QR Codes are two-dimensional machine readable images.  Much like normal barcodes, such as UPC codes, but with a much higher density of information, and significant redundancy/error correction.  Any simple text can be encoded in a QR Code and then read by a machine using a scanner or camera.

When I was doing some research on QR Codes I found they can be used for other purposes such as encoding VCARDs. VCARD files are simple contact or address book files saved as plain text.  Most address book applications can save and open VCARD files with ease.  Many QR scanner applications recognize QR codes with VCARDs as the encoded text.

So, when I was designing my most recent personal business card I though it would be a neat idea to include a QR encoded VCARD on them.

The first step was getting a VCARD.  Unfortunately this was not an easy task. Although there is a standard for VCARDs, most software applications interpret the standard differently, especially as related to the phone number.  It is worth mentioning that if too much information is in the VCARD text, the QR Code will get denser, and thus harder for phones to read.  Through some trial and error, I ended up with this VCARD:

BEGIN:VCARD
N;LANGUAGE=en-us:Hayes;Ed
EMAIL;INTERNET:ed@edhayes.us
TEL;CELL:440-263-4420
URL:http://www.edhayes.us
ADR:;;;CHICAGO;IL;;
END:VCARD

Any decent QR encoding software should be able to encode this.  I used the one available at http://invx.com/code.  Make sure the encoder encodes the text as the QR code, rather than encoding a URL that directs the user to a page displaying the text.

Finally I placed the encoded QR code image on my business card.   Now, when I give my card to someone, they can scan it with their phone, and my contact gets added to their address book.  Not only does this ensure that there are no typos, it’s much easier for the user to enter my contact information by scanning an image rather than typing on a tiny keyboard.

Mr. Tunney,

My name is Ed Hayes, and I am a constituent of yours.  As a fellow member of the LGBT community, I appreciate your support of all LGBT issues.  I am also a frequent customer of your Ann Sather restaurants which I am proud to have in Lakeview.

With that said, I live at 519 W Melrose and fully support Wal-Mart entering Lakeview with its new convenient store concept.

Lakeview has had a grocery store deficit for many years since the Dominic’s burned down in 2005.  With the project to rebuild Dominic’s apparently dead, I see no reason prevent Wal-Mart from entering the area. Especially if they are planning a convenient store which does not require a parking lot.  The Lakeview long term plan designates Broadway as being a pedestrian street.  A Convenient store like Wal-Mart would conform to that more than the previously planned Dominic’s with parking lot, and more than the Trader Joe’s currently being constructed with a parking garage.

None of the products sold by local small businesses/boutiques would be in competition with Wal-Mart’s convenient store concept.  The only competition to Wal-Mart’s store are the current grocery store offerings.  The current grocery stores closest to the planned Wal-Mart lcoation (Dominic’s, Jewel, Whole Foods, Treasure Island, and Market Place) have prices much higher than Wal-Mart’s expected prices. If/when Wal-Mart enters the market, consumers will pay less on their every day groceries, giving them more buying power for local restaurants and boutiques.  That means Wal-Mart would actually help local businesses.  Furthermore, Wal-Mart would increase foot traffic along Broadway and Clark; foot traffic that could only help other local businesses.  And as I mentioned before, is already part of the long term Lakeview plan.

Accusing Wal-Mart of having poor labor relations is completely unfair.  Wal-Mart has arguably better labor relations than many other local grocers and businesses.  If Wal-Mart’s labor relations are as bad as people claim they are, nobody will want to work there, and the store will never open.  Never the less, the unemployment rate in Chicago is quite high, and adding potential jobs is important to everybody in the city.  I don’t see any point on blocking any employer from creating much needed jobs.

The recent news to rezone the storefront which Wal-Mart plans to lease is outrageous.  I am fairly certain that many other retailers on the same corner as the potential Wal-Mart have just as large of a footprint as Wal-Mart plans to have, if not larger! I don’t know their exact square footages, but Borders, TJ Maxx, World Market, and Bed Bath and Beyond are all quite large.

