The good, the bad and the overpriced.

I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a web 2.0 restaurant review site with a few twists and the obligatory overuse of gradients, big buttons, whitespace and ajax 😉

Twist 1: The actual review has to be less than 160 characters. This is not so that it can be SMSed but a way to keep people to the point.

Twist 2: When you write a negative review for a restaurant you’ll be asked to provide a “rather go to” restaurant.

Twist 3: I’m thinking of keeping it super simple with just a single star rating accompanying your 160 character review.

Twist 4: Reviewers are brought on board by invitation only… Every user’s first 5 reviews are moderated and you can only invite other people to be reviewers once you’ve reviewed 5 restaurants.

(For those of you who actually read my last rant about systems and rules; The rules I am talking about here are rules that define the specialist functionality… There are plenty of review sites that let anyone paste pages of drivel and never get to the point.)

As any good systems person would, I always test my ideas:

Restaurant: Krugmans, V&A Waterfront

Review: What a lovely surprise of a restaurant! It looks like it’ll cost an arm and a leg but the service is top notch and the food is great. I had their huge camembert & sweet chilli burger at R47. Awesome! (160)

Average Main Cost: R50

Star Rating: 5 out of 5

Restaurant: Cape To Cuba, Kalk Bay Review: Great décor but sadly the quality of food seems to have slipped. We were two large groups and only about 30% of us were “happy”. My meal, the fillet strips in chilli and chocolate, was not worth R99. (160)

Average mains cost: R70

Star Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Rather go to: Polana

Review: Chapmans, near Chapmans Peak, Hout Bay

Review: We only had two deserts and two cappuccinos. The brownies were bad, the tiramisu was bad and the cappuccinos tasted like watered down wimpy coffee and presented similarly. The bill was R90.

Average mains cost: No idea, didn’t look.

Star Rating: 0.5 out of 5

Rather go to: No idea, Where is good in hout bay?

What do you think of the idea? While typing this I thought that one benefit of the 160 character thing would be that you could get the review sms’ed to you… but really, sms is a retarded format that hopefully wont be around in a few more years?

Anyway, let the debate make it stronger or kill it early so I don’t waste my time.

ath,

j

Never let your processes get in the way of what the customer wants

press button hardSo the gf and I decided to grab some food before we hit the ice bar. We sat down at the Little Mermaid, a restaurant in the V&A waterfront, and perused the menu hoping to find something that looked appetising at a reasonable price. We both eventually settled on getting their lunch steak… a decent looking meal for fifty something rand. The only problem was that it was past 6 and their “lunch” cut-off time. Never fear I thought, I’ll just ask nicely. Surely they would be ok with that?

Nope. Even though we said we would leave if they refused to sell us the meal, they still declined. It’s a well known fact that restaurants with two menus usually do so in order to get more money out of their dinner time guests. Before we left I decided to go and speak to the manager to get their side of the story. Their story was this: They had a system in the kitchen and that system dictated that at 6pm they packed away the lunch time steaks and unpacked the R40 more expensive steaks for dinner.

I stood there dumbfounded, 100% in something akin to a moral dilemma… As a systems person I can understand their argument, whether you believe them or not, that systems make sure that the world works and in the absence of systems you end up with chaos. But, on the other hand, I wanted my fscking lunch steak and I wasn’t prepared to pay extra just because I got their a few minutes late.

I walked away temporarily pacified, but the more I thought about it the more I realised how wrong they were. Their system was limiting their ability to serve the customer properly. I wouldn’t have been told it was “impossible” at the Cape Grace, the 5 star hotel nearby, a point I made but was lost on the two managers.

Really what this highlighted was how the systems we interact with (or design) can be fundamentally flawed by our own need to “stick to the rules”. I’m obviously not calling for all out anarchy, but I do believe you need to ask yourself one fundamental question when implementing a rule in the systems you design:

Is this rule limiting the freedom of the user and their interaction with the system to an extent greater than that which is required to keep the system running?

In other words: Could the restaurant have sold me a fscking steak without going bankrupt? The obvious answer here is yes, and it becomes more obviously “yes” when you consider that any user (customer) who feels like the system did something special for them is going to feel a certain affinity for that system (restaurant) and probably return multiple times.

The more you become aware of this the more you start to see it in real life. I had my wallet stolen and upon getting my new cards, signed up for internet banking only to discover that by default my monthly transfer limit was set to R0; something that requires you to go into the bank with your ID to change… This wouldn’t have been such a major issue if I hadn’t JUST LEFT THE BANK where the teller told me that all I needed to sign up to internet banking was my card number and PIN. In addition to that, my beneficiaries were all deleted… Why did my internet banking profile had to even get removed? Couldn’t they just have unlinked it from one card number and added it to the new one? Did they even think of the customer when designing these systems?

Then vodacom… I want an Nokia E61. I’m due for an upgrade in 7 months, BUT I’m willing to PAY THEM MONEY in order to get the upgrade now. Apparently this is impossible?

