legend.my

Once again, early this morning I attended a case whereby this well established company admin manager requested my immediate help. I found a 15min slot empty and he hurriedly came, bringing along an oversize Tesco plastic bag.

No, he did not bring lunch for me. I was hoping for some light snack though. He revealed his ultimate Canon Fax Machine! Claimed that it was working for all these years. I was amazed to have such a well kept (aka ancient) machine revealed on my desk. Basic thermal based fax machine. The machine kept beeping away. Yea, the machine was in pain. Beep beep beep…. gosh, he actually did not notice that the LCD screen showed

[ Error : Out of Paper ]

I wanted to have the last laugh as he admitted that he had not noticed the error on that screen. He drove 15kms here to learn about the out of paper error. He deliberately asked for a roll of thermal paper which shortlived his laughter as to his horror, I told him that I have not seen any thermal paper in my inventory ever since two years ago. Sigh. So much for solution.

My front office girl seemed to be having a good day as she willingly brought her mind to work then. She quoted she could get us the roll of thermal fax from a nearby stationary supplier. We were all smiling again and made coffee where my 15min slot came to end. I had to postpone my due appointment and waited patiently for that ultimate thermal paper!

Another 10min of coffee with fax machine beeping away in the background, my girl finally returned with the thermal paper and some food for herself. Short of blaring at her about taking advantage of the out-of-office session all to herself, I quickly unwrapped and installed. Err… first install failed as I had the wrong side of paper up. Oh yes, the machine came with the auto-cut feature too. Made a copy run, voila! Perfect thermal imaging. Plug in  a line and made a fax test, ring, ring, ring…. auto received. All good. Client was happy, my office girl was happy.

As I was driving to another location, these details came to my mind.

His Cost
Transport + Time : Priceless

My Cost
Thermal Paper  : RM2 + Coffee
Time : Wasted
Pocket expenses for girl to travel : RM10 – she claimed her lunch!

How much did I bill the client?
FREE!

Lesson learned :
Stop supporting outdated technology that brings extra effort and more downtime and zero-income

With all that time spent, I could have provided him an email solution
- for him and his colleagues, configure his smartphone and sync with his laptop.

Well, it is just me…

Note : Already bought a dozen of thermal fax roll to accommodate ‘emergency’ cases – ha!
So much for current technology!

I must admit that I stumped every time I was being told to quote a ‘super efficient’ fax machine. The usual requirements – the fax machine must be cheap when comes to consumables, preferably refillable ink or availability of refurbished toner. Heck, is email so difficult to be implemented? Known to most of us, a simple email solution is ideal. Yet, most management people have difficulties to adjust to the latter. Why?

Fax Machine
+ simply punch the numbers and hit start (not true, when was the last time you use a fax?)
+ function as photocopier (right – black and white)
+ look more office-gadget (oh my!)

- waste of office space (unless hide under the table?)
- waste of another redundant phone line (although can be shared with voice line)
- waste paper/toner/ink (even refurbished ones do not come free)
- risk being strucked by lightning via phone line (isolator is not full proof by the way)
- junk fax as a result will add to more waste of paper/toner/ink (expensive models have junk filter?)
- maintenance (fax machines do get paper stuck, trap staples/paper clips/hair?)
- line busy syndrome (auto redial and hog the line)
- P&C syndrome (buy individual machine next to each management personnel?)
- out-of-paper (on-board-save-to-memory function does not come free too)
- dark tones, re-fax and re-fax, more paper and ink wasted

Email
+ type and hit send (most documents are typed electronically anyway)
+ need copies, reprint (for hardcopy)
+ need to cc (cc in email)
+ need to bcc (bcc in email – something a fax machine cannot emulate)
+ cost of sending / receiving (bundled with your internet connectivity)
+ read and archieve/delete (no waste of paper/ink)
+ able to access anywhere – smartphone / PC / Cybercafes
+ ability to send documents in actual form – (colour is a yes, pictures and movies too)

- spam (can be rectified by spam filter)
- clients do not have email to receive yours (where are your clients based? Utopia?)
- need to scan forms that are hand-filled (al-cheapo 3-in-1 printer settles it at RM200) or rather construct the form electronically and filled up electronically – any qualified admin should be able to
- attachments are applications specific (use pdf for portability)
- attachments risk being modified and manipulated (use pdf password protect )

Despite all that, most of the time I ended up supplying the email solution and a ‘back-up’ fax machine to be bundled with, the legacy remains…sigh

Should the supplier/client without a proper ‘working’ email

be regarded as similar to the supplier/client without a proper banking account??

Yes, a quick check on my calendar shows Year 2010, isn’t yours too?

