Great Customer Service: Fitbit

The update on yesterday's Fitbit Fail situation is that there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that my Fitbit One is indeed dead. The good news is that since I only bought it in mid-January, it's under warranty and they're going to send me a new one.

The even better news is that I didn't have to pull teeth to make this happen. I had a very short online chat with a customer service rep who had me try to sync my device after I explained to her what happened. The sync wouldn't work.

And... that was it. I got an email asking for my shipping address and a screenshot of my order details from Amazon. A new Fitbit One should be on its way to me shortly, and it doesn't even seem like they're going to make me go through the annoying task of sending the defunct one bad, which I LOVE.

I asked the rep if there was a known issue with One's flaking out after only a few months, but she said there wasn't, so I'm going to cross my fingers that the new one isn't a dud.

In the meantime, I'm still feeling uneasy without anything tracking my steps. And I don't like touching my waist and not being able to feel my little fitness friend right there by my side. This must be how Tom Hanks felt when he lost Wilson.

I'm Sorry, Wilson!
Cast Away

Yep. It's exactly like that.

- e

Feeling Naked When You're Not

At around 11:30 this afternoon, I went to the kitchen to get a snack and absentmindedly hit my Fitbit button to see how many steps I'd logged so far.

"0," it glared back at me.

I frantically hit the button again and cycled through all of the categories. Everything was showing a big fat zero: steps, calories, stairs, the works.

What was happening?!?

I forgot all about eating and ran to plug the little guy into my laptop. I searched the Help section of Fitbit's site to see what to do. A reboot was suggested. I tried it and then jogged around the floor again. Still nothing but zeroes.

Another reboot. And another. It's just not working.

Fitbit's customer service wasn't online, so I sent them an email and am impatiently waiting to hear back. In the meantime, I've left my Fitbit plugged into my laptop so that it can fully charge, and I'm hoping for a miracle.

I've only had this thing for a few months, so it's amazing that I am COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT without it on. I feel naked without it, and every step I take that it doesn't track seems like a travesty.

Anyone who has a smart phone has felt this same way when they've either forgotten to bring it with them or otherwise misplaced it for a while. We're like trained animals with this stuff, I swear. But with the Fitbit it's even stranger because I feel like any exercise I get while it's off somehow doesn't matter or doesn't count, when clearly it does. A lot of the things I do at the gym are way better workouts than walking is, and the Fitbit I have (the One) doesn't even track that stuff anyway. But for whatever reason, not having it on and not having it working are causing me to meltdown nonetheless.

Pray for a quick resolution, for my sanity's sake!

- e

To Me, From Me

Is it just me who feels like she's in the longest-ever game of checking things off of various lists? I have four things I do that help me remember everything:

1) OUTLOOK CALENDAR

If it's something like a client call during the day, a film screening in the evening, a doctor's appointment for Desmond or another event/occasion that would prevent me or my husband from doing anything else during that same time (or requires the use of our one car), I set up an Outlook calendar invite (or Dustin sends me one). Most people I've talked to use their computer or phone's actual calendar to schedule everything... yet for whatever reason I only use it for very specific reasons.

Also, I've never synced my laptop's calendar (where all Outlook events are) to my phone. Ever. I have no idea why, but I'm not about to start now. Most people find this insane. That's me, though!

2) MY EXCEL CALENDAR

Remember my glorious Excel budget spreadsheet that tracks my life's expenses? Well, I also have an Excel-based calendar that I've been logging my daily activities in since 2006. This crazy file deserves its own post one day, but suffice it to say that EVERYTHING goes in my Excel calendar. Every. Single. Thing.

3) STICKY NOTES

What did people do before sticky notes? Surely they are the most ingenious invention of our time. Except that I don't ONLY use sticky notes to jot down things I need to remember. I use notepads, random scraps of paper, the backs of bills—pretty much anything that's nearby so that I can capture a thought before it disappears into the ether. Have I mentioned how awful my memory is?

Anyway, there's got to be hundreds of random sticky notes and other lists of things to do all around our house. Every once in a while I'll find one from months or years ago and there will still be one thing on it that I never got around to doing, so I'll toss the old note and add the forgotten item to a new sticky. And the beat goes on.

4) EMAILS TO MYSELF

The main method I use to remind myself of what I need to do—the method that results in time being blocked on my Outlook calendar or notes in my Excel calendar in the first place—is emailing myself. Any time something pops into my head that I want/need to read or watch or do or buy, I send a message to myself. That's how I remembered this very topic for today's post.

