kerimsatirli.com

I just came back from spending some quality time with a good friend of mine and I somehow had the urge to blog about tonight. We went to see “The Pursuit of Happyness“, a reflection on the life of Christopher Gardner, the guy who didn’t just live the American dream, no, he rewrote it.

The movie tells the story of the struggle and difficulties Gardner, who is portrayed by Will Smith, has to overcome in order to succeed. I must admit, the beginning of the movie was rather … shall we say, uninteresting, it was strange to see Will Smith use bad language, ’cause he barely ever does that and while I’m able to handle bad language, it didn’t seem fitting.

After half an hour though, the story had gotten to me. Smith is a great actor and he has portrayed some great characters, but this one, was, hands down, the best thing I’ve ever seen him do. Now, I’m no big shot movie critic but this movie has all it needs:

Smith and his (real life) son are portrayed in a great array of situations, you can see them having fun together and you can literally read Gardner’s mind, the thoughts that are crossing through it, the problems and challenges he is facing. It’s surreal.

The movie makes you feel bad, just looking at those pictures, the fight Smith has to put up to with in order to reach his final goal, to succeed in getting a job at Dean Witter Reynolds, a stock brokerage firm. The ordeals Gardner went through are … amazing.

Now, the movie portrays the whole internship thing as an unpaid training, while Gardner actually received $1,000 and there are some other things that aren’t told in the same way it happened back in 1981, but still, this movie touched me on a level that no movie ever did until now.

I may not have faced the hardships that Chris Gardner has faced and I may never face them, but his story and most of all, the way he solved the problems he was thrown at inspires me. Gardner doesn’t know the concept of “giving up” and for what it’s worth, he is a better man for that.

If you’re looking to spend a few bucks on a great story, I can more than recommend checking out this movie. No matter if you watch it on a DVD, in a cinema or just grab the book, the story will get to you.

For what it’s worth, this year might only be a couple of weeks old, but I have found my favorite movie of the year already.

Approximately two years ago, I wrote an in-depth review about a service called StuffBak. This service helps you retrieve lost items by means of a tag attached to your device, keycord or whatever you deem worthy of protection.

The StuffBak tags are the first thing I attach to devices that are irreplaceable and sometimes, I even create sets, so for example if you’d find my laptop bag, you’d be eligible for $100 worth in tags as well as another $600 in finder’s fee. It it works, ultimately, I can’t tell you, but at least I’ve taken steps to give people a chance to do the right thing.

When I first installed Windows XP, I created a boot screen that would contain my personal information, so if you’d find my laptop, you could use the information provided on screen to get in touch with me.

With Windows Vista, I wanted to do the same thing and as luck would have it, I came across a tutorial that explains how to create a boot screen.

Many people will go for something like a female with little clothing or an image depicting the superiority of one operating system above another, I went for something that made a lot more sense to me:

I tried to recreate the tag that is attached to the back of my laptop as closely as possible (and no, I don’t have eight zeros as my number) and I think it will do the job.

In my gallery, you’ll find both a preview image as well as the actual PSD file (works in Photoshop CS, CS2) that I used to create the image.

Follow the tutorial and you should be good to go. It’s very straightforward and you shouldn’t encounter any problems, if you do, head on over to my gallery and download a backup of winload.exe.mui (Windows Vista RTM, Home Premium, not sure if that matters though)

As always, all stuff provided here is free of charge and comes with no support at all. If you screw up, too bad for you.

Lately, namely, the last three years, it would seem that customer service is something out of the ordinary. Something you’re only entitled to if you have buckets full of cash. If you’re a normal customer, you shouldn’t even be thinking about getting to talk to a real person.

On blogs like the Consumerist, you can read about companies that eff up, businesses that treat their customers unfairly and the likes. Sure, there are situations when the customer is at fault, for example when yelling at a CS rep who didn’t even cause a problem. I totally understand (and agree) that such calls should be terminated as soon as possible, but there are also situations, where the customer didn’t do anything wrong and still doesn’t get what he is looking for.

