Successful Meetings - March 2008 - (Page 32)

Meetings Technology > Critical Conditions tally: 350 hours wasted, conservatively. “Customer care? It’s an oxymoron. It’s a joke,” says Connolly. “Despite their endless verbal apologies they didn’t care enough to follow through. I will never purchase another machine from them and, if given one, I’d toss it.” “In this part of the world, we don’t have cable or DSL, so I hooked up with a satellite company four years ago.” —Steve Collins, Resort Meeting Source, LLC,, Brekenridge, CO REFER MADNESS While Connolly’s story rates as prime fodder for a Saturday Night Live sketch, it’s no laughing matter. In the rush to outsource service and support, computer and electronics manufacturers have created what’s become a running bad joke. As a result, independent and small-business planners who have tight budgets, packed schedules, and precious little in IT support, may be the most vulnerable. “Tech support is the most important aspect of a company, second only to the quality of the product,” says Deborah Shadovitz, a Los Angeles-based author, speaker and technology consultant who specializes in Apple products and the Internet. “Unfortunately, as prices on computers went down, tech support went with it.” By the late 1990s, personal computers were affordable and ubiquitous, and the Internet was well on its way. “It quickly moved beyond North America and Europe and into places like India and Asia, and its technical infrastructure made outsourcing possible and inexpensive,” says Shadovitz. Enter what has since become a familiar drill. Consumers contact (either online or by phone) a computer manufacturer, quickly reach a U.S.-based sales agent, and conveniently complete a purchase. A month later comes the call to tech support, which starts off with a lengthy maze of automated phone commands before landing at an entry-level service agent, on a speaker-phone, in a Computer 101 For those who are unable to catch techno-guru Jeff Levy’s presentations or his KRLA radio show, his pithy, to-the-point advice on computing is worth the trip to www.jefflevy.com. Below, a cut-and-paste selection from Levy’s ongoing Jeff’s “Lessons” series (for the Windows user). Boot Up a Bit Faster To make the boot process go faster, click on Start, Run, and type CMD. Next, press the Enter key. You are now in the Command Line Prompt or DOS (Disk Operating System) mode. Type CHKNTFS/T:X where X represents a number in seconds that sets the AUTOCHK initiation countdown time. The default setting is 9. Reducing that number to 4, for example, sets the AUTOCHK initiation countdown time to 4 and makes the boot process fun faster. That command is CHKNTFS/T:4. After typing the command with the number you have selected, press the Enter key. Type EXIT and press the Enter key. To extend your initial 30-day trial period [for Windows Vista], just click on the Start button, type “slmgrrearm” and press the Enter key. You can do this a total of three times, creating a 120-day trial period. Click on Tools on the Internet Explorer menu bar, then click on Internet Options and open the General tab. Under the Temporary Internet Files section click on the Settings button. Slide the slider all the way to the left so the size indicated in the text box on the right is one. Now click OK, and then click OK again to close. That’s it—you’re done. For his 600th radio show on KRLA, Jeff Levy celebrated live at a homeless shelter in LA and collected donated computers for the shelter. Pictured is the KNX promotions crew, the J Team and J. Try Before You Buy Reduce Temporary Internet File Space 32 mimegasite.com MARCH 2008 SUCCESSFUL MEETINGS http://www.jefflevy.com http://mimegasite.com

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Successful Meetings - March 2008 Contents Editor's Note Suppliers On the Record Research Associations Planner's Spotlight Management Matters Mouth for Sale Meetings Law Pre-Event Pre-Event Tools of the Trade On Site Quick Tip Critical Conditions A Family Affair Conference Centers We Love CSM of the Year Places & Spaces Luxury Las Vegas New York CIty Houston New Orleans Quebec Bahamas Oahu & Big Island Florida Keys Gurus

Successful Meetings - March 2008

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