Imagine a dozen people editing the same document over the Internet at the same time. No big deal, right? We can do that now.

Now imagine that everyone can SEE all the changes occurring in REAL TIME.

NOW imagine that none of the people editing the document speak the same language, yet they can read and edit it in their native language.

Google Wave is a highly collaborative tool for communication and other good things. If adopted by the mainstream it could replace email, text messaging and social networking sites.

Of course, much remains to be seen. There will be questions about security, etc. But Google Wave’s paradigm will probably change how we think about the Internet in general.

Terror and Unhappiness

Let’s get the bad ones out of the way. The biggest challenge I face is my own fear that I will screw something up, and it will cost someone (and/or myself) greatly. I find myself tensing up when the phone rings, and depending on the caller, getting quite nervous on the phone. My inner critic gets really loud when I describe what I can do for a potential client because, of course, my inner critic knows my sales pitch is just a sales pitch and has no REAL weight behind it.

So I’ve worked for free a lot. In a situation where I don’t feel very knowledgable, I’ll spend a lot of time working on the problem without charging the customer for it. Some people may think this is a mistake, and I guess it might be. But my conscience just won’t feel comfortable with charging for all my time until I can be more efficient with it.

Most of my clients receive my policy quite well. I’m sure it depends, though, on the outcome. One recent client, for example, came to me with a trashed hard disk. I ran a utility to recover as much data as I could, but the disk is seriously F’d. Though I spent at least 3 hours working to get his data of his disk I only charged him for half. Part of that was because I did a lot of research into options for recovering data in such a scenario. But I know deep down that part of it was guilt for not being able to resolve his problem.

When I ran into this guy at the grocery store a week later, I asked if he was able to get any further with his data recovery. It could have been a bad day or something, but he seemed disturbed that I even approached him. He complained that basically he hadn’t gotten anywhere except to learn it’ll just cost him more money. This is when I realized that some customers will not see me as a person after I work for them. They’ll see me as someone who serves them, and if my service doesn’t achieve what they hope, I can expect a few to treat me like I disappointed them.

So as I go forward I realize I need to find the balance between how much of the problem I own, and how much of the problem the customer owns. I’ll also need some thicker skin!

Praise and Success Stories

I’ve received a lot of praise for my work, which is absolutely required for me to do this work. I wouldn’t be able to do it for the money alone. If I didn’t see people genuinely pleased with the outcome it just wouldn’t be worth it to me.

Just yesterday I helped a client learn how to burn photos to CDs, and I installed a webcam and installed Skype for him so he could have video chats with his family (some of which are overseas). This customer is a retiree, and readily admits his simultaneous amazement and frustration with technology. But after a few minutes of instruction and testing he seemed to have a real handle on everything. He told me, "Well if anyone asks I’ll be real happy to recommend you Mike. It’s just like your card says – friendly and patient!"

Another client has said the same thing after I helped her migrate from her PC to her Mac. So far she loves it and is enjoying her Mexican vacation, apparently Skyping and emailing her friends and colleagues with ease from her palapa near the beach.

I gotta say, it’s pretty gratifying to have some successes to brag about!

This week I learned that my favorite part of this job is the tutoring. Chalk it up to my crazy childhood with a brain injured father, or my dedication to making sure people understand information they want to know, I have a facility for helping people with technical stuff. That’s how I got into this business in the first place – I was doing it anyway (for free) for friends and family. So, I may end up focusing the business more on tutoring and resolving minor or moderate configuration problems (like network issues or OS upgrades), and do less of the hardware work. I imagine the best scenario is for me to just be of assistance on whatever comes up, and be willing to be careful and fair as I do it.

I downloaded the files and nailed down the most obvious environmental variables before even trying to run the client’s script in my local environment. No biggie – create a dupe of the database and the db user, make sure the script connects to my local instance of MySQL, etc. I knew the script should run since it worked well already in the client’s production environment.

Once the tweaking was done I gave it a try and immediately saw this error:

Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result

My first thought was that I’d missed something with the local variables because the actual line of code that PHP puked on looked fine. I tested the SQL query, ran through the code a few times and began to seriously worry about my competence.

But then I realized all of the PHP open tags were written in short form:

—

<?

// various PHP code

?>

—

By default, WAMP does not support the short open tag. All I had to do was enable that particular setting in WAMP’s PHP settings, and PRESTO: instant functionality.

I’ve read several forums where this error appeared for other developers, but none of the forums said anything that connected the PHP setting of short open tag support. Hopefully this will help somebody someday.

So – I did a little research and came across the following settings which appear to produce a decent 640X480 video that streams comfortable and looks halfway decent. I’m using iMovie 8 as my editor and exporter.

• Under the "Share" menu, I chose "Export using QuickTime…"
• Under QuickTime settings I used:
• Size: 640X480
• Codec:H.264
• Frame rate: 29.97 fps
• Data rate restricted to 1,000kbs
• Optimized for streaming
• Best quality compression (multi-pass)
• Fast start with compressed header
• Audio: 16bit Apple lossless
• No filters

Unsurprisingly, Apple has a decent writeup on the subject of QuickTime settings.

Keep in mind my end objective was to simply show rough edits to a client so they’d have an idea of the work I’d done. The final edits, audio tweaking, fine-tuning and cover shots will come later, so we’ll want to spend more energy on finding the optimal settings. For this I’m relying on a local expert.