The problem is that I don't always actually DO the things I email myself. I work on a "just in time" basis, so if something isn't urgent, doesn't have a deadline of today or tomorrow or otherwise is just one of those "this would be great to read/watch/do/buy when somebody figures out how to freeze time" activities, it doesn't get deleted from my Inbox. Because I keep holding out hope that that day will come.

I stopped counting after 250 and started scrolling, but I would guess I have at least 2,000 email messages of this To Me, From Me sort still in my Inbox, dating back to May of 2012 (I got this laptop in 2012 so there are probably more on my old computer).

The thing is, this ridiculous "system" works for me. There are very few times when I totally forget to do something that is actually important. And so I'm going to stick with it.

If you're one of those perfectly organized people who has a superior system or can magically keep everything straight in her head, I don't want to hear about it. (But good for you, really.)

- e

The 5 W's, According to Google

A few weeks ago I decided to finally start streaming Sons of Anarchy. Early on in the pilot episode, my husband and I were like, "What/who in the hell is Sam Crow?" So I whipped out my phone and started Googling. Some weird things came up as "suggested searches" as soon as I started typing:

I got all smug and thought, "Well, I know what all that stuff is." (And in case you're wondering about my original question: "Sam Crow (actually, SAMCRO) stands for 'Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original.' This is in reference to their being an original, or charter member of the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club."  Thanks, "Greg Y. on Yahoo! Answers.)

So I'd solved my SOA mystery. But then the next day I decided to Google the other 4 W's (and How) for the heck of it to see what came up.

Hmm, OK, another Ebola question... but overall the "how" entries seem reasonable. On to "when."

The "when" questions seemed normal as well. Time for "who."

Also pretty normal. And then I came to "where."

 

The first thing I noticed was that this was the third time Ebola came up in a suggested search. Are people really still freaked out by that? Then I wondered if these were suggested searches based on intel the Google Overlords collected from users in the U.S. or the whole world.  My assumption was the former, but maybe I'm wrong? Believe it or not I didn't Google this very question. Yet. (And in case you're wondering, my browser's settings are on Private and I definitely have not Googled any of the phrases that popped up before.)

The second thing I noticed to my horror is that I DID NOT KNOW the answer to "Where is xur?" In fact, I didn't even know what/who "xur" was. This was a problem. So I had to find out. Oddly enough I felt a little reassured about life after realizing how many gamer nerds must be out there asking this question. Because the reality is that a lot of scarier things could've come up in the "where" search, right? 

And to all those who made "Where am I?" a top search, I feel you. 

On to "why."

 

I don't get it. Are people really thinking Google will tell them why they're tired? And wait—what?!? Are that many people having green poop for this search to come up? Now I'm scared. Now I'm going to look at everyone I see on the street really funny. Do they suffer from green poop? Is it somehow related to eating green eggs and ham? Only Dr. Suess knows.

I think I have actually Googled the eye-twitching one, though. I believe it has something to do with dehydration. But don't take my word for it. You know what to do. (p.s. I was wrong.)

Then I mixed it up and tried the two-word combo "what are."

Check, check, check... huh? What ARE "dabs"? This is the moment where all the stoners reading this laugh at me. I'm not about that life, sorry!

Later when I was on my phone again I did a final two-word combo search: "why are."

That final one is a question I've been asking myself for several years now. It has given me hope for mankind that so many others must be wondering the same thing. I'll end on that uplifting note. Keep safe and don't catch Ebola, kids. And I hope you find Xur.

- e

User Error

When I worked for The Man, I used to head up a bunch of different types of customer research projects and usability tests for web-based products and sites. We'd do one-on-one interviews, we'd have a research firm videotape customers while they used our banking applications, we'd run focus groups where we watched and listened to people discuss our company and its products from behind a one-way mirror, and then we'd also hold usability tests in this same fashion. For a usability test, a computer at the research facility would be loaded with a beta (think "draft") version of one of our web sites -- something we hadn't yet launched and that usually included a new type of feature or functionality -- and the moderator would ask the interviewees to perform certain tasks. Time and time again, a hyperlink or tab that WE all thought was completely obvious on the site (usually something like "Log out" or "Pay bills") would be missed by almost every research participant. The site's designers and coders would get defensive and blame it on "user error." Which is a polite way of saying, "That person's an idiot."

