Yep, it’s that time of year again. April 15th in the United States has a special meaning - it’s tax day. File your yearly income tax return OR ELSE!

Normally I’d spend all day ranting and raving about how much I hate the IRS (which I do) and how taxes are evil (which they are) and so forth. But honestly I’m just too tired to do that today.

I had my taxes prepared professionally this year - the move, along with some other things, introduced some complexities to my return that I just didn’t want to deal with, so I paid some people who’s logo is a rather uninspired green square to do it for me.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m any less angry at the IRS for taking my money away from me. What was that quote… ah yes, that April 15th is “the day I capitulate to the reality that the USA is actually socialist.” So true, so true.

Not to dampen anyone’s spirits, but if you’re feeling pretty happy today because you’re getting a refund on your taxes, just remember - that’s your money to begin with. You just “lent” it to the government, interest free. Nice deal for them, eh?

Ah, taxes…

Before we begin today’s rant, it is important to point out that the word “elegant” holds a special meaning for software people. Let me quote the entry from the New Hacker’s Dictionary (or the “Jargon File” as it is sometimes known):

Combining simplicity, power, and a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than `clever’, `winning’, or even cuspy.

Now we can move on to the topic of today’s rant: Verizon. Verizon’s systems that interact with customers are most definitely not elegant.

This weekend I tried to pay my Verizon phone bill. It was near the due date, and so I didn’t want to mail a check (so… 20th century-ish) and paying by phone brings with it an irrational $3 fee (always a good business practice to make it harder for your customers to pay you… riiiiiight…), so paying online seemed to be the best option. What the heck, I’d done it before, right?

Well, no.

Since I’ve moved, my phone number has (obviously) changed. And although my online account still works (user name and password logs me in, anyway), there are no phone numbers associated with my account. Apparently, the USER - the CUSTOMER is responsible for this association. Great call there, Verizon.

So I try to associate my phone number. In order to prevent random people from stealing your account, their system will actually call you on your home phone - which seems like a good idea at first glance. (I’ll set aside arguments about how this won’t work unless you are at home with a working phone for now, as they didn’t apply to me.) Apparently, the way it works is their automated system will call you and give you a “temporary PIN” which you then type into the website and that’s how they verify that YOU are actually the owner of the line. What could possibly go wrong?

• Good Idea: Use a temporary PIN to verify the owner of an account
• Bad Idea: Use a temporary PIN that is read by an automated computer voice that uses a lot of the following easily-confused-with-one-another letters: B, D, V, and probably others that I couldn’t figure out because it was a computer reading them to me.

The problem here should now be obvious. Here I was, being spoken to by a computerized voice which read out some random bunch of letters & numbers (which really isn’t a “PIN” in the strictest sense of the word, but whatever), and for the life of me I couldn’t tell whether it was saying “B” or “D” or “V” or maybe even some other letter that sounds sort of the same (and there are a lot). It didn’t even use the standard phonetic alphabet readings, like “V as in Victor” and so forth, so there can’t be any confusion.

In the end, after many different tries of different combinations of letters, I gave up. I could not validate my account AT ALL online, and had to pay BY PHONE and be charged $3 for the privilege of getting my money to Verizon faster.

You can understand why this interaction with Verizon left me feeling like I’d been sucker-punched in the stomach.

For a company as big as Verizon, this is inexcusable. What’s worse is that because it was the weekend (Sunday, to be exact), ALL of their support phone numbers (which are hard enough to find as it is) were closed - except for the automated computer system that can only read you your balance (and take your payment and charge you $3 extra for it).

I’d love for someone to explain to me how, exactly, this is considered “good” customer service?

Let’s break down the transgressions, shall we?

1. Verizon doesn’t synchronize changes to a user’s account with their on-line account - even though they have the information to do so.
2. Verizon uses a computer to read letters & numbers to you without spelling them out using the phonetic alphabet (”V as in Victor” style)
3. When you have a problem entering the “temporary PIN,” a link appears that says (basically), “Having trouble? Contact us!” Which does not take you to a phone number - it takes you to the “let’s hide our phone number from our customers” page
4. Support for the 24-hour on-line system is… only available during weekday business hours?
5. The 24-hour payment option charges customers an extra $3 for the privilege of paying quickly and on-time.

