ItsAllEasy

Some random thoughts (ok terms…) milling about in my head:

• Rules Engine - Want to have a core rules engine built into scraps…most everything would be built on top of it.
• AJAX - You know.
• Disconnected - JavaScript “disconnected front end” framework.
• CDS (Cascading Data Sheets) - Crazy idea of the web front-end being cached into the browser and only thing going over the line is data…populating the page with (potentially) the Disconnected framework.
• BlogSlices - Idea of services (like calendars) subscribing to blogs and extracting info (like events) from the posts.

In case you ever need to ‘colorize’ a log file from the command line…a guy at work (if he had a blog I’d link to it…nudge nudge) put this together:

use Term::ANSIColor;

print color("reset");

I’m not normally political…but I like the idea of this site:
Welcome to Plogress.com!

I think its neat to see some of the ‘top’ blogs out there…however leave room in the readers for we little guys.

This is good. I’m almost certain it is what most web-app teams work toward. From app to app, its good to have a set standard for your overall page layouts. I wonder if this will kind of kick off a defacto standard for basic building-block classes and ids for sites and apps? Just a basic set of common ones. I think that could be useful…may even make the idea of the ‘use my own stylesheet’ option in browsers actually interesting.
Content with Style: A CSS Framework

So, I think its a great start, but I also think think it can be extended for web-apps to include classes for common widgets like date-pickers.

I was poking around on del.icio.us and found a cool AJAX spell checker in the ‘popular’ list (obviously not new news…but still cool)

Just from the hostname, I knew this is my kind of site…check out his cheat sheets.
MySQL Cheat Sheet - PHP - ILoveJackDaniels.com

Just wanted to take a second to announce the birth of my second son Teller Reid Estes. His birth was completely different than Corbin’s (my first son) but every bit as amazing and awesome. I love being a daddy. Read more about the family over at Estes News (includes pics).

I love it when blogs I read link to other blogs (I know, I know…thats how it all works right). Anyway, Matt linked to Forever Geek’s post about the MDX “Beta” (mountain dew drinkers should click that link). So I hit his site (after signing up, of course) and found some good stuff. I subscribed.

I’ve been having some trouble with t-mobile’s online billing. I just sent them a ’support question’:

I just want to express my frustration with the billing information available online. I cannot determine what I owe anymore. I don’t believe the bill displayed to me via the website has EVER given me a total that makes any sense (it usually says something like Total Bill: $1.20…which I know is absurd. However, up until about 6 months or so ago, when I went to pay the bill, the ‘amount’ field was pre-populated with what I actually owed…so I could at least figure it out. Now (starting about 6 months ago)…no such luck…the field defaults to 0. The only thing I can do now is hit #bal# to figure out what I owe.

If I’m missing something please let me know. I’m not a below-average computer user. I am a web application developer…I do this stuff for a living. If I can’t figure it out, I’m sure others can’t either. If the feature is there, then the design has not made it obvious or easy to use.

Their response:

Thank you for taking the time to contact T-Mobile.

We do apologize for any frustrations you are experiencing with the website. If you can not get an accurate amount from the website you should go by your paper bill. In addition you can call our customer care for balance information on your account 24 hours a day at Toll Free # 1-800-937-8997. Once again we extent our sincerest apologies.

If you have any further comments, questions, or concerns feel free to contact us at anytime.

Thank you for choosing T-Mobile.

Thanks…I’m sure you’ll be forwarding my frustration along to someone who actually gives a damn.

My follow-up:

Any plans to get it fixed? Not only is it frustrating for we customers, it costs t-mobile money in support cost (see this email). I’m sure people have just paid the amount shown on their web-bill and thought all was well, only to get a larger bill the next month…and If they were like me (don’t even read my paper bill) would be blissfully unaware of their bill racking up higher and higher. If you provide the service, it should be correct…we trust it to be correct. If it isn’t…make it unavailable until it is fixed. What good is it to me if it’s broke?

Them:

Thank you for taking the time to contact T-Mobile.

We do apologize for any inconvenience that this issue may have caused you. We have updated your billing information on tmobile.com. You should now have the ability to view your balance once logged in to tmobile.com. Currently your balance is at $0.

You are a valued customer Aislinn and we want you to know that T-Mobile appreciates your business. Our goal is to provide you with World Class Customer Service. Keep in mind that we are here to answer any questions or concerns 24 hours a day 7 days a week for your convenience. You can also reach us by dialing 611 from your handset or 18009378997.

If you have any further comments, questions, or concerns feel free to contact us at anytime.

Thank you for choosing T-Mobile.

I really do appreciate the customer service here (seriously…no sarcasm). These guys are quick to respond and are at least trying to help.

Me:

I really appreciate your quick replies and information. I just want you to know what I’m talking about and it doesn’t appear that you do (not for lack of trying, I’m sure - again, I really appreciate you replies). When I go to view my current bill online, I see a bill with a “Total Charges” of $3.93…and monthly service charges of $0.00. I took a screen capture of the page and attached the resulting jpeg. I just really want to be sure this is a known/in-progress issue as the service (online bill info) is effectively useless to me as it stands. I did just pay my bill, but after I sent the first support message. I get the same result before and after paying the bill (which makes sense because I’m viewing the actual bill details…or should be anyway).

Thanks again