Aspects Of Running An ISP

[Dazzled]

Re the "weak signals" you discerned in today's blog, I mis-spent a few years of my life in the rather murky branch of maths that lies somewhere between statistics and engineering trying to identify weak signals embedded in very loud noise. The phrases you note are technical expressions reapplied in a new field - "noise" seems particularly apt for most of the business guff I read.

There is a huge, accurate, tightly-argued, and yet utterly impenetrable literature available, just the prescription for anyone who can't sleep. (See how far you would get late at night imagining such bleeding obvious stuff as the geometry of variance in 200 dimensional space, when the @!%* author blithely says "It follows that....")

Of course the scientists are also borrowing their expressions, but they go back long before you and me.

[ForumAdmin]

It's much more 'intuitive' in my crude usage of mass data analysis.

[Dazzled]

Re some company called Adam: Keep your business eye on this mob - they are very strong in their home city, and like Exetel, are innovative and generate strong views. I obviously much prefer Exetel's offerings and approach, to have been here so long, but I know a few who are enamoured of the Adelaide firm.

[ForumAdmin]

Re some company called Adam: Keep your business eye on this mob - they are very strong in their home city, and like Exetel, are innovative and generate strong views. I obviously much prefer Exetel's offerings and approach, to have been here so long, but I know a few who are enamoured of the Adelaide firm.

They never appear on our 'radar' and therefore I know absolutely nothing about them.

[Dazzled]

ForumAdmin

I read todays's "Web Site" blog with interest, as I have been one of the loudest commenters, although I have never challenged the page layout. I admire your success in building Exetel's web-based business as much as anyone, I have referred a few new customers (even if too few referred the bonus back to me) to what I believe is a progressive company, and I am sure your sales judgements are better informed than mine. I also appreciate the constant evolution of the site - it does get better and better.

But what happened in the latest variant of the site was the probably inadvertant adoption of commercial software whose latest versions have caused controversy in the programming community, because, by design, they break many non-conforming (to Adobe's new ideas) browsers or systems or security setups. This explains the heated response. We do not really live in a "flash world". Even when installed correctly, it is often "off" to avoid irritating adverts.

However all is not lost. Apart from the dial-up critic, everyone can be satisfied if the coding for the site is altered, not the cloud element. Non-Flash situations will then simply ignore the Flash object, and see the intended page with static clouds. I look forward to that being implemented soon.

I emailed Exetel, pointing out that it is possible to very easily get Ubuntu/Firefox (but only Firefox) working with the current Flash, and it might be possible for Exetel to host the small deb file that loads it. With some bother, older Netscape-type versions can also be made to work in Linux with some browsers.

An aside - I have also referred some non-Exetel users to the calling card service. They are very pleased indeed.

[ForumAdmin]

ForumAdmin

I read todays's "Web Site" blog with interest, as I have been one of the loudest commenters, although I have never challenged the page layout. I admire your success in building Exetel's web-based business as much as anyone, I have referred a few new customers (even if too few referred the bonus back to me) to what I believe is a progressive company, and I am sure your sales judgements are better informed than mine. I also appreciate the constant evolution of the site - it does get better and better.

But what happened in the latest variant of the site was the probably inadvertant adoption of commercial software whose latest versions have caused controversy in the programming community, because, by design, they break many non-conforming (to Adobe's new ideas) browsers or systems or security setups. This explains the heated response. We do not really live in a "flash world". Even when installed correctly, it is often "off" to avoid irritating adverts.

However all is not lost. Apart from the dial-up critic, everyone can be satisfied if the coding for the site is altered, not the cloud element. Non-Flash situations will then simply ignore the Flash object, and see the intended page with static clouds. I look forward to that being implemented soon.

I emailed Exetel, pointing out that it is possible to very easily get Ubuntu/Firefox (but only Firefox) working with the current Flash, and it might be possible for Exetel to host the small deb file that loads it. With some bother, older Netscape-type versions can also be made to work in Linux with some browsers.

An aside - I have also referred some non-Exetel users to the calling card service. They are very pleased indeed.

We are always grateful for every constructive suggestion we receive from our customers and over the last four years we have implemented many, many hundreds of such suggestions.

If you have a specific recommendation for the improvement of the web site then you should email:

raymondl@exetel.com.au

[stormx]

The blog is really nice, it's now 1st in my RSS feed

I just love how John updates it every day with the best news,