It’s enough to make me think about finally giving up my hard line with Verizon and going entirely with VoIP phone service instead.

If you want 5 ways to lose customers and make them angry, just take these tips from Verizon.

Recently, I’ve started using Instant Messaging software again after a long hiatus. I stopped using it (for a variety of reasons) shortly after I left college (back in 2001). Now that I’m back “on IM,” there’s some things I’ve noticed – some of which I used to do myself, but that now just annoy me.

The main one is this: leaving your IM client on all the time – as in 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – but for most of the time, your status is “away.”

I was guilty of doing this back in my college days – leaving IM running all night (usually with some away/status message that I thought was very clever), and then again all day during my classes (again, with some not-really clever status message). Now, granted, being a CS (that’s computer science for the rest of you) major, I did spend a fair amount of time in front of my computer – but even still, something like 75+% of my time was spent “away.”

I never thought of it at the time, but really, in a world where sending an email is free, why in the world would you leave your IM client logged in all the time like that? If you’re not around, why get people’s hopes up by having your client logged in and broadcasting your status to the world? Isn’t it enough to say that if you’re not signed in, that you’re not at your computer? I mean, really, what’s the point of putting up a message saying “I’m not here,” when just … not being there … would send the same sort of message? You might as well put a sign on your empty seat at your desk that says “I’m not sitting here right now.”

Again, I have to say – I was guilty of doing exactly this for many years during college. But now, I just don’t see the point. If you’re going to be away from your computer for a little while (such as for lunch, or just the classic “BRB” – be right back), fine, put up a message. But if you are going to be away from your computer for a long time – for example, you’re going to work and you won’t be back for several hours, or you are going to bed for the night – then just sign off!

Or, at least, that’s my opinion. And with that in mind, I’m signing off. Goodbye!

Jeff Atwood made a wonderful post the other day called Please Don’t Steal My Focus, and I have to say I wholeheartedly agree with him.

Of course, the question that is raised is “why are programs still doing this?” My pick for “worst offender” is, ironically, Microsoft Word. When you open Word, it forces itself as the topmost window and steals your focus. Try opening a bunch of files (say, across a slow network connection) and switch to another window and try to get some work done. You won’t be able to - because as each document opens, Word pops up as the topmost window with the focus. Thanks, Microsoft, for ignoring your own guidelines:

“The strange thing is, there are provisions built into the operating system to protect us from badly written, focus stealing applications. The ForegroundLockTimeout registry setting is expressly designed to prevent applications from stealing focus from the user. The OS silently converts that inappropriate focus stealing behavior into friendlier, less invasive taskbar button flashing, which is the subject of the ForegroundFlashCount registry setting.”

Indeed. That’s why, when I need to notify the user of something, I use a notification balloon. It’s much less intrusive and (best of all) it doesn’t steal the focus. (Plus, it looks cool.) And when you must pop up a modal dialog box and steal the user’s focus (only acceptable in response to an action the user has made in your own program of course), I make sure that there are NO default buttons and NO one-key shortcuts. That way, someone typing won’t accidentally close, cancel, or delete something just by typing. They’d have to either use the tab/arrow keys, or use an ALT+Letter combo.

Perhaps Microsoft will fix this behavior in the next version of Word, but I’m not holding my breath. As for anyone else who abuses this power… shame on you!

UPDATE: Follow-up here.

I stumbled across this the other day - it’s a sort of story about the future, or what it might be like, if we continue to allow both large corporations and the government dictate what we do with the information we buy.

I came across it because I was reading about Amazon’s new e-book reader thing, the Kindle. At first glance, I love the idea. However, more than a few people have looked at the logical conclusion of things like this (and the atrocious licensing agreements that accompany them) and suffice to say, they aren’t happy.

