On customer service

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Onasill ~ Bill - Be Safe & Happy - Kingston Ontario - Canada - Cooke's Fine Foods and Coffee - Since 1865

Seth Godin: And so, the money you spend on customer service isn’t simply free. It actually repays you many times over. (via »)

I think customer service is overlooked.

Why does it matter, mostly?

Acquiring a new customer is five times as expensive as retaining an existing customer.
44% of companies admit they, “have a greater focus” on acquisition, while 18% focus on retention (the rest claim to have an equal focus).

(Acquisition vs Retention: The Importance of Customer Lifetime Value)

Know you know. :)

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The greatest memory from high school

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Emil Wu - Memory

I have some memories from high school.

I was part of an Informatics class, generally, the colleagues were better educated.

In the high school, there was, among others, another class, with students more focused on sports.

We typically played football in the high school’s stadium.

Yet, at the very end of high school years, we went outside town, and played in a real stadium, with real football gates.

The stadium field was sometimes muddy, but it was huge.

The other team was better than us, yet we won once, and I really remembered that time, it felt like we were on top of the world.

I have other examples, of high school Olympiads and contents, for example, but this memory, of winning a game against a team of generally better players than us, stayed with me.

And, unlike the contests, it was a group memory, typically in contests, it was me against external people. In the game, it was “my team” against “their team”.

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Luxury items

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Onasill ~ Bill - Be Safe & Happy - Oshawa - Ontario - Canada - Oshawa Car Museum - Rolls Royce,

My favorite type of luxury is long-lasting products.

The more I use a product, the more important it seems to me to be quality.

Examples: monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers.

I spend a lot of time on my PC, on a chair, and on a bed. I try to have these as comfortable and long-lasting as possible.

My current mattress is fine, I don’t plan to change it, but when I’ll do, I’ll likely consider a better one.

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Project Management = Bible

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Onasill ~ Bill - Onasill ~ Be Safe & Healthy - Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library - Yale University - New Haven - Connecticut - Film Scanned -. The Gutenberg Bible

There are some books like “The Sales Bible”, “The Advertising Bible”, things like that.

I want to tell you a different title: “Project Management = Bible”.

What I want to tell is you is that the Bible is actually a Project Management book in itself.

To me, the Bible is like a project management/leadership book.

Yes, it has religious principles, it does have some sort of descriptions and principles that could be considered “definitions” or “introduction to”.

On the other hand, generally, it’s more on how you balance things, how you manage resources, how you relate to limited work.

It’s also inspirational, it might motivate you.

The parables are a perfect example for my two assertions – they’re either case studies or inspirational stories, and you can see how to avoid errors.

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Despre Vindem-Ieftin – Cine are grijă de banii tăi atunci când construiești?

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Vindem Ieftin

Te-ai întrebat vreodată, cine este alături de tine când Construiești? O descriere de pe site-ul Vindem-Ieftin.ro:

Peste 98% din comerțul cu materiale pentru construcții se face clasic, in toată lumea, prin stocuri imense și cheltuieli justificate de spatii, manipulare și logistică.

Ei bine, realitatea este că toți îți vor banii și că nimeni nu este cu adevărat lângă tine. Peste 1 mil de euro pe an se pierd din banii celor ce cumpără clasic pentru că nu cunosc alta alternativă

Noi detonam acest mit și suntem diferiți pentru clienții noștri dragi, ce ne devin prieteni după fiecare tranzacție, devenind parte din misiunea noastră

Nu ne vom abate de la viziune și valori chiar daca vom fi nevoiți sa muncim mai mult. Am inovat, iar prin conceptul nostru, mașină merge 1 data direct la client, nu de 2 ori ca în varianta clasica. Astfel scutim bani și poluăm mai puțin.

Vrem să arătăm că se poate și altfel în România și ne dorim sa fim un exemplu peste tot in lume, pentru ca fiecare român să se mândrească oriunde ar fi.

Aceasta este călătoria noastră și te invitam sa faci parte din ea.

Un video explicativ:

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Hash-generated passwords

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jesse1dog - One Among Eight!

Let’s say you want to create a password for a website.

How to do it?

One way is to create a password and use it repeatedly on a lot of other websites. That’s a poor solution.

Another solution would be to use a password generator and manager to generate and save a password and use complex, random passwords. The solution is optimal, but it requires some technical skills – handling a password manager is not very complicated, nor is it simple.

You could use a system like GMail offers: create a username based on email, something like:

firstname.surname+randomtext@gmail.com,

where “random text” could be random for each website you create an account.

And, either based on such an email or on the URL of the website, you could create a uniquely different password.

So, if I want to create an account on vodafone.ro, I could use my email name+vodafone.ro@gmail.com, and password “mypassword+vodafone.ro”.

Yet, just by looking at the above example, one can understand how I got to have that password and try to replicate the login on different websites.

Yes, a bot will fail to replicate the password, but a human hacker will easily understand my password.

There’s another solution, though – based on either the URL (vodafone.ro) or email username (name+vodafone.ro@gmail.com), I could generate a string.

There are some hash generators that, starting from such a string would generate a random password.

An online example, but there are many others: SHA256 Hash Generator Online.

Hash for vodafone.ro: “990F509B877370D67FB2202D3D0332543642E6846D17F9F3029E60C0EB395DAC”.

Hash for name+vodafone.ro@gmail.com: “533C151BC4F877C3E7CFE2033CF602F27D6833BD60C8EF5CC0430B431C4D3BF1”.

This is also not impossible to hack, but it’s much more complicated.

You could even create a custom function, a custom hash generator.

Thus, you would have an unique, complex, password for each website.

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Programs meant to scare you

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staceyjoy - stoll software

In SEO, there are some websites that try to scare you, for traffic purposes.

I know people that keep getting messages from free antivirus software, that their IP is visible, that others can spy through the webcam when not using it etc.

Those people only need basic antivirus and firewall, in order to avoid losing money, stop others from accessing their emails or anything relevant online.

The answer is simple: some free antivirus software actually live from upgrades, that’s their source of money – making people be scared, so they buy a premium solution.

Of course, such software displays aggressive advertisements.

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The not-so-final pass

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miuenski miuenski - password changed

When I tell others they can use a password manager like LastPass, I’m often told – “what if I forget/lose that password, or what if LastPass goes down?”.

Quite a few people have been afraid of forgetting the password and getting locked out completely.

The solution is simple – most password managers offer you the option to export your passwords.

Do this periodically, and make an archive with a password you know.

If the online password manager disappears, you’ll still have your archive.

In my opinion, the risks for this happening are miniscule.

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Choosing end times and start times for meetings

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stefanos papachristou - time

Why do I like to choose for meetings both the start and end times?

  • I want to plan things further in time. If I meet with someone 18-19:30, I might make plans for 20:00.
  • I respect the other person’s time and schedule.
  • The meeting goes on point. If both I and my partner(s) know about the timeframe, the meeting will focus on solving things.

It’s nice to go and meet some friends for a whole afternoon, but, other than that, I find it better to set a schedule.

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