"User error" is a real term, which was originally meant to diagnose or explain technical difficulties that weren't actually the fault of the computer system in question. Let's say you called in to your bank because you're POSITIVE you're using the right password for their online banking site, but it keeps blocking your access. You have a customer service rep on the line and you're going through every step with them... and then you realize you've had the caps-lock key on. That's an example of user error. Another classic one is when there's a message that reads "Touch any key to continue," and people call in to tech-support lines because they can't find the "any" key.

"User error" came to take on a snide and sarcastic meaning over the years, however, and is something that those in the tech field say when they want to lightheartedly insult each other. Like suppose I accidentally hit "send" on a half-written email to my boss and had copied five of my co-workers... I might hear someone a few cubicles from me holler "User error!" over the wall. (If you get a kick out of this sort of thing, you should check out the stories behind PEBKAC, PICNIC, and the Army/Navy slang ID-TEN-T.)

The reason why I'm writing about all of this is because yesterday I fell victim to perhaps one of the most embarrassing types of user errors. I could not -- could not -- figure out how to turn my husband's computer on.

So here's the situation: On Sunday night, I downloaded Skype (a computer-based call and video application) onto my husband's Mac because my laptop's operating system is too old to run the version that supports video calling. I needed to do this because on Monday at 1 PM I'd been invited to have a video chat with the fine folks at the MTV Movies blog about the one-year anniversary of Lost's season finale. So I got everything working just fine on Sunday night and thought I was ready for Monday's interview.

My husband had shut down his computer Sunday night and then on Monday morning he went to work and I had a 10 AM film screening. I returned home a little before noon, walked my dog, and then went downstairs to my husband's "studio" (he somehow got one of the three bedrooms in our condo for himself) to make sure Skype was still running OK. This is my husband's setup:



As you can see, he's got a LOT of crazy music-related equipment and digitizers and god-knows-what all over the place -- which is why I hardly ever step foot in this room. I don't want to mess anything up or break something. It's all interconnected, including speakers that run out of something that's not the computer itself. Sunday night I had tested Skype to ensure the audio input and output worked. But on Monday, with about 50 minutes to go before my interview, I realized I wasn't exactly sure how to even turn my husband's Mac on. Every time I'd been on it before, it was already booted up.


There was no Power button or switch that I could see on the front of the monitor or on the keyboard. And the computer IS the monitor -- there's no other piece of hardware for it. I reached around and ran my hands all over the back of the monitor (which, as it's situated, is impossible to physically turn around, so I was kind of working blindly) but felt nothing. I figured that maybe a power switch on one of the music-related gizmos was what I needed to use, but didn't want to touch anything unless I was sure. So I left my husband voicemails on his cell and at his office, sent him a text and an email, and hoped he'd get back to me quickly.

But he didn't.

The minutes ticked down and I started getting nervous. I Googled "How to turn on a Mac G4" ... which is actually NOT what his computer even is (it's an iMac). So that's probably why none of the sites that came up provided any guidance. D'oh!

When it hit 12:30, I gave in and sent an urgent message to both the work and personal email addresses of our friend CH, aka The Mac God. Within 10 minutes he'd written back and explained that the power button was in fact on the back of the monitor, but easy to miss if you couldn't actually see it. He included these pictures.




I went down to the studio again and finally found the "button," which I put in quotes because this thing was hardly indented on the back of the monitor at all. I mean, it's ridiculous. Yes, I'm an idiot for not knowing how to turn the computer on in the first place, but it really is a bad design. THIS WAS NOT A CASE OF USER ERROR! Don't even try to tell me that it was.

Then I had another problem: It's now 12:45 and the computer is booted up... but the Skype application is nowhere to be found. (I do know how to search for files, applications, etc... trust me, it had vanished). So I had to re-download the entire app, redo all of the settings, email and leave voicemails for my MIA husband to tell him NOT to call me because the sound of the phone ringing would interrupt my video session, and then had approximately 1 minute to spare before MTV contacted me through Skype.

So that was my afternoon yesterday. The good news is that the video interview went well and was really fun. I think they're going to post it next Monday (May 23 is the anniversary of the Lost finale) and I will include it on Long Live Locke at that point.

The lesson I learned through all of this was to not wait until the last minute to ensure anything having to do with technology is set up correctly. I shudder to think how lame I would have looked at 1 PM if MTV had called me because they couldn't find me on Skype and I had to say, "Um... I can't figure out how to turn the computer on."

Three cheers to CH for coming to my rescue!

- e

Still Sleepless in Chicago

I wish I could tell you that after my no-good-rotten day yesterday, I'm now making like Patti LaBelle with a New Attitude. But I'm not. I'm still grumpy. And once again it's because of crappy weather (a dreary, cold, rainy day that's flooding my street, to be precise) and technological tomfoolery that led to another bad night's sleep.