Those who have birth dates ranging from late 1970s to late 1990s are the current trendsetters inclusive of IT world of gadgets and internet. Without them, iPhones, Blackberries and Androids would not be today’s smartphones. Facebook, tweeter, blogs and emails would never be mainstream. Let’s face it, either join them or get lost failing to trail them.

Business and communications today are vital and have embraced a new world. Phone calls and paper documents are not essential and at times seem to be a burden to all. A generic Gen-Y working model would have a new dimension and failure to adhere to it will spell inefficiency.

Gen-Y does not use snail mail any longer. Email is a the bare minimum. Direct messaging via YM, MSN, etc was favoured, now it has turned to tweeter and facebook. Contact bearing phone numnbers are considered legacy as instant messaging via email, facebook, tweeter is essential for communication.

Paper documents – invoices, bills and quoatations are no longer as hard copies. Regardless of applications being used, pdf is being used. Google’s doc is being utilised for document sharing. I still remember one of my clients requires me to send him invoices with a rubber stamp for legality. I shipped him a piece so that he can print my invoices received via email and had it stamped at his disposal. So much for legality.

I have not seen any Gen-Y queueing to pay up bills anymore. It is done either via online banking or auto-debit from their plastic cards. Bills that being posted could even be opted as electronic bill via email for safekeeping. Infact most bankers nowadays have savings accounts that no longer come with savings booklet.

Seems to me the current world of IT has brought a lot of change. Efficiency is the key. Conveniency is imminent. However, traffic jam and long queues at banks and agencies puzzles me. Does anyone know why and where is everyone rushing to?

I would not have believed that I would be so indulged with Apple let alone MacBookPro. Ever since iPhone was launched, I never really had myself attached to it then. Perhaps, learning about it would have made me yearned for it then. It must be due to the fact that I am a Microsoft-Intel devoter then. Apple and iPhone were just a fad to me… how silly one could be eh?

Years went on and I somehow did manage to avoid being attracted to Apple products. iPhone was somehow out of my top-ten-list for no apparent reason. Plain ignorance. I reckoned the fact that Nokia and Sony Ericsson came to me as mobile phone successors had made Apple’s iPhone being shadowed away in my list of choices then. I had several laptops to my disposal weekly – Dell, Toshiba, Sony, HP, Compaq, Asus, Acer and even Lenovo.  Pure satisfaction and appraisal for the design and finishing quality had lost its appeal, in other words – I am getting bored. As a matter of fact, nothing from these manufacturers with a budget below RM5000 gives me the thrill. My last gadget was the Mini HP 1001TU and though it comes in a petite design and handy being a netbook, it does lack of oomph in terms of processing power. I actually found it useful for simple mobile banking and able to hide under the driver’s seat. Pricing it as entry level added up as an advantage. However good it might be, I found myself sneaking back to larger screen and the quest for better quality with something to show. 1024×600 in resolution is just a chore to use, scrolling up and down was already a task, scrolling left to right played with my patience. It was like having a compact car that could bring you around town routinely served as a very convenient transport but somehow, at times, the need  to have something that reflects a part of yourself, well, it does matter. At least for me, especially in meetings and client discussions. It posed to be inferior, if I must add, it shouted feminine. Only when I need to catch a drink and the need to be online, the laptop would be put to good use. Nothing any smartphone could replaced, not at the moment. Well, I found using HP Mini a little lacking in feel and it did feel kind of like using glossy plastic. Of course, the immediate cousin HP2140 might have been the replacement twin but deep inside I realised that I did need no more Atom processor powering my list of chores.

I came across Sony VAIO and I found myself especially drawn to the Z series that has carbon fibre which I found it amazingly light for a 13in. Tagging at RM8K was just way out of my budget for portable notebooks that have resale values of 50% within the first year of age made me shy away! Somehow the same hype from  Microsoft and Intel gave not much of glory and excitement compared to those early years of computing.

Apple with the new MacBookPro with 13in came as a surprise. Unibody made from aluminium and the smooth elegant design became an envy to my peers. The Mac OS X is a gem to use. Perhaps the wallpaper could be copied to Windows. Perhaps the overall look of the OS could be duplicated onto Windows too. But the stability and the feel of the entire OS, the experience of using the MBP was just simply beyond my words, something a WinIntel machine had to catch up. The keyboard, the mouse tapping, the overall feel -nothing could compared to it!

Now, do yourself a favour. Go check out one! Do not worry, it is very user friendly.

You will swear how much you have missed out all this while, at least in the mobile computing world!

Now can anyone poison me to get an iPhone? Hehe…