President's Message

July 2006

Before I dive into the month’s column I’d like to take a moment to congratulate the 2006 U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy… Congratulations Geoff.

Kudos for HP
Customer Service…
It’s a well kept secret that complex electronic equipment like computers run on smoke, and that if the smoke some how escapes, the equipment stops working… Well, a few nights ago the smoke escaped from my flat panel monitor in spectacular fashion.

I’m a little fuzzy on all the details but I’m reasonably certain I mumbled at least one of George Carlin’s 7 naughty words, then crawled under my desk, unplugged the monitor, made sure the smoke was completely out and called Hewlett-Packard’s technical support department. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting much, not at 11:30 p.m. To my surprise my call was answered on the second ring and routed to a polite, professional customer service representative named Sol… Our conversation went something like this:

HP Support: Thank you for calling HP Support. This is Sol; can I have your name please?
Me: (With a smoke detector screeching in the background) Jeff.
HP: How can I help you, Jeff?
Me: (Being a little snarky) The smoke escaped from my monitor.
HP: That doesn’t sound good.
Me: Nope.
HP: Were there any sparks coming for the monitor?
Me: No, just smoke and a small flame.
HP: That’s not good.
Me: Umm... Nope.
HP: Can I have the part number and serial number of the monitor?
Me: Sure…
HP: Ok... That unit is in warranty. Can I have your address & telephone number, please?
Me: Sure…
HP: OK... You should be receiving a replacement monitor in 2-3 business days. Your case number is ####.
Me: Umm. Ok.
HP: Is there anything else I can do for you today?
Me: No I think we’re good.
HP: Ok, Thank you for calling HP.

That was it… No fuss, no muss, problem handled. All told I think I was on the phone for all of five minutes. Not bad, not bad at all, not when you consider what passes for customer service these days…
(I received a replacement monitor, as promised, 3 days later.)

Upcoming Events
• “Patch Tuesday” – July 11. Don’t forget to visit the Microsoft update site, http://update.microsoft.com.
• Interop New York – September 18- 22. Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York, http://www.interop.com.
If know of any upcoming technology conferences please send me the details… I’ll include them in my next column.

Web Site
Our webmaster, Scott Preston, is hard at work on a new and improved version of our Web site. Our redesigned site will be based on an open source content management system called Joomla.

Moving to a database-driven content management system will allow us to update the site faster and add new features, like message boards. If you’d like a sneak preview of the new site, drop me a note and I’ll send you a link.

Windows 98 Sunset
Support for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows Millennium Edition (Me) ends on Tuesday, July 11. Microsoft will no longer be offering paid incident technical support or providing security updates for those operating systems after that date.
If you’re still using Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition, I’d strongly suggest moving to Windows XP.

Now that Microsoft has officially put them out to pasture, third party developers will slowly start dropping support for Win 98 and Win ME as well. Most notably, ZoneLabs, the maker of the ZoneAlarm personal firewall, has dropped support for Win 98/Me from ZoneAlarm 6.5. Webroot Software’s forthcoming SpySweeper 5 also will not work with Windows 98 or Windows Me. I suspect other anti-virus and/or anti-spyware software developers will drop support for Windows 98/Me over the next year also.

End Notes
Not much in the way of notes for this month… I’m currently reading The Saboteurs, by W.E.B Griffin and I have
Warlord : No Better Friend, No Worse
Enemy, by Ilario Pantano, Malcolm McConnell and The Traitor, by Stephen Coonts, on deck.
Well, that’s it for this month. You can e-mail me with your comments, questions, criticisms or book recommendations at jasetaro@mags.net or jasetaro@yahoo.com.
Cheers;

Jeff Setaro