beerbaron23

That is dependent on your IRC client not on IRC itself, just use a more robust client. I use Textual and it provides embedded previews of pictures and video directly in the chat window/feed...

I'm wondering this very same thing, now that Reddit has been flooded with Teens, Meme's, Dueches, Knobs and Troglodytes... I am seeking a Reddit alternative that features semi intelligent posts like Reddit used to provide around 5 years ago...

That creating your own redundant Linux distro based on an existing one for bragging rights is not the only option!

I vote Portland, Boston or Swastica, Ontario

DSLR Photography? Sure it does, CaptureOne is superior in most regards, especially in the commercial landscape. Although on the Linux side Darktable just isn't there yet

> Lower tier isp’s usually pay the big guys for peering.

In most all cases they don't peer with the "big guys" they simply refuse. What they do is peer up with the local public peering exchange that's non profit/almost free, then the packets find the big guys on their own.

What the small isp's usually have to do is pay the big guys for use of the actual lines/access to the clients, as usually the big guys are the only ones allowed to run physical lines to houses ect, as in if everyone was allowed to run their own lines it would be a huge mess (see Mexico as an example for rats nests of cable lines placed by any company with the will to run them through the gauntlet)

There certainly is hardware acceleration in Firefox on Linux, more then likely it has been disabaled because of your configueration/set-up/drivers. To turn it on go into your "about:config" and toggle the entry "layers.acceleration.force-enabled" to "True" and restart. Then Firefox is as fast as Chrome or faster, simple as that. Although it would be nice if there was a dialog telling the user their setup is incorrect/unsupported and giving them the option whtout digging into the config, I believe this is the number one reason people think FF is slower, cause their HW acceleration is disabled and they don't even know it is...

I'm guessing people still running XP are running Firefox or Chrome anyways, I'm not sure if IE8 can even render most pages on the internet. That would be like trying to surf the net with Firefox 3.5 :O

Agreed with everything said here, I think the worst thing above all is that most call centers are outsourced and get paid by the amount of inbound calls taken per hour and hold time metrics. It like solved solutions are not even part of the equation at all, like it's not even in their game plan.

All the managers at these places are pretty uneducated and if you are working in the tech field, you are working with a bunch of people that know nothing about tech getting paid minimum wage, as anyone with the required skills is going to command a higher wage...

They belittle you by requiring you to ask permission to go to the washroom and to go on a 15 min break, which is bad enough, but what makes it worse is that usually the answer was "no, after your next call, ask me again". So it was normal to never get a break at some of these places. Although when they declined my requests to go to the washroom several times, I just said fuck it and went when I wanted.... and this is in Canada here....

The idea of assigning people to specific cases is one of the only ways to get something done right or at least know all the steps that were actually completed. Sadly most places didn't work that way as they "had" to squeeze in that extra call per hour. I'd regularly get in trouble for calling customers back, which to me is umm doing my job sufficiently.

I've found working for the company directly is much better then working for a 3rd party company. In those cases they care more about level of customer satisfaction. Out of all the major corps I've worked for Telus was adequate and Bell was the horrible.

Very much so, in all the call centers I've worked in there was no "complaints department" we are just told to listen to the customer, relate with their concerns and tell them it will be "reviewed" by another department. In reality, it goes absolutely no where. Even if I 100% agreed with your complaint, I have no place to record it or know who it's supposed to go to to get further up the ladder. Some managers will accept your complaint, put it on their desk, then throw it out. If you been employed long enough the managers wont even accept it, cause honestly I don't think they have anyone to pass it up the chain to that would actually accept it.

Best way to go is social media, companies have "Social Media Experts" that are employed solely for online damage control.

Another way to get something done is by sending a plain snail mail letter addressed to someone high-up at the company in question. You have to figure that out yourself as if you call the call center, the reps are never allowed to give out that information or they are told to tell you a fake address/fake person or the general C/O Complaints Department. Those go to no one at all and directly to the garbage.

Now if you successfully send a written complaint letter to someone high up, everyone knows about it, cause the internal police come to investigate if anyone at the call center gave out that information (It's a huge deal and grounds to be fired).

Another thing, youtube clips, if you are recording and posting on youtube your conversation with a rep, the company has a team to watch for that stuff. Once they find you doing that, you then become a "Flagged Customer" and we prepare while we leave you on hold, get one of the better reps available and have 2-3 other managers listening in on the line guiding the rep through the call step by step.

What is happening is that they are telling you to restart it and to call back later because that's there main goal, to get you off the phone asap in any way possible. Most of the time you get the "authorization" when the call center is not as busy and the rep is allowed to take time (with you on hold) to fill out the return info and follow through with what they should have done during the first call.

I wouldn't get angry at the rep, it's the managers that pressure this kind of behavior in full force, if it's busy and you are on the phone for more then 4 mins, a manger comes over and stands behind you and tells you what to say to end the call even if it doesn't make sense and guaranties the customer has to call back...

To get the best level of service you have to call when it's not so busy. Never call on a Monday or early in the morning, that's when it's the most busy. Slow times are Wed-Fri 1:30pm to about 6pm then anytime after 10pm. Sundays are a good bet if the place is open, although usually most of the reps that work on the weekend are new/less skilled hence prone to make more mistakes.