hate deciding

moving the blog.

2006-08-29T21:43:00.000-04:00

I'm going to move this to a different location - not that I post much, but it'll be at http://www.qmnonic.com from now on.

Awesome.

rateplans

2006-08-01T11:51:00.000-04:00

While I'm generally happy with my phone service, a few months ago I (somehow) got on the phone with a bell customer service rep. After a short discussion she noticed that I had a highspeed internet and long distance bundle. She recommended switching off that given my calling history, and move to a different long distance package which would save me money. After asking a few questions, I agreed and she moved me to the new package. I hung up and went about my day.

Days later, I got into a long distance discussion with a friend who works at Bell and told them about how nice the rep was to optimize my billing. He looked puzzled and said something to the effect of "they're moving people off that because we lose money on them.. it's an old package that you can't switch back to".

So now I'm monitoring my long distance calls to see how this affects my overall bill. Of course this isn't overly straightforward, however, I was a little disappointed that they would trick me into switching plans under the guise of 'optimizing my bill'.

I recently got a similar notification from Telus Mobility and am hesitant to act on it without doing my homework.

Wouldn't it make sense to have an online tool that shows your existing history, but allows you to apply different rate plans... to see how your history actually applies to that new rateplan. Wouldn't that just make sense for the consumer?

ATG and Usability

2006-07-15T12:24:00.000-04:00

I apologize in advance for this, but the ATG site is a usability nightmare. Searching is slow and never seems to find anything. The developer portal is nonsense, contains nothing and is not searchable. The navigation is different on the main page than it is on subsequent pages. And my favorite part - it's impossible to tell what licenses cover which products. One would assume this is basic information.

As bad as that site is, all of the related ATG sites (for technical help, etc) are WORSE! The default search on the ATG User Group doesn't search the forums by default.... what other useful content is there to search? Same can be said for the Dynamo Zone.

To make a bad story terrible, you can't search the forums (of the ATG User Group at least) without logging in. What does this mean? It means google or any other search engine can't actually index the content, so you'll never know what's in there, which makes it useless. Google doesn't know whether ATG is a software firm or deals with walking and cycling tours in europe.

So, I've started my own forum and am asking and answering questions as I go. It's a free, low budget forum, courtesy of Nabble, but might prove useful to someone someday. At least google can index the content, so people can learn from my mistakes.

You can find it here - http://www.nabble.com/ATG-Dynamo-f15678.html

frequent flyer programs..

2006-06-08T09:12:00.000-04:00

I barfed a few ideas onto the flyertalk forum, which is where most of the Aeroplan management and executive team spend their time... I don't expect any responses, but I know a few of the people who check it (if they still work there), so it should be interesting.

It just occurred to me that airline loyalty programs are okay, but not great. Most of the features are driven by management, not by the user. Or by the top of the line member, which doesn't actually represent the majority.

And I figure I should get my 2 cents in while I've still got AP*E status.

You can see my rant here.

heating and cooling your house properly

2006-05-22T14:49:00.000-04:00

Commercial buildings do this, and so do rich people, but I'm wondering why it's not more accessible for the average person.. I'm talking about having thermostats in each room of your house, and controlling the flow of hot/cool air into that room based on the temperature.

I've looked into the technology and there isn't much that will actually help you properly heat your home. I currently live in a 80+ year old home and each room seems to have it's own atmosphere. The middle of the house, where the thermostat lives, is always just the right temperature. However, all rooms around it, are always too hot or too cold. So, people tend to adjust the thermostat until the surrounding rooms are comfortable, which uses more gas/electricity than is actually necessary - and now the room with the thermostat is too hot/cold.

Ideally, this is the system I would like...

A central thermostat with multiple wireless satellite thermostats that control the vents in each room. If the furnace is on, the thermostat in each room controls whether the vent is open or not based on the room temperature. If the temperature is right, it closes the vent and indicates to the central thermostat that the furnace can be shut off. When all thermostats indicate that the furnace can be shut off it is turned off. Similarly, when the satellite thermostats indicate that the room temperature is not right, the central thermostat decides when to turn the furnace back on.

This would allow your home to be properly heated/cooled and likely reduce the use of your furnace, thus saving overall gas/electricity consumption. At the very least, it would optimize the use of your furnace.