The same "wintry mix" that resulted in my alarm system's malfunction on Sunday is continuing to mess with me. Our satellite signal was all jacked up last night, causing parts of the 20/20 special on the Royal Wedding to black out while I was watching it -- THE HORROR! For those of you thinking, "Good God, woman! Haven't you gotten enough of all that hype yet?" I respond, "No, actually, I have not indulged in ANY Royal Wedding-related hoopla except for reading two articles about Kate Middleton in Us Weekly earlier this month, thank you very much." I've completely avoided all other coverage so far -- not on purpose, but simply because I never catch the news and have a strange lifestyle that revolves around watching and/or reading about movies -- or tying to keep up with the latest and greatest shenanigans in the financial services industry -- almost 24/7.

But I'll write more about the Royal Wedding some other time. Today I have to share that the bad weather has not only caused satellite and alarm system mayhem, but it's also resulting in a spotty Internet connection. I don't know why exactly -- all I know is that everything had been fine, and now for the past 48 hours my wireless signal keeps going out at exactly the wrong time.

See, when your job revolves around writing on the web, it is kind of critical that you have a steady Internet connection. Otherwise you might, say, LOSE A TON OF WORK when you hit "save" and the connection drops. You're probably thinking, "Haven't you learned to save frequently?" To which I say, "Yes, my dear friend, but I am the fastest typer in the world (seriously, I am -- will eventually dedicate a post to this amazing fact) and what I can churn out in 15 minutes between saves is substantial. So there."

What's this have to do with another bad night of sleep? Let me tell you: 1) My dog paces constantly when there's a storm, so I was hearing him prowl around all night -- clicking his nails on the wood floors, sighing, groaning, banging around as he went in and out of his crate... etc., etc., and then, when I finally drifted off... 2) I had one of those "this seems so real -- is it actually happening?" nightmares ... about losing my Internet connection! An honest-to-god NIGHTMARE about it!

It was like something out of Transformers 2 -- which is probably my most-hated film of all time. I was in a house that vaguely looked familiar, but I think it was from a movie. Now that I'm remembering it, I think it was a house featured in the sci-fi thriller Children of Men starring my man Clive Owen (whoa! I actually found a picture of it!). Anyway, Clive wasn't in the dream, so that was problem #1. Problem #2 was that I was in this house and was sleeping (yes, sleeping within my own dream) and was jolted into consciousness (in the dream) by this huge evil machine that started crashing through the walls with gigantic metal claws, searching for my modem. I was almost killed by the claws, which eventually found what they were looking for... and as the huge mechanical creature lumbered away with my Internet connection, I saw the AT&T logo stamped on its massive frame. I kid you not. AT&T has infiltrated my dreams. This is how sad my life is right now. I am having nightmares about losing my Internet connection -- literally losing it to an evil AT&T Decepticon. And to make matters worse, I probably just gave Michael Bay the plot line for Transformers 4. So now I'll have no one to blame but myself when I inevitably have to suffer through a migraine during its screening in 2013.

- e

PS - As I am about to send, it just started LIGHTNING AND HAILING OUTSIDE, and my dog is going nuts and my connection icon is flickering like crazy. I don't want to resort to drugs, but I think I have no choice but to make a date with Lunesta this evening.

Sound the Alarm

I've been in a grumpy mood all day, and therefore I'm going to advise you to just skip this post so that I don't infect you with my negativity. Skip! Skip! Skip!

OK, I tried.

The reasons I can't turn my frown upside-down have to do with 1) yet another snowfall, 2) a post for redbox that took me about EIGHT HOURS to finish (not an exaggeration), and 3) having my sleep rudely interrupted in the wee hours last night. The first point is self-explanatory -- everyone in Chicago is bitter today because we enjoyed a taste of summer not too long ago (remember that 80-degree afternoon I wrote about?)... only to be harshly reminded that Mother Nature hates the Midwest. So there's not much else to say about that. The second point I'll get over -- just part of the job sometimes. I will expand, however, on why I didn't sleep well.

My husband had been on an all-day tour of breweries across Indiana and Michigan, and got home around 1 AM. That was fine -- I knew he was going to come back late, and I thoroughly enjoyed the several uninterrupted hours of reading time I was able to fit in while he was gone, during which I not only started, but also finished, Tina Fey's Bossypants (review coming soon! spoiler: it rocked).