When browsing to the sites they both produced the same MySQL error #145. And it was the session table that was corrupted on both DBs.

The first thing I thought of was some hack-bot going around exploiting some little-known Joomla vulnerability. But I haven’t been able to find anything about that on the Joomla site. Or elsewhere.

I then wondered if it was perhaps my hosting company, Hostmonster.com. The company president has a blog that sometimes explains strange new behavior in my hosting account. Sure enough there was an entry about changes they’ve been making that may well have had an impact. Turns out they’re switching their storage to Solid State Drives (SSDs).

But then I found a couple old Joomla threads indicating that Joomla has long suffered from periodically corrupted session tables.

Even if it does turn out to be a Joomla issue, why would they both happen pretty much on the same day? I’ve never seen it before.

If anyone has any ideas, feel free to let me know.

Thanks to a compassionate FedEx driver, I was spared the drive to Montrose to pick up my computer (see my last post). He made the arrangements to bring the box to me himself. What a guy!

The Presario appears to work. When I shipped it to HP, the machine wouldn’t boot. The LEDs would light up, and the disk would spin for a second, but then nothing else would happen. I knew it was the motherboard that was the cause because 1) HP has a recall program for this problem, and 2) I was able to backup my disk by taking it out and copying the contents to another machine.

The machine now starts up without a problem. And surprisingly HP didn’t wipe the drive as they told me they would. Which means I should be able to copy my email and a couple other documents from my surrogate machine and be on my way. That’s a relief.

Although the Presario is a bit low on disk, so I’ll probably have to upgrade it before long.

So, all in all, the problem is resolved. It took almost exactly 1 month to get from A (HP providing me with a return ticket) to B (HP returning the notebook in working order).

If anyone from HP ever reads this, here are my recommendations.

1. Train your customer service reps (CSRs) properly. HP’s reps never really had the information or training they needed to get the job done right. Their English was poor and they tended to go from script more than using their heads. I can’t tell you how many times I had to explain my situation because the CSR couldn’t absorb information that didn’t fit their script.
2. Provide accurate information. The time estimates for the repair started at 7-10 days. Soon it was increased to 15 days. Then, when several days had passed and HP hadn’t even sent me the return packaging, the CSRs blamed FedEx for the delay. It was obvious that HP was having a major problem with repairs, but the CSRs waited until I was shouting at them before they’d admit there was a problem. And worse, ALL of HP’s email correspondence points the customer to an online status page. During the first week of my ordeal, the status page wouldn’t even come up! And even when it finally did actually show up in my browser it was never anywhere close to showing an accurate status. The online status page was worthless.
3. FIX YOUR SYSTEM. It’s great that HP acknowledged the problem with several models of their computers and repaired my notebook for free. If HP had handled this better, I would be singing their praises. But the experience was painful and infuriating and I will never buy another HP computer again. I also will not likely buy any of their other products.

If anyone who’s having trouble with HP reads this, here is my advice:

1. Let go. There is nothing you can do or say to make HP follow through on their promise faster than they are. Plan for the process to take 3 or 4 times longer than what you’re told. Go on with your life and try not to think about it.
2. Use email instead of the phone. This saved me a lot of headaches and high blood pressure because I didn’t have to wait around on hold to be given inaccurate information or bad news. Additionally, emails provide a "paper" trail.
3. Have your order and ticket number ready if you do call. This will save you time because the CSR can read your history instead of making you repeat it.

Good luck.

Despite telling two separate HP customer service reps that my address had changed, HP never updated the work order for the repair on my Presario. I learned this on Saturday (the 8th) when I went back to our old place to do some cleaning. FedEx had apparently tried to deliver the package to the old address twice.

So I called FedEx to explain and find out my options. Since they weren’t allowed to deliver it to a new address without approval from the shipper, and since a signature was required, I had to drive the hour to Montrose to pick up the box. Unbelievable.

And what makes this whole ridiculous story so much more ridiculous is that today, FedEx delivered to me a package from HP! At first I was thinking, "Hooray! My laptop is here! I wonder how they figured out the address mixup?" But the name on the box was NOT MINE. I’m guessing that those utterly incompetent folks at HP updated my new address on the WRONG ACCOUNT! Some poor schlub is sitting out there waiting for his HP shipment wondering why it hasn’t arrived yet.

Seriously – you can’t make this stuff up.

So I called HP to let them know they’d sent someone else’s package to me. It took me three attempts to make the rep understand the problem. He kept apologizing, and I kept trying to make sure he understood that he should be trying to fix the error for the other customer. Don’t know if it ever sunk in, but I tried.

I also inquired into a new ETA for the repaired laptop. According to this particular agent, it will take another 2 days to diagnose the problems, and that will determine the timeframe for repair and return. So, more waiting.

Meanwhile I’ve almost got a replacement ready. We bought a new Dell Optiplex 755 tower to fill in the gap in the short-term. It arrived yesterday and I’ve been frantically re-installing software and doing all the configuring. (I never cease to be amazed how much time is involved in setting up a computer.) When/if I ever get my laptop back from HP, the Optiplex will become our file/server and backup machine.

The new Dell works well and I’m impressed with the quietness of the fan. My biggest complaint is no digital video output for the monitor, so I use the VGA connection to the 19" widescreen monitor that came with the tower.

The box was 10 days late, but I should point out that this marks the first time an HP promise was actually fulfilled. They told me on the 20th that I’d receive the box within 2 to 3 days and it showed up on the 3rd day.