Get through to a real person when calling companies

If you are like me and get annoyed when calling companies that have these automated pre- recorded voices, that ask you a series of questions, and then after misunderstanding your responses with you having to repeat the same answers – often over and over – below is a tip to get you through to a person quicker and deal with your matter, question, or order.

When the automated voice answers your call and asks the first question mumble your answer – something completely incomprehensible. Generally, it takes about three mumbled responses for the automatic voice to forward your call on to a real person, whom hopefully can then deal with your request.

Give it a try.

Unfortunately, there is nothing I have found to stop calls that you make, hanging on the phone in a queue for ages, and as you get through to an operator either they put you on hold or transfer your call to another person and the call cuts out.

All very annoying and time-wasting.

Thoughts on Climate Change

As someone who first came across climate change/global warming as an issue during science studies at university over the last several years, I have long been both interested and concerned about it.

In many ways it is not an issue to easily wrap your head around, certainly not the arguments that abound concerning solutions to it.

Clearly the issue has become mainstream in recent times. I am not interested here in canvassing the issue as such, whether it is real or not, natural versus man-made, nor its ramifications for Australia or the globe economically, socially, environmentally etc.

Whatever your personal views regarding climate change, it challenges us to look seriously at ourselves, how we go about our daily lives, what we can do individually and collectively more efficiently, and give greater thought to the planet’s (limited) resources and how we use them.

In this light many of us have taken steps to install water tanks, change the types of electricity bulbs we use, turn lights and equipment off when not being used and many other energy saving measures.

I am particularly interested in areas such as recycling computers and other old equipment, but I am also interested in my own individual ‘ecological footprint’ and how I can reduce and/or neutralise it. At this stage, many actions taken by individuals cost them money as they move to better, more efficient and sustainable practices, notwithstanding limited government subsidies. One reality is certain as we move towards the future. We will all pay more for water, gas, electricity, food and petrol. As we will have no choice but to pay more for these items we will all start to look for better or lower-cost alternatives.

Many are pretty simple and should create little discomfort, for example, if possible less frequent visits to the supermarket, walking or cycling short distances, travelling to the same destination with a friend by car, using public transport and many others. 

So how to offset the impact of our daily activities?

By way of example I have started recording the number of kilometres I travel to and from my customer’s homes. I can use websites such as Climate Friendly (http://climatefriendly.com/car) to calculate a single trip, my weekly petrol cost etc. This calculates the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by my activities. I can then choose to neutralise this amount by contributing the stated amount, which Climate Friendly will invest in green energy credits (including wind farms and other renewable sources).

The same methodology above applies to airline travel. Check out TerraPass (http://www.terrapass.com).

These and other companies offer gift certificates as well, which I think would make the perfect Christmas 2007 present, as 2007 be remembered as The Year That Climate Change took centre stage in our thinking and actions.

Do you think climate change is important?

I am, as always, interested in your views and any feedback you wish to provide.

Two Email Addresses are Better Than one – Beat SPAM

Having an email address these days is as important, if not more important, than other contact details, such as a home address for others to contact you.

Just like your home address, where you most likely receive ‘junk mail’, so too via your email address you most definitely will be receiving junk email or SPAM. For the moment, let’s forget about anything malicious that may arrive in your inbox, SPAM is simply annoying, unwanted and a significant waste of time to clear.

There are many ways to reduce the amount of SPAM received (although unlikely to eliminate it completely), which should be done – whether at the mail server side (if such facility is provided by your ISP) or on your local machine using a spam filter program internal to your email program or an external third party software application.

One of the most effective ways to reduce spam is to only provide your primary email address to friends and family. Never use it to subscribe to a newsletter, enter a competition, provide it to a company, register for software, online forums, place it on your website or blogs etc. Once it is out there in cyberspace you have lost control over it.

Instead obtain a second email address, which is not crucial to your everyday communications, but one whose sole purpose is to subscribe to a newsletter  or something similar, and which after a period of time is receiving masses of junk, you can simply delete it or stop using it, whilst retaining your primary email address, and sign up for another secondary email address if need be.

Many ISPs charge for a second email address, such as Telstra Bigpond. ISPs, such as Exetel, provide 20 free email addresses with every ADSL account.

Because Gmail is free and web-based and has really accurate spam filters I primarily use it as a secondary email address.

Another tip in providing your email address via an outbound email is to send it as follows:

yourname (at) isp.com.au

instead of

yourname@isp.com.au

Test the Speed of your Broadband Connection

There are many sites that offer free testing of your broadband speed.

One of my favourites is SpeedTest.Net (http://www.speedtest.net). Not only does it have a nice-looking visual, but it is easy to use and provides useful information.

Steps:

Select the yellow pyramid (Test Using Recommended Server) to begin the test.

It then tests your Download Speeds, followed by Your Upload Speeds.

Once complete it generates a report, as well as other reports such as statistics for the entire world.

 

Tests such as SpeedTest are worth running to see how closely they correlate with the Broadband plan you signed up for. They are particularly useful if you feel that the speed of your service has slowed down considerably. Note that there may be a variety of reasons your speed is slower than normal, therefore run the test several times at different times of the day, in case it is a one-off.

Other Speed Tests Links can be found at http://www.geejay.net/links.asp#broadband