End of Day: 29th January

[#1]

Tomorrow is my last day at Plusnet. I've been here just over two years in which time I have morphed from a web designer/developer into a usability/user experience evangelist! I've really enjoyed my time here, working with great people to server great customers. Today I've been tying up lose ends and making sure people are aware of all the things they need to ensure Plusnet doesn't crumble in my absence! I've educated people in the upkeep of our broadband speed tester. There are some good ideas floating around on how to make it even better. Hopefully someone will be able to pick those up and make them real. I've also been writing up docs on using the Ext JavaScript library. We'll continue using jQuery for most customer-facing sites but Ext provides a richer set of interface widgets which will be useful on our intranet. Finally, I've been helping lots of people with last minute JavaScript queries. I used to have a rather poor opinion of JavaScript but when I was forced to look at it in more detail shortly after joining, I discovered that it's really a very nice language! Elsewhere in the Web Team, people have mostly been working on project work, community site upgrade planning and problem fixes. Bob from Comms:

Greetings! Considering the fact that I haven't written for the end of day since last year, then I suppose I best step up to the helm and give the rest of the team a bit of editorial respite... Today we've been two men down. Matt is unfortunately off ill (get well soon Matt!) and Chris is enjoying a few days leave. Apart from the usual ad-hoc stuff, I've been reviewing change controls and some proposed changes to our anti-spam content, carrying out some prep work for an up and coming project, and dealing with the odd forum query here and there. James has been delivering training to the CSC and manning the forums, whilst Mand has been attending to problems and keeping abreast of the latest project developments. For today's link I'm going to introduce you to a clever flash-based game called 'Closure' - At first you might not quite understand what's going on but persevere with it as it really is quite fun! Oh and before I forget, did you know that we lit some more bandwidth for you all today? That's twice in the same week you lucky, lucky people! 😉

Daniel from Networks:

It has been a fairly pleasant day today up in the Network department, comprised of the usual housekeeping, monitoring and the continuation of project work. The main aim this week is to focus on problems and the team has been busy all day trying to get on top of these. A few data centre visits by our engineers have ensured the smooth running of our entire network platform. I've been busy with customer support tickets at a 3rd line level and also chasing AOL to finalise the whitelisting of the new Ironport outgoing relay servers.

Richard from CSC:

A busy day in the CSC, with the most queries, in no particular order, on this menu:

• A large helping of sales queries today, some of which result in us helping the customer to complete the signup process over the phone.
• The usual ration of router setup queries, both with hardware supplied by Plusnet, with quite a few from customers who have treated themselves to a new router.
• A soupçon of updates on the provisioning process: some customers prefer to hear the progress report direct, especially if they are not already online.
• Our main course in the technical team is helping customers with faults, at all stages between initial testing and final resolution.
• And another ingredient of our staple diet of customer queries is the setup of email.

Peter from the Faults team:

A fairly uneventful day here on the faults desk. I've been testing new faults, as has Brad. Rich been doing a bit of everything. Our secondee Pete has been learning Home Phone faults, and everyone else has been doing their usual thing.