The basic problem here is, as usual, DRM. (That’s supposedly for “digital rights management,” but a more accurate description would be “digital restrictions management.”)

Think about the problem like this: when you buy a book, you OWN it. You can read it, give it to others to read, and so forth. You can even sell it if you want to - or give it to a used book store to re-sell to others. Or donate it to a library and let them lend it to people. These are inherent rights that you have based on your ownership of a physical object.

However, with an e-book, you don’t have those rights. Or, more accurately, with an e-book protected by draconian DRM, you don’t have those rights. DRM is designed specifically to prevent you from sharing with others or re-selling to anyone else. And what’s worse is that if you should find a way around the DRM, you’re in violation of the DMCA - and the punishment for that is quite severe.

With DRM, you don’t own anything anymore. You’re effectively “leasing” or “renting” or “subscribing” to a service - the book - which can be revoked at any time based on the terms of the agreement. And just like renting, you can’t sub-let (sell to someone else) or let someone else use it instead of you (at least, not without the consent of the original owner - which, in case you missed it the first time, is not you).

This is not a good situation to be in as a consumer, and the story I linked to in the first paragraph illustrates one possible future, if you draw things out to their logical conclusion.

Now, I’m not saying that DRM isn’t necessary (in certain cases), or that leasing/renting digital media (be it music, videos, books, or even software) isn’t a valid option - but as usual, it’s all about context. And, of course, striking a balance between the needs/desires of content owners/creators (control the means of production, prevent reselling, squeeze as much money from consumers as possible) and consumers (who basically want everything for free).

In this case, of course, the market has spoken quite loudly and clearly - we’re just waiting for the market to listen. So far, it hasn’t.

People (consumers) clearly want to be able to use digital media in the same way that they used physical media - i.e. books, CDs, tapes, movies, etc.; which is to say, they want to be able to occasionally lend them to a friend (without penalty), re-sell them at any time, and use/play them in any machine of theirs that they want (in the car, at the summer house, on a plane, etc.).

Most DRM at the moment does not allow you to do any of the above. You can’t lend a product with DRM to a friend (it’s tied to your account), you can’t re-sell it (again, tied to your account), and you can’t use/play it in any machine of yours that you want (you might be allowed to do so a few times, but after you exceed some arbitrary limit, it locks you out of your own content).

If you think about this for a moment, it seems very odd that a company that has customers is so willing to ignore what they want - and would be willing to pay for - just to slap “DRM” on it to maximize future profits. You’d think they’d realize that their consumers just won’t put up with it - I mean, people know file sharing is wrong, and yet they do it all the time. Why? Because they want to do these things, but DRM doesn’t let them. So they find ways around it - and they are so adamant about these “rights” of theirs that they are willing to break the law to do so. So why do companies continue to do it? How, in a free market, can they survive while mis-treating their customers so?

More astute readers might at this point be forming the word “monopoly” in their minds, and that’s… part of the issue. The other part is simply apathy on the part of the consumer, and the fact that their is a lot of slick advertising out there making it seem like DRM is a feature that we (as consumers) should love so much that we demand it be included in everything we buy. It also doesn’t help that this whole arena of digital products (and the distinction between digital media and physical media, which many people don’t quite get) is rather new, and most people aren’t really up-to-speed on the ramifications of it.

Basically, there are 2 ways that things can work out from here. One way is outlined in “The Right to Read,” which is the story that got this whole post rolling in the first place. The other way is an outcry from consumes so loud that media (and I’m talking all media companies here, from music & movies to books, software, and services) have no choice but to make certain concessions and adapt - giving us the rights we obviously want, but still being able to make a buck.

I buy DRM-free songs from iTunes specifically because I don’t want to see us end up in the kind of society outlined in The Right to Read. And the more people who read this article, and understand what it means, the more they will be able to make informed choices in the future, and educate more people, until that wonderful “democracy” effect comes into play (through either government action or, preferably, the free market effect) and things change for the better.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed. In the meantime… spread the word, and try to live DRM-free.