the sephone blog

I read in TIME Magazine that the future in Newspapers lies in the public accepting to pay for the news.

They call it Micro-payments cuz they will be real small and hopefully we won’t notice the hit in our wallets sin e it will be billed to a credit card like iTunes.  Infact, iTunes was the inspiration!

The author cited that the high costs of production including the journalists,and photogs costs are increasing so some one has to foot the bill.

Don’t TV stations have the same dilemma? Do we pay for the news in that format?

Micro-payments shmicro-babble. That’s what that is. Don’t fall for it and more importantly don’t pay for it!

Like Agent Mulder used to say “the truth is out there”. Well so is the news and you shouldn’t have to pay to get it. It is the Free press anyway. Right?

Now Paying for something that you want or need is still reality-

Ya can’t get somethin’ for nuttin’, as they say

and in this world of ‘economization’ and down-sizing, what is wrong with smaller payments-  As far as paying for what you use or as you go- then a Micro-Payment for a different kind of subscription or service may not be a bad idea-

I guess my only beef is paying for hearing or reading about something that is public knowledge and is readily available from other outlets.

Hey-  what about micro-payments at restaurants-  A Micro-Payment based on the size of the serving you get-  If wallets ruled the waist line- maybe our bottom lines would be fatter at the end of the month.

On Feburary 18th, the new WABI.tv was launched. WABI TV-5 is a CBS-affiliated television station in Bangor, Maine. WABI was the first television station in Maine to go on the air when it began broadcasting on January 25, 1953. Also, they are the only locally owned and operated commercial station in Bangor. Leading news ratings for many years, WABI TV-5 is the only station in the market with a full schedule of live, local news that originates from Bangor.

Sephone is proud to work with WABI TV-5 on their new site. Some of the improvements on the new site are increased usability, RSS feeds, and faster page loads.

See the new site for yourself at www.wabi.tv.

As you may have heard some web companies are dropping support for Internet Explorer 6 (ie6 as it is often called).  37signals and google’s gmail have announced they are no longer supporting this browser.  Others like Apple’s Mobile Me just don’t list Internet Explorer 6 as a supported browser.  Still others like facebook, politely ask you to upgrade your browser.

But I use Internet Explorer 6

If you happen to be a user of ie6, you are not alone.  As of today, Sephone sees slightly less than 20% of web surfers using ie6.  We do recommend that you upgrade your browser to more modern one.  There are several good ones to download, install and use.  This is relatively easy to do and they are all free.

• Firefox
• Safari
• Internet Explorer 7

How do I know if I have ie6

Most operating systems and browsers have a menu item that tells you, try clicking Help than About.  On the right, you can see a screen shot of a help menu from Internet Explorer 6.  You can clearly see that it is Microsoft Internet Explorer and then the next line it says version 6.0.2800.1106.  You don’t have to worry about the .0.2800.1106 part, if it says 6. anything, you have ie6.

Why are people not supporting ie6

This version was released in 2001.  That is a long long time ago in web years, it’s very old.  As a web development shop, ie6 has been a source of numerous headaches and frustrations.  Web developers need to do extra work to make sure to works with these older browsers.  Internet Explorer 6 also lacks some of the features that are needed by the modern web developer such as PNG alpha channel, box model, standards compliance and XMLHttpRequest (XHR).

Does sephone support ie6

While we do recommend that you upgrade your browser, Sephone does offer limited ie6 support on some of our products and services.  We are slowly phasing out support though.  As we do more and more development we are supporting ie6 less and less.  The browsers we do support are firefox version 2 and up, Safari version 2 and up, Internet Explorer 7 and 8, and Google’s Chrome.

So let’s face it, that isn’t exactly what John F. Kennedy said on that cold day in January during his inaugural speech, but it is the season and we couldn’t resist to take advantage of a compelling statement and adapt it to today’s digital age.

More and more when you call companies you get hung up in voice mail someplace only to find if you DO get to a HUMAN, often it is not the HUMAN you were looking for.  When you send an email to a company you get an “auto response”  that reads “Thank you for…” again no HUMAN.

How does that make you feel?  Does it make you feel like anyone cares if you spend your hard earned money to do business with that particular company?

Or if you ARE getting a HUMAN, are THEY telling YOU what the rules are in order to do business with them?

Especially when I am “out of my element” and not in my area of expertise, I feel very uneasy without SOME sort of personal contact.  I like to know I can trust the person and the company I am dealing with. I also like to know that this HUMAN listens to what I need and I am not getting talked down to, because they are smarter than me.  They may be smarter than me, but I have the money, right?

With Sephone being located in Bangor, Maine, we have a clientele of what is categorized as small business.  Even though our market reaches nationally we still work with primarily small to medium-sized businesses. Many of our customers don’t have dedicated IT personnel and even those that do, these folks are stretched thin.  Our customers come to us for our expertise in web design, hosting questions or online applications that allow them to work more efficiently as well as to save money.