Trader Joe’s is coming soon; why are they getting any special treatment?  They are just as much a national chain and arguably more specialized than Wal-Mart. Trader Joe’s will provide more of a threat to local businesses than Wal-Mart ever will. If the goal is to save local businesses, why was Trader Joe’s allowed to build a store?

The building Wal-Mart plans to occupy currently has three empty storefronts.  Borders is about to provide another open storefront very close by.  And, there are countless smaller storefronts in the neighborhood which are also empty.  If a company like Wal-Mart is planning to improve and occupy two of those empty storefronts, it is preposterous to block them.

The only argument I would agree with against Wal-Mart is that it is a national chain, and our neighborhood would be better off with local small businesses.  But if National chains are so bad, why are so many other National chains already allowed to be in the area?  Walgreens, CVS, Panera, Starbucks, Hair Cuttery, Best Buy, Chipotle, TJ Maxx; I could go on and on.  Any argument against Wal-Mart must also be applied to other retailer.

If the argument was against a Applebee’s, I would be in complete agreement with you.  However, this argument is over a store which sells the same exact products as Dominic’s, Jewel, and Treasure Island.  However, Wal-Mart has a superior supply chain which allows them to sell their goods at drastically lower prices.  Personally, I prefer to pay as little as possible for commodities such groceries.  Milk or flour is the same no matter where it is purchased.  Why pay more just because a store is “local”.  A “local” grocer that sells flour provides no benefit over a national flour retailer.  When it comes to restaurants and clothing, I am willing to pay more for unique and higher quality offerings offered by local businesses.

Please reconsider your decision to attempt to block Wal-Mart from entering our community.  I would gladly discuss this with you further if given the chance.

Regards,
Ed Hayes

Board and fellow condominium association members,

The following is a proposal for insulating our building’s hot water tanks.

Summary

Insulating the two hot water storage tanks and pipes will cost $3,200, provide more than $1,371 annual energy savings, and provide an annual return on investment of more than 43% (less than 2.33 year payback period).  I urge the Board and fellow condominium association members to support this investment; it is rare to find an annual ROI of more than 43%.

Assumptions

Estimate

Footnotes

1. Temperature data: http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/USIL0225
2. I made a request to the Board for a copy of the utility bills on August 23rd 2010.  I did not receive a response, therefore, I used cost data based from the Peoples Gas website: http://www.peoplesgasdelivery.com/business/gas_rates.aspx#availableRates

Saturday, I returned with a few friends of mine.  I was excited to show them what the CBA was all about.  Although, when I tried to use the second and last Groupon I had purchased, I was unable to use it. I was told I could not use a Groupon on the weekend. Concerned, I looked at the terms and conditions of the Groupon and could not find wording which indicated the Groupon could not be used on the weekend, or wording that would allow the terms to be changed post-purchase.

I asked to speak to a manager and was told he was not in. I then asked to speak to the manager-on-duty; I was told there was not one and that every employee was a manager of the co-op.

My positive perception of the CBA quickly changed.  The customer behind me in line also came to use his Groupon.  He decided to leave; not paying for the food he had ordered.  Trying not to ruin my fiends experience I decided to stay and paid cash.

From what I can tell, your business does not like Groupon, as indicated by your staff, your terms changes, and your website indicating a post-Groupon party.  Holding a grudge against a company that your business agreed to do business with is quite off-putting.

Although business may have been financially painful during the Groupon period, the Groupon had the opportunity to built your customer base quite substantially.Whether or not the decision not to take the Groupon during the weekend had much, if any, negative impact, I do not know.  What I do know is that it will be hard to measure what positive impact the Groupon may have had when it is likely negative sentiment was created for an unknown quantity of customers.

My goal here is not to tell you how to run your business, but to tell you that trust is extremely important.  As I mentioned before I was a fan of the CBA before Saturday.  Today my feelings are much different.  Although the food and atmosphere of the CBA are highly desirable, at this point I do not know if I trust your business enough to ever return.  My friends, which also liked their food, feel the same way after they witnessed what happened.

