NVinNYC

I decided it was time for a new site theme when I saw iTheme by N.Design Studio. It’s pretty nifty (but not perfect, the search button works but doesn’t look right). I like the main title bar with the Home & Contact links very visible. Another nice effect is that you can move and collapse the right sidebar items to suit your preferences.

I still plan on rolling my own for ‘NVinNYC 2.0: No Longer in NYC’ (if you will) but this should serve me well in the meantime.

I still think you’re better off subscribing to my RSS feed than actually visiting the site though…

Kurt Vonnegut Dies at 84. See his NY Times profile.

This is the first celebrity (meaning well known artist/musician/author/actor etc.) deaths that have happened in my lifetime that truly saddened me (most celebrities I like are still young and a few have been dead before I liked them).

I, regrettably, have yet to read many of his books. I did see him on The Daily Show back in 2005 and he was definitely edging on senility back then, so maybe it really was his time. Commedy Central has an archive of that appearance (though the list they mention is dead on their site, here is a mirror).

So it goes.

(Via DF Linked List.)

Seven steps to remarkable customer service from Joel Spolsky of Fog Creek Software is really a great read. It’s particularly interesting for people with customer service experience but it’s pertinent to everyone since dealing with customer service can be such a hassle these days.

Some of these tactics are ones I used regularly working as a Genius. Number 6, ‘Practice puppetry’, was particularly helpful because I always had to remember customers were upset with Apple, not myself, even though they would address their complaints to me directly (“You make these iPods so break right after the warrantee expires!”).

Others are areas that I can see myself improving on if I ever worked a customer service related job again, like number 4, Take the blame’. Apple would do well to take note of several of the tips as well. Number 1, ‘Fix everything two ways’ particularly could use improvement on Apple’s part because it seems like even a technical guy like me has trouble getting through to them to tell them about a problem or bug in their software. I feel like Apple could also take heed of a tidbit number 3, ‘Make customers into fans’ too; it’s really important to reduce wait times to talk to someone about your problem. I can’t tell you how many time I started repair talks on a bitter note because someone was upset at having to wait 3 hours for a Genius Bar appointment or because they spent hours on the phone with Apple Care only to be referred to the Genius Bar to start the repair process over.

Some of these lessons obviously would be difficult to scale to large companies like Apple, any other large company for that matter, but it’s all the more important to consider them because of that. Joel is right, most customer service is so bad that we avoid it: I know that I want to complain to Wells Fargo about how they charged me debit card fees unjustly, but it’s not worth the money or frustration this would cause me to bother. It seems like the same is true at most ISPs, cable providers, cellphone companies, and computer manufacturers (and I include Apple in this category). I don’t know how this became an acceptable business practice (I have some partial theories) but it’s really inexcusable and it needs to be improved.

Now who wants to bust up some Starbucks?

(Via Swiss Miss though I seem to remember seeing this linked elsewhere before.)

The top 5 things I’m looking forward to enjoying after finally graduating, in acceding order:

• Sleeping on a regular schedule.
• Reading books for fun.
• Motoring.
• Having a personal (shared with friends) apartment with a real kitchen & bathroom but without skitzo heaters, poor lighting, cramped spaces, fire alarm evacuations, and douches yelling in the halls & leaving messes all over.
• Not ever worrying about homework.

Google Maps now shows nifty dimetric projections of city buildings when you zoom in to the highest two zoom levels. This data is obviously based on the 3D buildings that are available in Google Earth. Furthermore, in New York City (and perhaps other metro areas too?) they’ve added markers for subway (both MTA and PATH) stops.

Check it out these maps of Union Square, New York City and Portland, OR for examples.

It’s great to see Google continuing to develop this tool.

Update (2/20/07): I beat Kottke to the punch but he confirms that stops for the T in Boston and the L in Chicago are also featured on the maps.

PS: Wow, 200th post!  Yay for blogging!