Can you think of other systems where a rule has been put in place that makes no sense and impacts the user negatively? Perhaps more important, can you think of systems where the designers have had the foresight to make the system flexible enough to accomodate the more unusual requests?

Telkom can get f-ed in the A.

Hi

I had my wallet stolen a few days ago and therefore don’t have a credit card to make payments for additional bandwidth… I thought I would be able to sign up for internet banking and make the payment that way however after going through the online registration process I am now unable to make any payments without visiting my bank and getting my daily limits increased. (Yes, as retarded as it seems the daily limit on a new account is R0).

Having said all that I have a girlfriend at home trying to do research for her PHD and unable to get online. Could you PLEASE make an exception and enable the additional gig. Feel free to bill my account via stop order for the amount or alternatively I’ll make the payment as soon as I can get to my nearest branch.

Regards

Jonathan Endersby

And less than 10 minutes later:

Jonathan,

Done.

Now seriously, can you EVER imagine that happening with Telkom?

Viva Amobia, Viva!

ath

Doing my bit to punt the community

I just thought I should do the obligatory punt of the GeekDinner, 27 Dinner and Clug park.

Firstly, The GeekDinner is not the 27 dinner.

If your idea of fun is listening to someone talk about the joys of hacking asterisk or joking about routing tables, feel free to sign up for the next GeekDinner. I seriously can not wait… At the last 27Dinner I was lucky enough to end up at the most awesome table full of kindred spirits. I think the conversation at that table played a part in concreting why geeks need their own dinner.

If hearing about the latest affiliate marketing scheme gets you hot then sign up for the next 27Dinner.

Finally, If you enjoy reading technology centric blogs then you should probably bookmark Clug Park, a collection of the finest South African Linux and sundry related blogs money can’t buy.

Also, I’ve got some pretty big news I’ll be dropping in the next few days, but I’d just like to say thank you to all those who know and have made it possible/supported me.

ATH

Kief XHTML

html headA while back while ranting about the lack of qualified (available) web developers I wrote that nasty piece of XHTML that I wanted people to try and correct/comment on.

The awesomeness:

<style>
#H1{
Font-size:10px;
Font-color:Red;
}

Li{
Font-color:white;
}

#greenBox{
Background-color:light-green;
}
</style>

<H1>Hello World</h1>

I’m not fat I’m big boned
<div id=‘greenBox’>
<li>Option 1
<li>Option 2
<li>Option 3
</div>

Of course I want some cheesy poofs
<div id=‘greenBox>
<li>Option 1
<li>Option 2
<li>Option 3
</div>

(excuse the dodgy indenting)

Ok, here goes:

  1. No Document Type
  2. No <HTML>
  3. No <Head>
  4. No Body
  5. Embedded styles are tacky
  6. <h1> is an html element; even if it was possible to create an identity definition called h1 it would still be retarded.
  7. Fixed (px) sized fonts are not good for all kinds of usability reasons.
  8. There is no such thing as “font-color”
  9. While “Red” is currently understood by most browsers, the hex colour code would be a better choice for future compatibility.
  10. Setting your <li>s globally to a foreground colour of white is a bad idea. You’ll be constantly having to override that every time you want it black(ish) again. (I even created an element on the page called greenbox to show that the entire design was going to be on a white background)
  11. id style definitions (#greenBox) really shouldn’t hint at your current presentation (Colours or Layout).  #greenBox is a bad name… especially in a years time when the design calls for that box to be purple.
  12. light-green is not a valid html colour.
  13. Personally I like to use lower case tags… but dammit, don’t mix them up. (H1, h1)
  14. Considering there is no <body>, the “I’m not fat I’m big boned is top level text. It should be inside a body, but additionally it would be better for it to be wrapped in a paragraph or label.
  15. <li>s by themselves, without being wrapped in a <ul> (unordered list) or a <ol> (ordered list) is bad form… but you’d be amazed at how often you see stuff like that on big sites like cnn.com etc.
  16. Reusing the “greenBox” identity will cause various issues in various browsers. It’s an obvious mistake but sadly not picked up by too many people.
  17. greenBox should probably be a class since it’s being used like a class.
  18. The second greenBox quote isn’t closed.

There you go. 18 without any repetition. I’m sure there are some I’ve forgotten. Engage lively debate *now*.

Fat man drilling downstairs

L&HSo we spent the evening listening to the lovely sounds of a wailing hammer drill… I’m all for home improvements and I understand that some people just don’t have the luxury of being able to do them during the day or over weekends, but once 10pm rolls around I really expect anyone who thinks they’re a decent human being to stop drilling holes in their walls.

They didn’t. So I went down. And knocked. And an old fat man answered the door.

“Hello?” he asked as if I might just be popping around for some tea.

“Are you actually building at 10pm?” I replied.

“No, he’s just drilling one hole; is it disturbing you?” he asked leaving me pondering what the Laurel of this Hardy duo could look like.

“At 10pm, yes” I replied while the ‘one hole’ thing bounced around my head annoyingly.

