singapore: They have perhaps the highest Internet speed in the world. Not only that, the majority of her citizens have more than one smartphone and they have the highest mobile phone ownership in the world.
3. South Korea: Samsung headquarters are here; that should be?enough ! But?they also have the highest Wifi speed in the world. They’re fast catching up with Japan as the east Asia powerhouse.
2. U.S.A.: The companies that started here: Google, Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft, Dell,?AT&T,?Facebook, You Tube; I can go on and on. The Silicon Valley is the tech capital of the world. Americans are on their smartphones so much it’s starting to get annoying. Say what you want, but without the United States, there would be no technological revolution.
1. Japan: Isn’t it enough to give the world Nintendo, Toshiba, Sony, NTT, Hitachi, etc.? They’re coming up with more stuff, like holograms, transporters, even technology to keep us safe from tsunamis and nuclear war. Have you seen their robots and toilets?
I know I left some countries out. I can’t wait to hear from you guys about it.
It just about that time for Microsoft to start doing what it does best, fixing issues with its operating system that didn?t have time to fix before they launched. Now don?t get me wrong, we also have some cool updates to go along with it but the service pack also provides fixes for your Windows 7 OS that you may need.
The update I am most excited about that comes along with SP1 is the Remote FX. What the Remote FX does is it provides 3D graphical updates. This will allow for full remote experiences including multiple displays. So the RemoteFX is able to do these renderings of the 3D graphics by locally rendering the screen image on the remote PC after being compressed and sent down to the remote host. This will help improve video streaming across remote sessions which right now is a major issue of virtualized computing.
Now that Windows 7 is over a year old it is about time for the SP1 to launch and I am actually very happy to see that they have added something as significant as RemoteFX. This will surely improve the experience of people who remote into desktops from home or work. Thank you Microsoft for adding a nice improvement to Windows 7 in SP1.
This scenario is played out everyday across the world: you’re working, surfing the internet or writing an email and your computer locks up,?frozen.
This happens when the computer does not respond to the inputs, for instance when you are trying to move the mouse around to restart the system and nothing happens when you click on it. It is different from a crash, when the whole system shuts down. With hangs you have the ability to recover the by ending the task and restarting the program.
One main cause of hangs is called a deadlock, in which?one process may send a?signal to a second process then stop execution until it receives a response. If the second process is busy the signal will be forced to wait until the process can get to it. However, if the second process was busy sending a signal to the first process then both processes would wait forever for the other to respond to signals and never see the other?s signal.
Sometimes it is just one program that hangs, or it could be the whole screen, regardless there are ways to recover from it.
One of the first things you should try in attempting to recover from a lockup is ending the application which has caused the freeze. You can do this by using a native program called Task Manager. To bring the Task Manager up press CTRL then while holding CTRL,press and hold the ALT key, next reach over to the top right of your computer and press the?DEL key. Once you release the keys a window should open giving you a view of running applications.
This tool has saved many a file and application, as well as the whole computer, giving us the ability to recover from what seems like a random occurrence.
Assuming Task Manager will open, check the list of applications for any programs that say “Not Responding” under “Status”. If Internet Explorer or any other applications you had open read “Not Responding”, then you may Right-Click on them and select “End Task” from the menu. This should close the running application, if you are prompted to “End Now” or “Wait for it to respond” choose to “End Now”. By doing this you may lose any work you had open in this application but it will normally allow you to save anything else that was open at the time of the freeze.
If Task Manager is not working for you and you have no other way of closing the frozen computer programs then you may try powering down the computer. The easiest way to do this when the computer is not responding is by holding the power button in for about ten to fifteen seconds. The machine will power down, if it does not your last resort is to physically unplug the computer from the wall. Once powered down you may turn it back on and resume working, hopefully problem free.
If you continue having problems with the laptop or computer you may want to call a computer repair technician. The technicians at Computer Geeks know how to get in and get out leaving your computer feeling healthy again!