A few days ago, I submitted a ticket to Flickr, in regards of a question I had. Basically, I wanted to switch the account name my Flickr account was tied to. My question to them was not if they could do it, but only if it was possible. All it would have taken is a simple “yes” or “no”. Now, I’m not the biggest Flickr user, because I have my own gallery and like it a lot better and in fact only bought the Flickr account so I could buy some MOO cards, but I am a paying customer nonetheless.

To date, I have not yet received any communication from them, other than the one their auto responder sends out telling me that my issue will be looked into as quickly as possible. Their site states that a human will be in contact with you, at some point. Really now?

Yesterday, I also came across an issue with YouTube. Basically, I was unable to update my channel info successfully. Whenever I entered my data in the fields, it would be saved but during the process, would also erase data I entered into other fields.

Since I thought this to be a general site issue, I fired off an email to YouTube support, letting them know of the issue. Naturally, I was sent a standard auto responder, telling me that the issue would be looked into, but that I shouldn’t expect any response. I’m fine with that. I’m not a paying customer, I know that YouTube is huge and if they would fix the problem, I’d be happy.

Google, apparently thinks otherwise. Less than twelve hours after submitting my original request, Elizabeth from the YouTube team told me the following:

Hi there,

Thanks for your email.

Thank you for your notification. It looks like the issue was the result of an issue with our website. It’s been reported to our engineers and should be fixed!

We apologize for the inconvenience, but you will have to try to make the changes to your channel again.

A simple mail, with an easy to understand answer. Sure, half of it may be text snippets, she just drags and drops into the response field, but at least they try - and to be honest, it’s working. I’m confident that the issue will be resolved in no time.

Google, while telling you not to expect an answer, actually always writes back (at least, they do in my case). I’ve had issues with AdSense, GMail and GTalk and I have always gotten answers out of them. All of these services are free to use and I’m not a paying customer. I’m no A - List blogger and I don’t have the power to kill their reputation, yet they treat me with the same kindness every time. Why they do it, I don’t know. I’m guessing it’s corporate culture and if it is, it’s a great one.

That same corporate culture is what makes people want to work at Google, it’s what makes those people proud. Now, I don’t agree with turning over all my data to Google and I only use my GMail accounts sparingly, but I gotta give it to them that they are doing (most of) the right things.

I think, if Yahoo! would take care of their customers a little more, they could actually gain back a nice piece of the market they lost to Google…

I was just talking to a friend of mine who had an interesting experience:

She and a friend of hers were speeding along a quiet neighbourhood, when all of a sudden a police officer pulled them over. Now, first thing most people would do is panic, but these two people kept their cool and actually managed to have a nice chat with the officer. Long story short, he didn’t sign a ticket and, awkwardly, asked for the number of the girl.

Regardless if he got it or not, I was wondering what I’d do in a similar situation (albeit, with a female cop):

The officer just saved you $50 or more and all they ask for in return is your number because they find you attractive and maybe even interesting. Should you feel obliged to give it to them? If you would, is it because you feel obliged to, because said officer kept your records clean or is it because the officer commands respect and you wouldn’t dare oppose someone in such a function? Would you give them your details based on a purely social evaluation, not taking the officer’s job into consideration?

Now, what would happen if the situation was slightly altered: replace the cop with a soldier, would you still feel that the job commands the same respect as a police officer does? Does a soldier command more respect? What about a firefighter, a (commercial) pilot?

If you give them your details, would you go for something highly associatable, like your land line number, something you could easily get rid off, like a prepaid cellphone number or would you go for a, rather anonymous email address?

An interesting topic to think about.

Just had to check some things on my server and came across this little thing:

Apparently, love is something inappropriate if you ask Linux. Maybe that’s why more and more people buy Windows and Macs? They just work and you’ll even experience the wow effect.

And yes, only a true geek (or someone with a technical background) can appreciate this kind of humour.