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A scoring system for telephone support; NetScanTools Pro: A networking Swiss Army knife

Opinion
Feb 14, 20062 mins
Enterprise Applications

* Backspin: A scoring system for telephone support * Gearhead: NetScanTools Pro: A networking Swiss Army knife * The past 7 days on Gibbsblog

Backspin: A scoring system for telephone support

In the commercial whirl that is IT, we get to interact with all sorts of organizations, and despite e-mail we still have to use the telephone to deal with them.

To read this week’s Backspin in its entirety, click here.

Gearhead: NetScanTools Pro: A networking Swiss Army knife

We love Swiss Army knife-style tool kits, those suites of services and functions that are managed through a common interface. We reviewed an e-mail tool kit in this category a few weeks ago, and today we have a networking Swiss Army knife-style tool kit: NetScanTools Pro 10 from Northwest Performance Software.

To read this week’s Gearhead in its entirety, click here.

The past 7 days on Gibbsblog

Ultimate Touchscreen

Remember in the movie Minority Report where Tom Cruise uses two hands to manipulate images on a display? Didn’t you immediately think “I want one too!”? Well, looks like multi-point touch displays aren’t far off …

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YAi (Yet Another iPod)

Anyone who purchased a G5 iPod (AKA the “video iPod”) recently may read this and weep: A new improved version is on the way …

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DEMO O6: Day two

The second day of DEMO was as good as the first!

I would have posted sooner but at the Pointe South Mountain Resort where DEMO was staged the in-room Internet service, provided by Wayport didn’t work from Monday when I arrived until Thursday morning when I left!

Let me quickly note that Wayport just don’t get the customer service thing: They’re helpful and friendly but disorganized and waste not only customer’s time but their own. Pretty sad.

Then I missed my plane, the next flight got delayed for an hour by mechanical problems, and the airline (America West) lost my luggage (I cannot understand how they did it – it was only a 90 minute direct flight!).

Anyway, here’s what caught my attention on Day Two …

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DEMO 06: Day one

Wow. What a day! A few truly outstanding products, a lot of solid ones, and a few that made you wonder how they were going to make money. In much the same way, there were some terrific presentations, a few good ones, and a couple that were not so much bad as ill-considered.

So, from DEMO 06, Day one, here’s what I caught my attention …

mark_gibbs

Mark Gibbs is an author, journalist, and man of mystery. His writing for Network World is widely considered to be vastly underpaid. For more than 30 years, Gibbs has consulted, lectured, and authored numerous articles and books about networking, information technology, and the social and political issues surrounding them. His complete bio can be found at http://gibbs.com/mgbio

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