Natasha D'Souza

This all started after receiving an email from a friend with the subject “Really Cool Website”. Curious I clicked on the email to what this was all about. There were a number of links that I clicked on but this one really captured my attention. It’s of a water hole in the Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana. This live feed is in full color, has night vision, excellent sound quality and all transmitted via satellite. A classic example of technology meeting nature to create a virtual safari. The viewer can watch the animals as they come to the water hole. The sound quality is pretty good so you feel like you are there.

If they have live cams in Africa what about other parts of the world. In Australia there is a Kookaburra cam. Penguin cam in the Antartic. Sealion Caves, turtle hospital, eagle cam and much more. The drawback to the live cams is that they are highly dependent on your timezone. So you might not always get the best view.
Finally to round it off a Human watering Hole.

Enjoy.

DemoCamp is a great way to showcase you software or hardware and get some great feedback from an informed audience. There are many Camps worldwide and it’s open to anyone. So if you have a product to demo or want to see the up and coming entrepreneurs drop by.

The next session, in Ottawa, will be

• Date: Monday, January 28, 2008 from 7pm to 9pm
• Location: Clock Tower Pub on Bank Street (575 Bank St.), just south of the Queensway.

It’s best to register ahead of time.

If there are no BarCamps, DemoCamps, BlogCamps etc. in your city, go ahead and get one started. There are some basic rules that need to be followed, however, it’s very easy to organize one
DemoCamp7 looks to be very interesting with 6 demos lined up. Here’s a summary

• ‘Protecode Demo’ – demonstration of a tool that unobtrusively detects, logs, and identifies external content during software development. This tool is used to automatically create records of Intellectual Property ownership and licensing attributes of external code (eg Open Source modules or snippets) that enter a project

• Distributed Musical Instruments. Software that will allow MIDI files to be replayed on different sound modules. This will be a demo of an entry level process leading to a system creating a Virtual Musical Sound Studio.

• ‘The Traveler IQ Challenge‘ – Demo of a viral marketing app gone wild. In June of 2007 the TIQ was launched on Facebook to promote TravelPod, since then it’s been launched on Friendster, TravelPod, TripAdvisor and virally on 4000 other syndicated websites. The TIQ has now taken a life of its own generating millions of monthly unique visitors and driving significant traffic to TravelPod.com

• ‘JohnnyVoIP‘ – Initial beta of a social communications platform tool that is currently available on Facebook allowing users to forget about downloading, installing, and finding their friends – just click on a link.

• Internet Business Logic – A Wiki and SOA endpoint for business rules in open vocabulary, executable English. – Flash Demo Preview

• iotum – iotum’s conference calling application for Facebook

So drink your favorite beer and watch some interesting and inspiring demos.

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Sunset from the 417 near the construction site.

I have been trying to sign up for one of the Microsoft programs for a while now; yes you do know where this is going.

The problem is that the website does not work however when I call the help line for this particular program, I am told things like the website does not work because you have not deleted all your cookies!!! I asked which particular ones I should delete but they insist that all the cookies need to be deleted. I thank them, hang up and call again. This time I get another person on the line who basically states that they can’t help me. No effort to escalate this problem.

So I call back again and get another individual. This time I try another line of reasoning, your website does not work and I want to sign up for this program so is there someone that can process this manually? The answer is no, it’s an automated process therefore have to use the website. I thank them and hang up again.

I tried the local Ottawa office but was told that they can’t help me as they only support the Govt. therefore call another 1-800 number.

The next idea was to ask my network, I was provided with a contact in one of the technical groups. So feeling a little more hopeful I got in touch with this person and was provided a name. They said that this person was in the office and got in touch with them on my behalf. I was promised that I would hear from them soon. By late afternoon I had still not heard back from them so I called the techie again. I was informed that there was no number listed just email. So another email was sent. I just have to have faith in the system and wait.

Needless to say I have called the various 1-800 numbers provided to no avail. Now what seems to have been days has turned into weeks. At the rate things are going it’s going to be months before I will be able to sign onto this program!! My days are spent calling these help linesand listening to the wonderful music.

I have to figure out a way to get past these help lines and talk to someone on the inner core. I tried another strategy. Doing a search for Microsoft in Canada gave me a 905 number. I dialed this and got yet another customer care person. This time I was a little lucky he did suggest that I contact the local sales rep. I was given this persons name and another 1-800 number to call. The beauty of this number is that you can ask the operator for anyone within Microsoft if you have their name!!! Now I am feeling pretty good as I feel that I am getting closer to something.

I dial this number and it turns out that the local sale reps. number is not listed therefore they can’t transfer me. The operator did suggest that he could send this person an email on my behalf to contact me. Sure I said.

Before I hung up I asked if I could be transferred to the contact the techie provided me, well same story no number listed but could send email. In a moment of inspiration I ask if there is someone else that I could talk to in that group? Yes indeed there was someone else and I was transferred.

I dutifully left a voicemail about my situation. I did get a phone call by the end of the day. Turns out that late last year this program was rolled up into another program and that they were having technical difficulties. These should have been resolved however since it’s automated she could not help me out. I was promised that this would be escalated to Redmond. So instead of going home I stuck around a little longer just in case.

How about calling the help line again. I went through the whole story yet again and requested that it’s going to be many months before the web issues are resolved therefore there has to be someone that can take of the necessary approvals. I was put on hold yet again, went through my story another time, on hold, more story, on hold. Finally I was asked to repeat my story so that they could record it. Then the supervisor asked for some info. and said that I should hear back by 10am the next day with the necessary approvals. I was provided with yet another case number and a request for the screen captures. I hung up and stuck around a little longer just in case.

Good news is that the wait was worth my while as I did receive an email from the Senior Manager from this program. This individual was unaware of all the issues and I went through them again. I promised to get the service centre to make the necessary approvals. I left the office feeling hopeful. I had 2 case IDs and 3 individuals in the programs that had promised to escalate things.

Today I eagerly woke up and logged on to check my email/voicemail. The good news is that the service centre has given the necessary approvals and all I have to do is pay. So I log on and IE crashes again. My email blings and I check it out. It’s an automated message thanking me for the screenshots and that they will get back to me in 2 days.

Well I am back to being on hold, listening to music and have the very friendly people at Microsoft say thanks for calling Microsoft and is there anything else that I can help you with? I am hopeful that today I will get one step closer to being part of this program. Wish me luck.