Regards,
Ed Hayes

I started doing my tax return with H&R Block online last week.  Upon visiting the site, I clicked on the “Start Now” under the FREE edition.  As returning user, I entered my username and password and clicked log-in.  Suddenly, I was thrown into the Premium service, without warning.   Thirty minutes went by as I tried to search the FAQ, support, and rest of the internet for a way to switch back to the free edition.

Giving up, I called their support phone number.  The gentlemen I spoke to asked for my e-mail address and birth date to verify my account. He verified that I was in a  premium account, but was unable to tell me how I got to the premium section without paying or how to get back to a free account, making sure I did not have to pay later.  It sounded like he was a complete novice.  I must have spent 20 minutes on the phone with H&R Block cycling between representative confusion and hold music.

Frustrated, I asked for the gentleman’s supervisor.  He requested my Social Security Number in order to verify my account.  Why would I be asked for my Social Security Number when requesting a supervisor?  And why now, not before.   That made absolutely no sense to me.  I refused to divulge the information as it served no purpose, and I had already been verified.

I was about to be late to a Fit-Core class at my gym, so I thanked the gentlemen and hung up.

Now, a week later, I am trying once again to start working on my tax return.  I login, and see this message:

H&R Block Online 2010 Screen Capture

What am I supposed to do? Was this proof-read at all?

• The explanation makes no sense to me
• There appears to be internal-use-only jargon and/or industry acronyms within the explanation
• What is this newsletter they are describing?
• What are the implications, other than price, for switching?
• Will my tax data be deleted either way?
• There is a space before a period within the explanation

I think it’s time to file with TurboTax Free edition.

**UPDATE**

Upon publishing this post, an automated Tweet went out on twitter, and I quickly got a response from H&R Block. I responded with my phone number a and the best time to call which they acknowledged.  Promptly, at the time I specified, I got a call back from H&R Block!  Within ten minutes H&R Block had apologized and solved my problem!

I would have liked to thank H&R Block for their quick response, but it is hard to do that when I had to go through all of this just to solve a problem that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.  Furthermore:  their initial line of support should have been able to solve this just as quick!

For quite some time now, I have been a deal hunter.  I’m cheap.  I love deals.  And thus, Aldi, a value oriented grocery store, has become a staple in my life.  Aldi’s strategy is quite simple; offer a low variate of store brand products at a small no frills store.

If you want a cart, you have to deposit a quarter to borrow  it (you get the quarter back when you return the cart). Want a bag?  It will cost you $0.15.

With all this attention to cost cutting, you would think they would also skimp on customer service. That is not case. I recently communicated with Aldi about a change in their Bran Flakes recipe, and I have been amazed at the level of service I have received.

The Bran Flakes I used to buy from Aldi were outstanding. And at $1.59 a box, you couldn’t find a better deal, even if your life depended on it.  However, the manufacturer of the cereal recently changed the recipe they use to produce the product, and I was not impressed with the change.  I still eat the Bran Flakes, but I don’t enjoy them as much as I used to.

I thought I would express my dissatisfaction with the recipe change to Aldi via their website.

I quickly got response.  Aldi was extremely apologetic and wanted to follow up with the manufacturer about the change.  I was told to expect a followup from the manufacture.

Ralston Foods, the manufacturer of the Bran Flakes, responded just as hastily as Aldi did.  The requested that I send the “best by” date and manufacturing codes from the top of the box.  I did so, responding by E-mail when I got home.

Aldi, again followed up, sending me a letter in the mail apologizing for the change in quality.  They also explained that I can use the letter they sent at a store to get a refund and a replacement product.  Their Double Money Back guarantee is apparently taken very seriously.

I also got a letter in the mail from Ralston Foods asking for the top of the box.  I don’t know if they sent the piece of mail before or after I E-mailed them the code, but since they included a prepaid envelope, I will be sending them the box top as requested.

Finally, I got a third letter in the mail.  Again, this was from Ralston Foods.  But this piece of mail included something that I was not expecting. I received a check for $4.00!  Keep in mind Aldi already committed to refunding me and replacing my product.

It is astonishing how committed both Aldi and Ralston Foods are to the quality of their products and the satisfaction to their customers.  I have never received this level of response from any other company.  Aldi and Ralston foods put companies like Best Buy, Apple, and Compaq (now HP) to shame!