This is not a process that can be handled by a website with an “auto-responder”, a voice mail tree, or a form that you fill out that has fields determined by a faceless company that never has actually listened to learn which problems you are trying to solve and what priority they may be in.

We are just like you. HUMANS. And we don’t tell you how it is, we ask you what your goals are and together we work through a process to get there.  Sometimes being a bit on the “geeky” side we don’t always understand things the way you say them. Sometimes we have to ask questions again, we want to make sure we are all on the same page.

That is not to say we don’t use automation, obviously we are in the web business and we use the tools that we build as well as reach out to those services that we don’t build when that makes sense.

Blogging is a way that we try to leverage “community intelligence” to solve a problem, get answers or just plain learn.  And this is a way that the world is going when it comes to Customer Service.  The Sephone Blog (where you are now reading this), is to share information with you, when it is convenient for you to view it.  Have a question about an application, datAvenger or SPAM, you may find it here in the blog.  If you DON’T see it here, please let us know as we are always working to give you the tools you need, when you need them.  (For me I need them at 3am and I am trying to update something!)  Email me personally at kelly.cotaux@sephone.com

Blogging maybe something that may make sense for your company, Blogs are FREE to set up and are very easy to use, let us know if we can help you with one that can help you give more accessible customer service to your customers.  I have a couple I read often that talk about customer service and how to effectively use the tools that are being used.  I liked this one at first because it is called The Church of the Customer!  The amusing title grabbed my attention and the content of the blog keeps me coming back.  Another blogger I like is Guy Kawasaki, his blog title, “How to Change the World” also has some good reading. Here is a post on his views on blogging and Customer Service. I also have a blog called Techno-Trapped In My 40’s that focuses on dealing with today’s technology with a 46 year old brain!

Please never think for one minute that any of the tools that we use are instead of great HUMAN TO HUMAN customer service, or that we think we are smarter than you.  We are in this together.  Thank you for trusting  us, because this IS what we do to support you so you can concentrate on your core competency and together we can help you meet your goals.

If any of these online solutions frustrate you, pick up the phone and we will answer it.

Here at Sephone, we know that your relationship with us doesn’t end the minute your site launches. In fact, support and maintenance may be the most crucial part of your online presence.

At the same time, though, we realize how difficult a support experience can be; we hate automated telephone trees and companies that hide their contact information just as much as you do. That’s why we’ve recently created support.sephone.com, our new support request system.

Entering a support request is easy; just head to support.sephone.com and fill out the simple form with as much information as you can provide. You’ll receive updates to your request via email, and you’ll know the minute your request has been addressed. You’ll even be given a link so that you can track the history of your request and enter additional information about it if necessary.

And don’t worry – we’ll still continue to offer our friendly phone support at 207-262-5040. If you’d like to talk to a real life person, give us a call; Dara or Wendy would be happy to help you with whatever you need. Whether you choose to contact us via support.sephone.com or over the phone, we’ll always be here to help!

You may have just seen an email that was from barracuda_notice@ sephone.com recently.  If so, you are probably wondering what it is.

If you are, well let me share.

Sephone knows that SPAM is the number #1 P.I.T.A.* of all e-mail users.  SPAM stinks.

As a means to fight SPAM, Sephone acquired SPAM Firewalls from Barracuda Networks-  Customers wishing to enhance their SPAM filters from the included services with all our hosting packages are able to subscribe.  There is a small monthly fee per account.
Call or email us support @ Sephone.com for more details.

The service was initiated in early 2008 for a small test group and over the last several months we have been adding new subscribers as they inquire on how they can improve their SPAM filters.  Until now, we have been providing the services to help train the filters- BUT NOW-  all subscribers to the barracuda can have access to their own quarantine lists.

Every day you will get an notice from barracuda_notice@ sephone.com IF you have anything in quarantine.  From the email you can go directly to the account and manage your queue.

• So if you dont get that important email you have been expecting-  login to your quarantine account and see if the message is in there.
• If it is, then mark it as “Not SPAM” and let it be delivered.
• If you see mail in there that is “unknown” , take a few minutes; look at it, if it is SPAM, mark it as such, if it is marked as SPAM and you want it delivered, mark it “WhiteList” Or NotSpam and now when ever email is received- from that sender-  the Barracuda will let it thru instead of quarantining it.  This is also “Training”.

Sephone is pleased to offer this service to help rid you of SPAM.

To learn more about fighting SPAM or to subscribe to this service contact us at support@sephone. com.
To learn more about Barracuda Networks, visit http://www.barracudanetworks.com

Fees are for each email account that you wish to be protected.  Aliases are included.  Additional Domains and associated email accounts are extra.  A small set up fee may apply depending on the number of domains and accounts to be included.

*P.I.T.A = Pain in the A$$