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swestrupYawn. I know its not technically morning anymore, but I'm only on my second cup of coffee. That's 'Morning' enough for me!
In other news, the DSL line was not working AGAIN when I woke up. A quick check of the logs showed that my firewall lost and regained connectivity a large number of times, and eventually got into a state where the link would come up, but there would be no authorization response from the other end. This made it look strongly like the other end was borked, but when I reset the firewall, everything came back up normally. Hmmm. This NOW looks like there is an error condition that my system doesn't cleanly recover from. I think I may have to ask the folks on the mailinglist for my firewall software if they have any ideas what to do about this. Once things were back up, I checked out my ISP's site and found out that they had had 30 minutes of bad connectivity to their ADSL clients, and had fixed the problem by 8:30 am. As it was 11:00 when I got up, I guess this is further confirmation that the problem was on my side.
Finally, I've been thinking more about the 'Automated Care Package' thingy. You know, I think I'm glad that my friends don't think they would have any particular use for the service. I think that says something good about them. On the other hand, I just can't see that the idea is either a) non-profitable or b) non-beneficial. I think part of the reason for this is that I've already tried something very similar once. I used to use a very nice piece of reminder software called Remind from Roaring Penguin. Its mainly designed for Linux, but it runs on Windows too. I'm not currently running it, because XP is a lot less friendly about DOS command-line programs than 98SE was. Once I've installed webmail on the Linux mail server, I'm very likely to install some collaboration and calendar software as well, and probably get Remind up and running over there.
Anyway, the point about Remind is that its quite sophisticated. You can tell it that something only happens on the third sunday of every alternate month, and if you're willing to get into the messier options, you can even say to be reminded whan a Friday the 13th is coming up which will have a full moon, and during which your biorythm should be at its peak. My use for this little system was to make sure that I got at least two weeks notice of all major events like birthdays, aniversaries and statutory hollidays ('cause its a pain to drag yourself out of bed on a monday, get to work and find the doors are locked). Once the system was working smoothly I also put in some little 'Do something nice for X' random reminders.
The result of this was that all my friends started telling me how thoughtful I was at not only remembering their birthdays, and their kids' as well, but which anniversary or birthday it was. My usual response to the praise was to tell them it wasn't a big deal, that it was all in a database that sent me regular reminders of these sorts of things. This had no noticable effect on the level of praise. As several people put it, I had gone to the effort of ensuring that I wouldn't forget important events any more, and that said I cared. Often folks said that they would do the same thing IF they knew enough about computers to set it up, and wished their other friends would use similar programs. So, this is why I'm thinking that a) the idea would be popular and b) it would do far more good than harm.
That said, I'm not ignoring all the folks that have misgivings about the idea. It seems that there is a strong enough feeling that it may be a bad thing that I'll need to sit down with some of the doubters and work out all of the good and bad scenarios. If I can find a way to avoid the bad ones, then its probably worth doing. Otherwise, not.
In other news, the DSL line was not working AGAIN when I woke up. A quick check of the logs showed that my firewall lost and regained connectivity a large number of times, and eventually got into a state where the link would come up, but there would be no authorization response from the other end. This made it look strongly like the other end was borked, but when I reset the firewall, everything came back up normally. Hmmm. This NOW looks like there is an error condition that my system doesn't cleanly recover from. I think I may have to ask the folks on the mailinglist for my firewall software if they have any ideas what to do about this. Once things were back up, I checked out my ISP's site and found out that they had had 30 minutes of bad connectivity to their ADSL clients, and had fixed the problem by 8:30 am. As it was 11:00 when I got up, I guess this is further confirmation that the problem was on my side.
Finally, I've been thinking more about the 'Automated Care Package' thingy. You know, I think I'm glad that my friends don't think they would have any particular use for the service. I think that says something good about them. On the other hand, I just can't see that the idea is either a) non-profitable or b) non-beneficial. I think part of the reason for this is that I've already tried something very similar once. I used to use a very nice piece of reminder software called Remind from Roaring Penguin. Its mainly designed for Linux, but it runs on Windows too. I'm not currently running it, because XP is a lot less friendly about DOS command-line programs than 98SE was. Once I've installed webmail on the Linux mail server, I'm very likely to install some collaboration and calendar software as well, and probably get Remind up and running over there.
Anyway, the point about Remind is that its quite sophisticated. You can tell it that something only happens on the third sunday of every alternate month, and if you're willing to get into the messier options, you can even say to be reminded whan a Friday the 13th is coming up which will have a full moon, and during which your biorythm should be at its peak. My use for this little system was to make sure that I got at least two weeks notice of all major events like birthdays, aniversaries and statutory hollidays ('cause its a pain to drag yourself out of bed on a monday, get to work and find the doors are locked). Once the system was working smoothly I also put in some little 'Do something nice for X' random reminders.
The result of this was that all my friends started telling me how thoughtful I was at not only remembering their birthdays, and their kids' as well, but which anniversary or birthday it was. My usual response to the praise was to tell them it wasn't a big deal, that it was all in a database that sent me regular reminders of these sorts of things. This had no noticable effect on the level of praise. As several people put it, I had gone to the effort of ensuring that I wouldn't forget important events any more, and that said I cared. Often folks said that they would do the same thing IF they knew enough about computers to set it up, and wished their other friends would use similar programs. So, this is why I'm thinking that a) the idea would be popular and b) it would do far more good than harm.
That said, I'm not ignoring all the folks that have misgivings about the idea. It seems that there is a strong enough feeling that it may be a bad thing that I'll need to sit down with some of the doubters and work out all of the good and bad scenarios. If I can find a way to avoid the bad ones, then its probably worth doing. Otherwise, not.
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 01:40 pm (UTC)If it's made as a reminder system with appropriate links to various online stores, e-greeting card services and so on it would be a very good idea. I'd probably use it since I'm really bad at remembering birthdays... and I haven't gotten around to making a database for that yet ;-)
Though my flatmate did start working on an advanced online addressbook a while ago. I should give him a hand so we can get it finished before I have to make another "christmascards.txt" file with peoples' addresses, hehe ;-)
no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 05:44 pm (UTC)having a self reminder for such things is indeed very usefull ( I use my cellphonefromhell features to remind me a week in advance of bdays anniversaries and the such and in teh text message i get i could add addresses for flowers and such )
you see on your first comment about the idea I was under the impression that the operation would be fully automated. As in [client] gives allt eh dates to send stuff to people for bdays etc and then forgets about it and the service sends the schtuff to the people in question. they are all happy because [client] remembered their bday when in fact he is completely unaware he sent GIFT to them until the end of the month when the bills comes in his credit card statement.
THAT was the problem I was having with your idea.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-18 12:18 pm (UTC)It's the connection to the other person that can't be automated;
it has to come from your own time and attention. The story of the
wife whose busy husband just subscribes to a gift service and/or
who just calls the florist instead of going himself and picking
out the gift in person and taking it to her himself, is legend.
So many wives of busy executives are upset alcoholics because
the husband doesn't give her very much time and consideration.
On the other hand, if you use a reminder service to remind
*yourself* that an anniversary is coming up, the other person
never has to know that the reminder came from a computer as
opposed to your subconscious mind; what he does see is the
personal time and attention you *do* put into it when the time
comes.
You can't delegate your personal time and attention to your loved
ones (or, to a lesser extent, to your friends).
-Jim