Month / February 2009

by dmacias

Xobni

About a week ago I saw a story on Digg.com about tools to help you be more productive. I can’t remember the exact story, but more than likely it was from LifeHacker. Regardless, this story talked about this little California company who has created a plugin for Microsoft Outlook call Xobni. I’ve been test driving this for a week and let me tell you that I’m in love. Searching for emails is a breeze, what would take 10-15 minutes to finds, you’ll find it in under 3. Trying to find obscure emails is a breeze and being able to find any sort of conversation for any one contact is great.

The installation was quick and the indexing took a few hours, depending on how much email you have. The only draw back, which makes sense, is that you have to have the PST open in order for it to be indexed. It would be great for Xobni to index “offline” PST folders.

Lastly, Xobni comes with some pretty cool analytics. For example:

This is the mail traffic I’ve had today:
todays-summary



The email I’ve had in the last few months, which shows what happens when you get closer to production on a project:
montly-emails



And finally, a pretty interesting graph showing the time it takes you to respond to an email:
time-to-respond



I highly recommend this for all Outlook users.

~dmacias

by dmacias

Kings of Leon – Revelry

If you’ve not noticed by now, I’m going through a Kings of Leon phase. After the amazing show they put on a few weeks ago and their great CD “Only By The Night” it’s hard not to love their music. This album has been spinning in my iPod for what seems like months now. Highly recommend it.

Regardless, this song speaks about a guy who met a great girl, but he was not done with his partying ways and through it all he still thinks of her all the time. Good stuff!

What a night for a dance
You know I’m a dancing machine.
With the fire in my bones
And the sweet taste of kerosene.
I get lost in the night
So high I don’t wanna come down.
To face the loss
Of the good thing that I have found.

Woo hoo hoooo
Woo hoo hoooo

In the dark of the night
I can hear you calling my name.
With the hardest of hearts
I still feel full of pain.
So I drink and I smoke
And I ask If you’re ever around.
Even though it was me
Who drove us right in the ground.

See the time we shared
It was precious to me
But all the while
I was dreaming of revelry.

Gonna run baby run
Like a stream down a mountainside.
With the wind in my back
I wont ever even bat an eye.
Just know it was you all along
That had a hold of my heart
But the demon and me
Were the best of friends from the start.

So the time we shared it
Was precious to me
All the while
I was dreaming of revelry.

Dreaming of revelry.

And I told myself,
Oh the way you go.
It rained so hard,
It felt like snow.
Everything came tumbling down on me.
In the back of the woods,
It was dark as night
Palest pale,
Of the old moonlight
Everything just felt so incomplete.

Dreaming of revelry
Dreaming of revelry
Dreaming of revelry
Dreaming of revelry

by dmacias

Frustrations with Cisco’s ICM Script Editor

So, I’ve been working with ICM scripts for what feels like ages, but in reality is more like 5 years. In the last 2 years though I spend more time scripting than anything else… well except documentation, but that’s another story.

Regardless, here are a few frustrations I constantly face when using ICM script editor.

1. No find and replace. This should be very easy to do and would help greatly, specially when working with CVP and you need to modify a VXML URL or when you’re working with formulas which need to be updated to include some new variable.

2. Copy and paste does not respect the fact that you’ve specified the Snap to Grid option. Yes, copy and paste rocks when you need to write a bunch of scripts which are similar, however, having to remember to snap your recently pasted script to the grid is a pain in the butt and I often forget it.

3. Call Tracer. Personally, I would like to see the call tracer as an independent window which can be sent to the back ground. If you’re working with a very small screen, you have to move the tracer around while looking at your script. In addition, the windows can be so much bigger by default. Can’t they just auto-size? See below.

ICM Script Editor Call Tracer

4. Formula Editor. Is there really no better way to display the formulas being written? Some of my formulas are pretty long which require that I writ them on TextPad first then move them to Script Editor. This allows me to lay them out a little better, specifically when trying to make sure I have enough parenthesis. For example, the formula below shows up like this:

(((ValidValue(CallType._Sales_Q_International.AvgSpeedAnswerTo5,0))+(ValidValue(CallType._Sales_Q_International.AvgSpeedAnswerTo5,0))+(ValidValue(CallType._Sales_Q_International.AvgSpeedAnswerHalf,0))+(ValidValue(CallType._Sales_Q_International.AvgSpeedAnswerHalf,0))+(ValidValue(CallType._Sales_Q_International.AvgSpeedAnswerToday,0)))/((2*((ValidValue(CallType._Sales_Q_International.AvgSpeedAnswerTo5,0))/(ValidValue(CallType._Sales_Q_International.AvgSpeedAnswerTo5,1)))+(2*((ValidValue(CallType._Sales_Q_International.AvgSpeedAnswerHalf,0))/(ValidValue(CallType._Sales_Q_International.AvgSpeedAnswerHalf,1))))+1))*
CallType._Sales_Q_International.RouterCallsQNow)>60

Surely, there’s a better way to display this.

One thing I miss about Genesys is their slick UIs and Cisco knows nothing about UIs. Hope to see some changes in the future, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

~dmacias

by dmacias

Kings of Leon – Use Somebody

I’ve been listening to this song a heck of a lot these last few days and I’m total love with it. The beat is great and the lyrics follow accordingly.

Ultimately, I would call it a love song, perhaps from a lonely fellow reaching out to someone who doesn’t see him as a prospect.

~dmacias

I’ve been roaming around
always looking down at all I see
painted faces fill the places I can’t reach.

You know that i could use somebody.
You know that i could use somebody,
someone like you.

And all you know and how you speak,
countless lovers undercover of the street.

You know that I could use somebody.
You know that I could use somebody,
someone like you.

Off in the night,
while you live it up, I’m off to sleep.
Waging war to shake the poet and the beat.

I hope it’s gonna make you notice.
I hope it’s gonna make you notice,
someone like me.
Someone like me.
Someone like me.

Go and let it out.
Someone like you.
Somebody.
Someone like you.
Somebody.
Someone like you.
Somebody.

I’ve been roaming around
always looking down at all I see.

by dmacias

Blue October Dirt Room Video

While I was in Dallas I heard a song I didn’t recognize, but I was sure it was Blue October. After some online searching, it turns out that it’s the first single called Dirt Room from their upcoming album. I highly recommend you check out the video, it’s pretty good and the end is good. You can check out here.

On a side note, I truly hope that Blue October gets the popularity it deserves. They are popular, but not as popular as I think they should be. Outside of Texas you rarely hear their stuff. Perhaps the fact that their lyrics are usually pretty dark is preventing them from turning to mega stars… so if that’s the case then I hope that doesn’t happen.

~david