One day, I will solve this problem... or find someone who already has.

Digital Camera + GPS = Awesome.

2006-04-05T08:37:00.000-04:00

After reviewing a few pictures in flickr, it occurred to me that the picture properties, i.e. the meta data stored by your digital camera, that tells you the details of the photo including camera type, should also include the coordinates of your picture - latitude and longitude, as discussed on the o'reilly radar almost a year ago (I clearly just got a new camera). These cameras do exist, but clearly aren't that popular [yet].

You can use that information in a million different ways, but my immediate thought would be an A9 type mapping. Google could integrate this as a "micro zoom" on their mapping service. Imagine looking for a location, zooming in as far as it can go using the satellite images, then going one step further and viewing the pictures taken and shared at that exact location?

Flickr has a few groups doing this kind of mapping, you can see one of them here.

Of course there are privacy concerns, and this could possibly be a theif's greatest searching tool, but if everyone was honest, this would be super cool.

Hotspots in Toronto.

2006-04-04T09:28:00.000-04:00

If you've ever noticed the Hotspot sticker at your local Starbucks, Second Cup, Timothy's or other coffee shop and figured how much they charge, that symbol should make you feel faint, sick or bring up images of paying $5 for a $0.50 coffee. I'll spare you the research - they charge $10/hr for access, or optionally about $40/month.

They should have thought that pricing strategy through, because they have a great opportunity just waiting to be exploited. They are currently partnered (if not owned) by Bell, Fido, Rogers and Telus. To pay for your service, you must actually pay through your providers website. Ya, through their website. Which means they have the opportunity to push advertising, PERSONALIZED ADVERTISING (because they know EXACTLY who you are), to you.

Wouldn't it be worth $5 to get 15-30 seconds of guaranteed facetime with a customer? They could easily push an add about US roaming packages and family plans to me, with a high chance of conversion. At the very least I would click-through to read more about it. I'm at a coffee shop, I've got nothing but time on my hands. Isn't that well worth subsidizing the internet access fee?

Banking in General..

2006-04-03T14:00:00.000-04:00

Totally dry subject because the canadian (and american) banking scene is appauling. These guys report record profits every year because I can't store money in a shoe box for fear of my cat eating it. Awesome deal.

Why banking sites don't offer a compelling experience is beyond me. Although everyone doesn't use online banking yet, a good indicator of just how many people are using it is overhearing a PM conversation about this neat new thing he found - "interact email transfers". Nuff said.

If everyone is banking online, why do banks offer such a medeocre experience? I've banked with TD , Scotia and ING , both are decent (TD is better) but neither one is actually very good. Although I can do most everything I need to online, there are so many simple things they can do to change that average experience to a killer one.

Dave, from okaydave.com , took a good stab at reworking the online banking experience by proposing the ability to assign custom colors to each transaction - a way of categorizing transactions. This turns your online statements from reference material found at the back of a library, to a part of your daily budgeting experience. You can assign green to all of your grocery purchases, red to all your nonsense purchases, blue to your utilities, etc. It'll definitely help you figure out your life.

Other than personalization in general, it would be unreal to be able to add custom comments to my banking transactions. You know, the bank seems to auto-generate those things now, then puts them through an information obfuscator before displaying them to you. How am I supposed to know what I that "TRNSF 2098234" transaction was all about. If it said "april mortgage payment", that would be so much more helpful. Such a simple thing, that would openup a whole new world of banking.

Maybe a quick email alert telling me when i've been paid.. or when my car payment has come out.. or an alert when my paycheque amount is different.. There are lots of things that might be useful to different people.

Unfortunately, bank employees are training to save save save, and treat the customer like a small child... bank hours are still appauling, and those ATM machine fees are NUTS. If I'm banking with Scotia, and use my card in a TD machine, maybe they should push a 15 second advertisement telling me why TD is better than Scotiabank instead of charging me $1.50 to take out my money. It's the perfect kind of captive audience - I'm not going anywhere without my ATM card, or my money, so I'm forced to watch and read whatever you're telling me. A 1% conversion rate would more than cover the costs of dropping those $1.50 withdrawl fees. And of course people would start talking about it, and likely use the machines more thus see your ads more, etc. etc.