All this for a $1.59 box of cereal!

After visiting the Signature Lounge, part of the Signature Room, located in Chicago’s John Hancock building, I felt compelled to write this letter.  Both the service and product were poor and left my friends and I greatly underwhelmed.

To Whom It May Concern,

A little over a month ago on May 22nd, my best friend and I were entertaining two friends from out of town.  None of use had ever been to the signature lounge so we thought we could give it a try and see what all they hype was about.

Our first impressions while waiting in line were good; there were many staff members to direct customers through the lines and bring them upstairs, and they were all well dressed.

It wasn’t too long after we were seated that our server, Adri P., took our drink order.  Even though the wait wasn’t too terribly long, it was still much longer than one would expect given the expectations a $15 drink would bring.  Waiting for our drinks to arrive gave us the same feeling.

We were very underwhelmed when our drinks finally came. If you were unaware, the cocktails served at the Signature Lounge are quite low in alcohol content.  The presentation was decent, but that doesn’t make up for the fact we received what many would consider $15 virgin drinks.

Personally, I ordered a strawberry smoothie as I was not in the mood for a drink with alcohol.  Although it had excess drink running down the side of the glass, the smoothie was garnished nicely when it was served.  Unfortunately, the sweetness was so strong I could barely drink it.  The drink reminded my friend of catsup because it had so much corn syrup in it.

After quite some time, the server unenthusiastically came over to ask if everything was alright, and I told her I was unhappy with the smoothie. She explained they were made by a machine and that the bartender had little control over the dilution of the concentrate.  I was surprised to hear a machine was responsible for mixing the drink when the menu describes the drink as containing real strawberries.  How does a machine cut real strawberries? I asked the server to dilute the drink a a good amount.

The server returned with what looked like the exact drink she left with. I could see the spot caused by the excess smoothie running down the side on the glass when it was first delivered.  The drink tasted the same; I couldn’t finish it.  Was it the same one she left with? Did they just make an identical drink? I don’t know. But, three sips from an $8 smoothie?  I was not thrilled.

The server came over once again, but this time to tell us she was leaving for the night, and that we could pay whenever we were ready to go, but a different server was going to take our check, check 503.

All four of us were greatly disappointed with our experience at the Signature Lounge.  The service was unacceptable, and the product was not worth a fraction of what we paid, even with the “amazing” view.

Go to basement of your building and try the Cheesecake factory’s smoothes.  I would pay $10 for them at your venue.  Even if the concentration of mix and ice was perfect with your drinks, they still couldn’t compare to what is being sold at the Cheesecake Factory.

Unless there is something you can do to change the way we feel about the Signature Lounge, I doubt any of us will be back.  And we certainly wont be recommending your business to out of town guests.

Regards,

Ed Hayes

Last Saturday I was trying to print a simple postage label for a package I wanted to ship.  All I wanted was a shipping label.  I thought it would take me five minutes at USPS.com, but it turns out a pot-roast cooks in less time that it takes to print a shipping label!  After using their sites, I have come to the conclusion that the United States Postal Service (USPS) and United Parcel Service (UPS) go through very little, if any, user acceptance testing.  FedEx isn’t much better; I did get a label in 10 minutes, but their rates are significantly higher than I was willing to pay.  Here are the pains I felt while navigating though the websites of the three major United States shippers.

United States Postal Service

The trouble at USPS.com started when I was signing up for an account.  The United States Postal Service’s website requires a “strong” password, which MUST include:

• A minimum of 8 characters
• At least 1 uppercase letter
• At least 1 lowercase letter
• At least 1 number

Special characters are not accepted.  The passwords “Sprite$%2” or “uisk28s5x” would not be accepted, but “Password1” would.  Which do you believe is more secure?  After signing up, I navigated to the shipping label creation page.

The “from” address, “to” address, and package information was all on the same page.  This made it impossible for a form filler to work correctly, which really pushes my buttons! For those of you who are unfamiliar with form fillers, they are tools that allow you to fill in web forms with the click of a button.  For example, I can say “fill the form with Ed Hayes data” and it will fill in my name, address, and most other personal information a form asks for.  I can also have it fill in my credit card data if I wanted.

