Matthew Ling

Either someone is really careless or I’m part of an Art...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:50:22 +0100

Either someone is really careless or I’m part of an Art project… Again outside Humboldt (Taken with instagram)

My first nearly decent latte art heart! (Taken with instagram)

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:13:10 +0100

My first nearly decent latte art heart! (Taken with instagram)

A few post Path contacts list thoughts

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:00:00 +0100

There are a few things bugging me about the Path contacts uploading finding that was made last week.

Ok, so Path isn’t the first app to upload the contacts list,and until Apple implements a user interaction dialog similar to the location sharing permission they probably won’t be the last.

Path’s reaction to the scandal was, from a marketing perspective, pitch perfect and was handled beautifully. They didn’t make any excuses, didn’t try to justify, just apologized, said they made a mistake and deleted all of the contact information from their servers. So far so good … but…

I have a few issues with that:

Firstly, the (kinda) less troubling. Anyone who has worked in any large scale web project knows that it’s good practice to have backups and copies of copies etc. The question here is that, since my contact list has been uploaded without my permission to their servers, and they said they’ve deleted it, does that mean that it’s also been purged from all backups, copies, redundant servers etc? There’s no clear answer here.
Given the bandwidth, and some day there will be, would companies also grab all my photographs *just* to work out who my friends are by image analysis? I don’t see much of a difference in the violation made with the contacts list.
Finally, whats the difference between making a mistake, and making a bad decision knowing that that decision is kind of shady to begin with. “Everyone else is doing it” is definitely not a good basis for any decision. And in a room full of intelligent people it’s hard to see how nobody raised issue with this practice.

If I build something that fails without any intent of that failure happening, then thats a mistake I made. I’ll be sorry about that and I’ll try to rectify the situation. If I make a bad decision, and I knowingly make that bad decision in order to give my solution some sort of advantage, is that a mistake? That makes the apology from Path seem a little disingenuous.

It’s great to see that Apple are already on top of that. Strange though that that security feature has been off the table for so long.

I wrote about why I really love Path before, but to be honest I haven’t fired it up since this finding, neither has my girlfriend and I’m not sure that I will, that remains to be seen, maybe that’s just some evidence of the trust that Path have lost with a lot of their users.

In the street in front of Humboldt (Taken with instagram)

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 22:50:36 +0100

In the street in front of Humboldt (Taken with instagram)

Berlin being pretty (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:19:57 +0100

Berlin being pretty (Taken with instagram)

Rivers freezing over … (Taken with instagram)

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:24:15 +0100

Rivers freezing over … (Taken with instagram)

How I use and love Path

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:14:20 +0100

I’m pretty sure I’ve found the perfect use case (for me) for Path. Just add 1 person … just the one. Boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever. So then you get the leverage the power of Path’s features and notifications to keep in touch with the one you love.

So when you feel like you’re spending more time with your work colleagues (which is generally always true) than your girlfriend, at least you get all these little nice occasional photos notes etc. about how her day is going without the firehouse of Facebook or Twitter.

It might mean ignoring all those friend requests etc. but be disciplined and Path will stay light, beautiful and useful.

Near liner coldness … Urgh … (Taken with instagram)

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 11:26:06 +0100

Near liner coldness … Urgh … (Taken with instagram)

Winter Haiku

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:32:41 +0100

Winter’s cold breeze here
Shoulder pain dragging me down
Weekend balances

Economies of Sorry

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:27:00 +0100

tl;dr Some guy hit my car and was completely unapologetic. Major stress would have been avoided if he had just manned up and said he was sorry, now it’s all insurance agencies and extra work. And it got me thinking…

How much does a sorry cost?

That title is in fact a little misleading, it should probably be, how much can a sorry save. In a stressful situation, apologizing has the power to completely obliterate said stress. It’s a subtle thing and can’t be done insincerely.

In business the ROI of disarming a potentially pissed-off customer is probably so great as, if done correctly, the resulting exchange will be conducted in a goal oriented, constructive manner since the emotional part of the exchange has already been satisfied.

The guys at Contrast are (or were now, as they just shut their doors to work full-time on @intercom) experts in this sort of communication. I know one of the engineers that built Exceptional, and when browsing through the help issues in their help desk software, I noticed that many of the exchanges began with an Exceptional representative genuinely apologizing that the problem occurred.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’ think this was simply standard operating policy. Contrast and my engineer friend have always cared about building great stuff, and they genuinely cared about fixing problems. They know the real value of a satisfied customer. That’s why they are focussing heavily on just that with Intercom having just raised a million dollars in funding from high profile investors including Twitter founders.

The proof of the pudding though is action. You can’t apologize about a problem and then do nothing or put it on the long finger. Nothing speaks louder than action at this stage.