Some of this stuff might be hitting Quicken territory, but that tool is nonsense. Only the bank knows which debt matches which credit. Quicken seems to guess randomly, and ALWAYS gets it wrong. Maybe quicken should team up with your bank to give you the ultimate customer experience?

Online Banking..

2006-04-03T08:56:00.000-04:00

After logging into the ScotiaBank website this morning to make an email payment, I discover the addition of an "Access Code" to help increase security for email transfers. Normally, I don't see this as a problem, but they force it to be a 5-8 digit NUMERIC code. wtf? Are we in the stone ages here? Almost no one can remember a 5-8 digit numeric code for longer than 5 minutes and will OBVIOUSLY write it down. I would love to run a redesign on a banking site, the usability sucks.. there are so many little things they can do to improve services. Simple things like color coding lines in your statement, or adding custom comments to transactions would be AWESOME, and can easily be implemented.

Of course I wrote them an email.. which they won't read, so I wasted 15 minutes of my life.

--- Letter to Scotiabank

While I understand the need for security, asking users to create an ALL NUMERIC access code is a terrible usability mistake. People will not remember it, and will most definitely write it down, thus undermining the purpose of the code. Who can remember a 5-8 digit number off the top of their head?

Why would you force NUMERIC over ALPHANUMERIC? As everyone becomes more used to remembering passwords, why would we step back 10 years and force a numeric password? If this password is also used from an ATM, it would make sense, however if only used online, this is a TERRIBLE usability decision. I work with usability online every day and see how people react to things like this. If you don't believe me, read "The Human Factor".

Other than that, there are many small things that scotiabank can do to greatly improve their service online. Remembering default sorting on the account page would be a huge improvement - who sorts to have their most recent transactions on the bottom?! Allowing user entered comments for transactions, or color coding, would be a HUGE move towards making banking easier for users. Instead of the nonsense comment "transfer to account 84345309583", imagine it said "transfer - mortgage"? Imagine I could color code all my mortgage payments blue, so I can see them at a glance, and know whether it's been taken out?

Don't get me wrong, Scotia has a decent site, but you can attract SO MANY MORE customers if your website actually works FOR the customer, instead of AGAINST them.

Don't take my word for it, ask your users.

----

Dreaming of a single online profile.

2006-03-08T10:30:00.000-05:00

As more and more people shop online, more and more information is stored across many different websites. Keeping that information in sync if you move or change a phone number is insanity, and a solution is so simple it's painful.

I know this wreaks of the Microsoft Passport fiasco, but if it weren't Microsoft, and it was an open standard, would people use it? Think about it, if a central, independent website stored my shipping address, and just my shipping address that every website I shopped on linked to, my life would be fantastic. If I move, I change it in one place. You can apply this to any common information.

The Ultimate Registration
It would make my life as a consumer easier, and the thought of a common/shared registration process would be AWESOME. When I register at virginamerica.com or nau.com, I just indicate my unique online profile key, and I'm done.

Concerned about Privacy?
For those who have privacy concerns, if profile data is standardized, you can apply the "Live Clipboard" concept to registration. When registering at virginamerica.com or nau.com, I cut the pieces of my profile from that central location and I'm done. I'll have to come back and cut/paste my profile data when I move or change phone numbers, but it can still make my life easier.

CanadaPost Could Use it
If I get another piece of mail for Mr. Fee at my address, I'm going to hunt him down myself. Why couldn't all utility companies centralize their mailing information somewhere, say CanadaPost? When I move, I have to call 3 utilities, 2 banks and the library to change my address. They already allow you to forward your mail, why not just handle my address completely? That way, when I move I just have to talk to a single unhappy government worker, instead of 6.

dexit and the TTC?

2006-03-02T11:19:00.000-05:00

Just read an interesting article in the EYE Weekly about the TTC and it's move towards smart cards. Although most major transit systems have already shifted to this type of payment - NYC, Paris, London - the $150 million dollar price tag is a little rich.

So, here's where dexit can lend a helping hand. Currently, it's slowly becoming a convenient form of payment in stores and coffee shops in downtown Toronto. If dexit became the main form of payment for the TTC, they would increase their market 10 fold. So, here's my suggestion.. dexit, subsidize the TTC integration, find a disposable payment method (for tourists, or those of us who don't have a dexit card) and reap the benefits of widespread adoption so that I don't have to pay for a streetcar ride with a $5.