I could not get past the screen of where I was supposed to enter the “to” and “from” shipping addresses!  The only error I received was “the address is not valid.”  I have no idea why; it gave no details on why the address was invalid. I ended up closing the window and opening it again. That seemed to solve the problem.  Go figure.

Continuing, I added my payment method with my form filler and got to the point where I was supposed to be able to print the shipping label.  I clicked the print button, and nothing happened.

I clicked the link that said “it didn’t print correctly” and was brought back to my shipping label cart.  I tried to go back do it again.  Although most of my data was saved, I was asked to type in my credit card CID code again.  It got quite annoying typing in this code repeatedly as I was troubleshooting. I tried three or four times to print the label, but was not able to do so, and I never got an error.  Furthermore, I didn’t see anything saying my browser or operating system was invalid or that I have to disable pop-up blockers.

I gave up and headed to UPS.com.

UPS

As luck would have it, my UPS account had expired.  For some unknown reason, UPS accounts expire after a few months of non-use. That is ridiculous. I had to start from scratch.

I got to the point where I typed my package information.  Like the USPS, they wanted me to fill out all the package information on one page. Once again, I couldn’t use my form filler.  I got pretty sick of typing in all the data over and over again.

Every time I did something with a drop down box, it would reload the page. I hate when sties have pages reload only to present the user with an updated set of options.  Every time the page reloads, the page position gets changed and it really aggravates me. A few lines of AJAX code would solve that problem and update data dynamically without page refreshes.

I went to choose the payment information, and couldn’t find a credit card choice.  For a second I was under the impression they didn’t accept credit cards as forms of payment.  I thought I would see what “Use  Payment Card” was, assuming it could be the credit card option, and I was right.  Why doesn’t UPS use the industry standard phrase “Credit Card?”  I pushed my “fill form with Chase Freedom” button.  And the data appeared to be entered correctly. I clicked next.

The page came back with errors.  It said my payment method expiration date was invalid. Looks like my form filler failed me! I corrected the dates and clicked submit again. This time my CID was missing!  UPS cleared the field each page load; very aggravating!  They should keep the data if the user is expected to fix an error. I corrected the errors, filled in the CID, and continued.

When I got to the package dimensions page, somehow I ended up with 10 packages to edit.  How did that happen? I never said I had 10 packages. I started to delete each package, which required a confirmations and page reloads.

I got so aggravated at the entire UPS process, I went to FedEx.com.

It turns out my form filler filled the package quantity with a 10 assuming that was the expiration date field.  Who do I blame for that problem?

Federal Express

The FedEx experience was significantly better, but still rather frustrating.  Just like USPS and UPS, they had the “to” and “from” address forms on one page.  Again, my form filler wouldn’t work, I had to type it all in by hand.

Another part of the form asked when I wanted my package picked up.  It was filled with the current date; a Saturday.  After filling in the credit card data by hand, and submitting the form, the page returned an error.  Saturday was not a valid date for ground shipments.  A bit annoying; why would they default to an invalid date?

When I went to change it, I found the text box didn’t allow manual typing!  I had to use their stupid calendar! What is the deal with all this crap?? I fixed the date error and pushed submit.

The page came back with another error!  My CID field was blanked out!  You can imagine how thrilled I was about that. Although the experience was painful, I got to the point where I saw my shipping label relatively quickly compared to what I went through at USPS.com and UPS.com!  Come to think of it, I never got to that point on the prior sites.

I was so happy! But, I realized I never saw how much it I was going to be paying.  Before I confirmed the transaction, I clicked on the “view receipt” and was in shock!  My little 6x3x3 package at 1 pound would cost $10 to ship.  Not acceptable. FedEx almost got my money, their site actually worked decent enough to get a label out!  But their price was too high.

I gave up on FedEx and said “maybe I have to install Adobe Acrobat Reader on my computer for USPS.com to work.”  I gave that a shot.

