Sales call

We've been getting sales calls at work. They want me to change my employer's long distance carrier. I have zero interest in it. I don't know what carrier is used, have no responsibility or authority over the long distance carrier. I figure that either these guys are paid on commission or by the hour. If' it's by the hour, well, i can kinda see it. But if there's any commission, then there are tens of thousands of numbers to call at my employer alone where the chance of success is absolute zero. Now that's a cold call.

One of my coworkers speculated on how long these people would stay on the line if put on hold. I wouldn't expect them to stay on hold for long. If you want to keep them on the line, you have to talk to them.

One time years ago, i got home from work, and got a magazine salesman. I told him that i had just let my last two magazine subscriptions lapse. He asked what kinds they were, and i talked to him for 45 minutes. At that point, i mentioned that, "well i just remembered, but i actually subscribe to over 50 monthly magazines". He was outraged, "How did you forget that you subscribe to over 50 magazines?" - I answered, "Oh, I collect comic books." He hung up on me.

That was total victory for me.

Old browsers

smashingmagazine.com

gmail (and other products) started complaining about my 10 month old version of Firefox at home. I have to dismiss the complaint every time I read mail. There is absolutely nothing wrong with my browser.  And though the newer version of Firefox has a Javascript engine that is 4 times faster, there are user interface issues that are simply unacceptable. I'm never going to upgrade until that's fixed.  Complaining that one year old browsers are holding back the internet is absurd.  End user load for upgrading software should be a consideration.  Should I also upgrade my video card every year to support epilepsy inducing eye candy? My primary home desktop is over ten years old. The video card can't be upgraded. And what about smart phones (and various tablets)... They run on batteries. They'll never be as fast. And their hardware can be upgraded by... oh right, they can be upgraded by outright replacement.

We should not have two internets - one for six month old high end desktops, and one for everything else. At work, I have no admin access to my computer. I can't install or update software. I get what I get. It currently has IE8. I don't have to like it. But if your site doesn't support my browser, i'm not going to use your site. The whole industry needs to get a grip.

In my opinion, we should all be using an open source browser that has zero corporate financial support. I'm not aware of one.  The browser experience should be entirely end user oriented - not advertiser oriented. One used to be able to stop all animations by pressing the escape key. These days, I kill the browser, and generally tell it to forget about any sessions when i bring it back up. Great user interface, guys.