PVR and IPTV Nonsense Ideas..

2006-02-06T15:03:00.000-05:00

Having used a PVR now for about 10 full hours (I'm way behind the curve here), I can see that a PVR/IPTV can be pretty powerful. There are all kinds of features that would be useful...

Allow customers to create/customize the program guide interface. This is probably your best bet for creating something awesome. People out there will customize the thing to death and I'm sure a few of them will be pretty impressive. Blogging is a good example, the basic funtionality exists among all blogs, but people can make it their own.. resulting in more than a few pretty cool templates.

Tie the interface to online forums/profiles/whatever.

Imagine if each program in the program guide was a different shade based on popularity? The darker colors are more popular? It's similar to tagging, which is used all over the place - http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/ (larger font here = more popular). Networks may or may not like this, depending on whether their show is popular or not. It would be interesting to take it a step further and localize the results -- i.e. popularity within Toronto, popularity within Ontario, popularity across Canada, etc.

I read something about this yesterday, but recommendations based on your previous viewing history would be cool. i.e. if you watch 'family guy' all the time, you might also like 'drawn together'. Given the number of people viewing (and tracking their viewing habits anonymously), this should be fairly straightforward.

Link the program guide listings to websites. Those descriptions in the program guide are garbage, why not link to the networks official episode guide online?

Remote Interface. I think LG made a commercial about this as their vision of the future, but why not allow customers to access their box via the internet over their cell or browser? I can't tell you how many times I've left the house and forgotten that a movie was on, or a special that I don't normally watch was on that I should have taped. Other than making it secure, this shouldn't be too crazy.

Tie a website to the aggregate viewing results. Using the flickr example (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/), allow customers and non-customers to checkout what is popular, submit comments on an episode, whatever. It's the next generation of neilson ratings.. why should that select few determine what shows make it and what shows don't make it. Currently, the networks don't consider online downloading of episodes (i.e. torrents or newsbin - credit JMG) in their "popularity rating", which accounts for a huge number of "views" that completely skew their results. Why not try to consider it?

You can also leverage this online venue to sell additional services. If channel X is super popular, and has lots of awesome comments from real viewers on it, maybe I should pick it up? Right now, my only exposure to extra channels is through my friends (limited to those who have digital cable) or nonsense network websites (no trust there).

wifi in toronto

2006-01-27T10:59:00.000-05:00

Almost every Second Cup, Starbucks and Timothy's has a wifi connection in Toronto, as indicated by the "HotSpot" sticker on the door. Ever tried to connect? It's $10 per hour and run by Telus Mobility, Bell Mobility and Rogers Wireless. wtf? $10 an hour for wireless? I work in coffee shops often, and will buy drinks and food where necessary, but won't work there if the wifi costs more than my food bill!

Are these guys really expecting people to pay $10/hr for wireless at a coffee shop? The costs are negligable, as it's likely only a DSL connection. You would think the mobility providers sponsoring it would want the price lowered because you are forced to pay through your cell carriers own payment engine. That's a fantastic place to advertise or push information to your customer when you know EXACTLY where they are. You would think they would reduce the price, to increase traffic to these pages, which has great opportunity for

As an alternative wifi-friendly environment, head to the LinuxCaffe instead, where the coffee is just as good, food is better and the wifi is free.

1 dimensional tetris..

2005-04-06T13:31:00.000-04:00

If you thought 2D tetris was hard.. check this out.

1D Tetris

this is how a project manager ends it all..

2005-02-14T17:13:00.000-05:00

Although I didn't crack a smile reading this, it's pretty funny.

I am a master of self control.

foosball is great.

2005-02-07T13:56:00.000-05:00

We just recently got a foosball table in my office. Needless to say, I have had foosball addiction problems in the past, and am finding similar difficulty now. What makes it worse is that I can see the table from my desk (open concept office).

Some of the guys in the office are good, but I found a video that shows some pretty damn good play. The trick shots are okay, but what blew my mind was 1:10 into the movie. Now that's GREAT foosball.