Back to USPS

I installed Adobe Acrobat Reader.  Still, USPS could not show me a label. I tried printing the label on my PC.  To my amazement, it worked! I found out, after chatting with a USPS representative, I had to correct some settings in FireFox:

• Open Firefox
• Click on Firefox next to the Apple logo in the upper left hand corner of your computer screen
• Click on preferences in the drop down menu
• Click on the Applications tab on the right hand side of the screen
• Click on Portable Document Format or “PDF” for short on the drop down menu
• Click on the drop down menu on the right hand side of Portable Document Format or “PDF”
• Click on “Other” in the drop down menu
• Click on and select “Adobe Reader”
• The drop down menu should now read open with Adobe Reader
• Completely close Firefox
• Reopen Firefox and print out the label

None of this was displayed on their website.  Why not just allow the user to download a simple PDF instead of going through that process?  I would be willing to bet that most users couldn’t even follow that process to completion.

The web was built on standards, why not use them?  Why complicate the process?  It may make things easier for some users, but on the flipside, it makes the process impossible to complete for other users.  USPS doesn’t work with Apple Safari; there goes that entire client base. Why does it not work on Safari?  Because USPS most likely wanted to eliminate one step, and since most users use Internet Explorer, they designed their solution around that.

How it should have gone

All of these sites have many things going on that should have been weeded out with some simple user acceptance testing. If I was operating a shipping company, I would make sure the label printing potion of my company’s site had the following requirements:

Passwords should not be restricted

If a user is restricted to a complicated password, they will write the password down on a piece of paper or in an unprotected document on their computer.  This would completely negate any security the site was attempting to create.  Usually users have a few passwords they tend to use, which are easy for them to remember, and fit the majority of password complication requirements.  Let them use those.

The excuse that the server does not accept special characters is not an acceptable excuse either.  For one, the database should allow any number and type of characters in that tables field.  Furthermore, the site should be hashing passwords, not storing them in plain text where the database variable type may not accommodate special characters.

Data entering

Each section of the process should have its own page. This idea accomplishes many goals; it simplifies page development, it simplifies database insert statements, it conforms to browser navigation standards, it makes the process simpler for the user, and it allows the user to use form fillers.

All of these sections should have their own pages including a unique page for:

• Account creation (username, password, email) or Login
• From Address
• To Address
• Package Information and Service Type
• Shopping Cart, with option to loop prior 4 pages for additional packages
• Payment information
• Order Verification
• Printing the label

After the order is complete, and ready to be printed, the user should be given options to select print with PDF or via HTML.  If printed through PDF, the user should be able to click a link that directly links to the server-generated PDF file.  If utilizing the HTML version, the user would be able to print via the browsers printing function.  Each label should be presented as a separate image.  Modern browsers will make sure images stay intact, and not be split between pages. Any browser/operating system configuration could handle either label printing process.

The moral of the story

Make it simple, and use standards.  All other things being equal, if your process is the simplest, fastest, and easiest for each and every customer to complete, your company will be the preferred choice for all consumers.

I recently rearranged furniture in my condo.  Doing so required me to use the wireless 802.11 G network on my iMac.  I was not too thrilled with the solution; media transfers to my Tivo were extremely slow, and the connection was not as reliable as the hardwired one I had become accustomed to.

I remembered that my condo had many phone jacks throughout, so I thought I would research how my builder wired my unit, and maybe change the phone jacks to Ethernet jacks. Worse case scenario, I could at least get one 100 Mb connection from my iMac on one wall, to my Tivo under the TV on the other wall.

Solution

Turns out, the builder did a remarkably robust job with the wiring!  He used Cat5 cabling and all connections went to the closet! What a blessing!

I replaced all the wall plates with new versions and terminate the cat5 cables with Ethernet keystones.  I then created a small little networking area in my laundry closet.  Luckily, the builder also wired the cable lines to the same location he put the phone wiring. I was able to tap into the cable line right where I terminated the Ethernet in the closet.

After some cable crimping and wall mounting I was set!  My cable modem and router were hidden in my laundry closet, with hard wired Gigabit capable Ethernet jacks throughout my condo.  Pretty slick! And all under $15.

Next Step: Gigabit 802.11 N router!