Though I was still awake when my husband returned, we both fell asleep shortly thereafter. Yay. (Seriously, that really does deserve a big "yay" since it usually takes me 2-3 hours to doze off after going to bed.) But my REM cycle was not meant to be, because the next thing I know our security alarm is going crazy. It wasn't the full-blast siren that kicks in when a door or window has been opened or glass has been smashed, but rather a really high-pitched and constant beeping coming from the console in another room.

My husband and dog actually slept through it (??? nice to know I've got a crack team of defenders looking out for me), but I nudged my husband awake and made him go investigate. It turns out that because of all the RAIN AND SNOW whipping around outside (bitter bitter bitter), the back-up communication link for our alarm system had gone down and it wanted to inform us of the situation. No big deal, except that this all happened in the middle of the night, freaked us both out, and I wasn't able to get back to sleep again afterward. GRRR.

When the alarm went off it made me think of other technology-related mishaps that have interrupted my precious slumber. Like when a friend or family member who either lives in or is traveling in another time zone accidentally calls and wakes us up. Or when someone who's staying with one of our upstairs neighbors buzzes our door instead of theirs at some godforsaken hour. Or when my husband or I forget to turn off our cell phones and -- even if they're in another room -- I can hear one or both of them vibrating or beeping once a message is left. Or when some gadget somewhere in our place starts chirping a low-battery warning (fire alarm, I'm lookin' at you). These are the times when technology is not my friend.

The worst I can remember was one evening years ago when my husband was away for work, and our Tivo somehow activated only the sound on our downstairs TV. The TV started BLASTING -- in the middle of the night -- and I called a guy in our building to come investigate because I was scared criminals had broken in and accidentally hit our remote control or something. (It actually took quite a while to figure out what happened in that odd situation.) I gave my neighbor a huge long knife and was like, "Can you go downstairs and make sure no murderer is down there? OK, good luck and thanks!" before running to lock myself in the bathroom with the dog.

Here's hoping for no interruptions from any "helpful technology" tonight!

- e

PS - While looking for images to use with this post I came across this really cute blog entry which made me feel better -- take a look!

It's not just us - EVERYONE'S getting spammed!

Because I just wrote a post complaining about the increased level of spam mail I've been getting lately, I thought I would pass along this link from MSNBC.com today. It explains the new tactics that are being used. But what it doesn't explain is WHY THESE PEOPLE ARE SENDING SPAM??? I still don't get what's in it for them? Ugh.

- e

What is UP with the spam barrage lately?

Over the past month or so, an alarming number of spam messages have been showing up in my Yahoo! email account (with only a fraction of them getting automatically filtered into the Junk/Bulk folder). They are all coming from different addresses, they all have one-word subject lines like "cheque" or "proposal" or "alert," and there is no text in the message at all, but rather a zipped file is attached.

Helloooooo, spammers!?!? Did you just arrive from the year 1998? Everyone knows not to open zip files (or any attachment for that matter) from bizarre senders such as "Mat Q. Morino" and "Butler Clary" and the like. Hell, I don't even open attachments from people I do know most of the time.

So while I simply delete these messages immediately and am therefore not going to be lured into some lame virus attack or unwittingly help the Prince of Nigeria transfer his millions into a U.S.-based bank account or get a really great deal on Viagra, the fact that I have to even see these messages in my Inbox for a matter of seconds is still annoying the crap out of me. I'm thinking I'm all popular when I come home and see 33 messages rollin' in, and then 28 of them are these crazy spam attempts, 2 are "Hot Deals" from both American Airlines and Expedia, one is a reminder from Peapod about my upcoming grocery delivery, one is the shipment status for a wedding gift I just ordered, and only one lonely message is from an actual live friend (shout-out to CM!).

The bigger problem here is that I don't want to switch email addresses and just start fresh - that would be like letting the spammers triumph! Plus, both of my blogs are tied to my yahoo address, even though blogger itself is tied to a gmail.com email address (long story). So, I'm going to wait it out and see if this recent uptick in spam gets any better or not before I make any rash decisions.

Has this been happening to anyone else? I am even getting similar messages at my work account, which just started happening. Companies usually employ pretty fierce spam and virus protection tools, so I figured there has to be some sort of new technique that is being used in order to break through to corporate email accounts. When I find out what that technique is, I will tell all of you and then we can launch a counter-attack on the eleven-year-old whiz kid who is undoubtedly behind this - probably sitting in his basement somewhere on the outskirts of Seattle, writing code and using it for eeeevil.

WE WILL FIND YOU, you little brat! Cease and desist before we use your methods against you!

- e