Preemptive apology

This is something that I’ve been using for a few years now in Berlin. I’ve learned it through trial and error while dealing with any large company or bureaucratic agency. Since my spoken German and my accent itself could be at times difficult to understand, I would oftentimes find myself having a conversation with someone who just had no inclination to deal with me. I found that if I apologized fairly profusely about the state of my German up-front, and ask for some patience in dealing with me, suddenly the person at the other end of the line was my best friend, willing to help me out in any way … brilliant! It’s slightly dishonest as I’m not that sorry about my German, it’s not all that bad in fact, but the payoff for the preemptive apology is too much to pass up.

First two weeks (Taken with instagram)

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:26:46 +0100

First two weeks (Taken with instagram)

Particularly nice doorknob (Taken with instagram)

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:13:26 +0100

Particularly nice doorknob (Taken with instagram)

Picturesque walk to work this morning (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:57:08 +0100

Picturesque walk to work this morning (Taken with instagram)

Incredible, Google are taking Maps indoors

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:35:20 +0100

Incredible, Google are taking Maps indoors

Tried live chat with Samsung, for 40 minutes, it wasn't productive

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:07:04 +0100

Please wait for a Samsung Agent to respond.

You are now chatting with 'Belle'. There will be a brief survey at the end of our chat to share feedback on my performance today.

Visitor: Hi Belle ...
Belle: Hi, thanks for reaching out to Samsung tech support. How can I help you today?
Belle: Hello, please go ahead with your query.
Visitor: Well I have a samsung clx 3175fn which is out of color toners, but still has 50% black toner, when I try to print greyscale, nothing happens ...
Visitor: I figured I should be able to still print black and white despite no color toner, is this an error? or do I have to have all toners installed in order to print black and white?
Belle: I understand that you have an issue with toner in printer. Is that correct?
Visitor: yes
Belle: Thank you for confirming.
Belle: I see that you are not chatting from the U.S. Did you purchase the printer in the U.S?
Visitor: nope berlin
Belle: Currently, chat support is for US products only. Though our information on non-US products is very limited, we will try our best to assist you.
Belle: Please note you may need to contact Germany support number 49-(0)1805-121213 for further assistance if we cannot help you with your query.
Visitor: Thanks well its simply about toner colors so Im sure we'll make it thru
Belle: You're welcome.
Visitor: Sooo .. any advise?
Belle: Sure, I'll assist you with the information.
Belle: For how long are you facing this issue?
Visitor: Since the color ran out of the color toner cartridges
Belle: Thank you for the information.
Belle: Would you mind holding a few minutes while I gather the required information for your request?
Visitor: Sure
Belle: Thank you.
Belle: Are you able to print demo page?
Visitor: Well as I said I can't print at all ... but I'll try to answer the question ...
Belle: Okay.
Visitor: Nope, the printer, as before says that it's "out of toner", as I said only color toner, the black toner is 50% full ...
Visitor: Sorry, to be more specific, I cannot print a demo apge
Visitor: page
Belle: I understand your concer.
Belle: *concern
Visitor: So the central question ... does the printer need CMY toners even tho there is black in the printer in order to print greyscale?
Belle: Are you using a genuine toner?
Visitor: Yes
Visitor: It came supplied with the printer
Belle: Thank you for confirming.
Belle: May I know the status of the LED?
Visitor: If you mean the thin light in front of the panel, then red, and the blue circle is animatedly circling the ok button ...
Belle: Yes, the LED status.
Visitor: Red
Belle: A minor error has occurred and the machine is waiting for the error to be cleared.
Visitor: Ok thanks...
Belle: Small amount of toner is left in the cartridge. The estimated cartridge life of toner is close. You can temporarily improve print quality by redistributing the toner.
Belle: A problem has occurred such as a paper jam, cover is open or no paper in the tray, so that the machine cannot continue the job.
Visitor: Thanks again
Belle: Please re-install the printer drivers.
Belle: You're welcome.
Belle: Is there anything else that I can assist you with?
Visitor: No thanks ...
Visitor: I'll keep at it ...

Whenever I introduce myself to a person that doesn’t know...

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:55:00 +0200

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

Whenever I introduce myself to a person that doesn’t know me in Germany, 9 times from 10 they say something like “Hi Martin”, or “Nice to meet you Martin” in German. And while I always thought it was a pronunciation thing on my side, it seems that indeed my name in German is Martin …

recurring calendar events with siri

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:22:26 +0200

Quite handy… when you want to create a recurring event. Just say:

“create a weekly/monthly ”, then she’ll ask you when to schedule it…

Siri the tip calculator

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 15:42:14 +0200

So impressed how nicely this works … try … “calculate twelve point five percent of 45 plus 45” … of course it’s probably better to try to not completely loose the brain power to do that … :)

sandbox your rails console session

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:30:37 +0200

Classy little tip, when you want to have a rails console session which doesn’t effect your db pass the —sandbox option …

rails console --sandbox

Noice!

SCANDYBARS

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:02:06 +0200

SCANDYBARS:

I wish I hadn’t seen this an hour before lunch … via @nerdcore