“Ok, We’ll pack up for tonight and carry on in the morning” he said as if I was part of his work crew and should go fetch my lunch box.

“Great” I replied over-enthusiastically.

You really can’t make these things up.

One of those…

This is going to be one of those posts… you know, the ones where you basically just list off a bunch of things you did recently.

Implemented VERP (Variable Envelope Return Path) for something I’m building at work

Spent friday afternoon walking around Kalk Bay with the GF, had supper at the Brass Bell and then went and paid our respects to Obs (where we met 3 years ago)… Obs has not changed at all in 3 years and it’s starting to be a bit like the uncle with the pony tail… just not cool any more. (Obs was probably never cool but it seems to suit certain people at certain phases in their lives). It’s never good for that phase to last longer than 2 years.

Went to look at Cape Gate on Saturday… it’s not worth it. Bought some thermal paste at Canal Walk… Took apart GF’s laptop, cleaned out 2 years worth of dust on the heatsink. Laptop fan no longer constantly spins at full speed and the laptop doesn’t reboot whenever you do something mildly complicated. Didn’t need the thermal paste.

Woke up on Sunday to find a dead DSL link light, once again reaffirming my opinion that it is impossible for anyone at telkom to carry out even the most basic of instructions without fscking something else up. This brought my proposed Amobia switchover forward to Sunday morning. Converted my Linux box to a router, installed squid… then had breakfast.

(Oh… I had my Amobia installed… It was such a non-issue that I didn’t even blog about it… I think I had it installed on the fourth work day after requesting it. Everything is working perfectly. When people finally get their ADSL lines installed they always seem to have this weird sense of self-achievement… like somehow they’ve “Stuck it to the man” and got their ADSL installed. That’s how twisted the state of telecoms in this country is… You dont walk out of the Pick ‘n Pay thinking “Yeah, I really showed them… I got EVERYTHING I wanted!”)

Spent the day hiking in Red Hill (Near simonstown)… Went to Kleinplaas dam and cooled off, walked back to where our car was. GF is now badly sunburnt (again…) Canadians!

Yours Aloe Vera Gellishly.

Want a job? Tell me what's wrong with this html?

Maybe it’s the much talked about “brain drain” that’s retarding our country but I can’t seem to find people who know what they’re doing.

White BoardNow, I am by no means implying that we don’t have skills in this country… We have some of the most brilliant software and hardware people on the planet right on our doorstep — but that community doesn’t seem to be growing at a pace that is going to be able to keep up with the industry’s growing demands… and the industry is going to end up suffering because of it.

Case in point: I’m looking for Web Developers… The most fundamental need is a good understanding of the web and web standards… These things are the building blocks of web development; without them you’re destined to fart around in a world of buggy code and overcomplicated layouts.

Regardless of whether your coding language of choice is perl, python, php or *gasp* .Net, you need to know xhtml, css and web standards. Don’t tell me that your WYSIWYG editor did the markup and it’s therefore not your fault.

Want a job? Tell me what’s wrong with this. (I can quickly point out 15)

Update: I’ve had a few replies which I’m not posting yet because I want to try and keep the answers a little bit secret until I’ve gone through all the interviewees. The two people so far probably got A+ grades.

How I learnt to love myself and stop supporting Telkom

My friend Vhata says I must not moan in my blog so I’ve decided to try and make this post as positive as I humanly possible. However, let me start by saying that Telkom is a filthy disease ridden whore.
roadlit

I could go and explain why I feel this way but honestly I can feel myself getting angry just trying to think of where to start… The important bit is this: I refuse to continue to support Telkom.

Until recently there really wasn’t much of an option when it came to broadband in South Africa. Telkom’s ADSL was the “best” solution, but like I said earlier, Telkom is a dirty whore…

Since Telkom owns all last mile copper the only other option is wireless. Traditionally the wireless market in SA was run illegally by unlicensed operators until a few got licences and the incompetent dogshow that ensued caused everyone, myself included, to decide that wireless was not a feasible solution (yet).

Enter, stage right, Amobia: a wireless communications company partnering with Frogfoot, a company I already have immense respect for.

Besides the pedigree that Amobia inherits from its Frogfoot connections, it’s also a company that is making a marked difference to the lives of the South Africans where it means the most… They’re connecting under-privileged schools; initially for internal communication, Open Source downloads and email, but ultimately to the Internet. They’ve done 35 and are on their way to 100. Not bad for a company a fraction of a fraction of the size of Telkom.

I’ve watched Amobia from afar for a while and two days ago, in the midst of another glorious Telkom blunder that left me discovering that Telkom’s systems really are a mystery even to themselves, I decided to jump ship and order an Amobia connection. Yesterday (the very next day) I had a technician in my house making sure that I would be able to connect properly and I expect to complete the paperwork tomorrow. It costs less per than Telkom’s ADSL and I know that Amobia doesn’t oversell their bandwidth so I should have a flawless, connected future, sans pigs, rats and filthy whores.

I’ll keep you posted.