technology

Chatbot

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 26 Comments

My TV box is not working.

I am just a chatbox, I am putting you through to a human agent.

I am sorry we are experiencing delays with agent contacting you, we are experiencing a high level of compl… enquiries.

Do I have time to make a cup of tea?

Thankyou for your patience, an agent will be with you as soon as possible, but there may be a long wait.

Does that mean I have time to go to the toilet?

Thankyou for your patience, our customers are very important to us. So our agent can deal quickly with you can you answer sixteen security questions…What is your account number in roman numerals? How much was your last payment in $US?…

We are sorry to know you are experiencing a fault with your services. i see a clear note by our field technician working on site and they have given us a deadline to complete this. We can see there is a fault in the area causing it. As we making some improvements to our network at the moment, so we can make sure we’re giving you the best service possible. This means that you will be experiencing a loss of your Broadband, Voice and TV service(s) in the area for a short time. Everything should be back to normal today on 24th November 2022 09:00 broadband issue will be resolved completely

Today is 17th November…

 This will be complete fixed on 24th of November and most of the customers in your area are facing the same issue as our technicians are working on a damaged cable in the area and we aim to get this resolved soon, we would appreciate your patience regarding this

If there is work going on in the area, why don’t you email your customers to tell them?

 We’re sorry that you’re still experiencing intermittent problems with your Broadband in the ZX6 7XZ area. I am sorry my colleague must have missed out that. We expect our engineers to have this repaired as soon as possible. The estimated repair time is 24 NOV 2022 09:00 It s not only yours the Entire area is facing the same problem. We are working as hard as we can to fix this, however due to the complexities of the issue it may take for ever…

I’m not having problems with my internet, how do you think I’m talking to you? And I keep telling you the entire area is NOT facing the same problem! Okay, you are probably thinking why does she keep complaining when there are people in the world with far worse problems, after all I could have been flooded out, my house flattened by bombs or swept away in a larva flow, yes I am very lucky to have a roof over my head…

I have also cleared the upstream and downstream channels to make sure you are on the least congested band but we cannot guarantee a stable connection until the outage is fixed. I have also registered you for compensation for loss of services. Your patience ….

I thought it all worked by magic. I hope you know what you are doing…

So you can see the compensation applied on your account once the outage issue is cleared as this is applied by our backend team. I can understand how difficult it is to manage without internet even I have experienced the same from my service provider as well and know how frustrating it is. But I kindly request you to manage using mobile hotspot until then.

But it’s the TV box not my internet…

We take pride to ensure our customer satisfaction unfortunately we have not met your expectations, Upon through review of your conversation we understand that its not what we follow as our values and standards.

I will come back later, I need chocolate.

We are denying to help you, The reason you are facing issues is because of an outage. We are working as hard as we to fix can this, however due to the complexities of the issue its taking us a little longer than normal. Once te outage is completed, service will be resumed and we make sure this is not repeated. Please be rest assured.

Silly Saturday – Digital Dithers

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 10 Comments

 

Typing at school is not for me,

A secretary I’ll never be.

adult blur business indoors

A home computer, whatever for?

A Commodore 64?

For that we are too poor.

photo of green data matrix

Who has the patience to dial,

Peering at screens is such a trial.

Internet we do not need,

Goodness knows where that would lead.

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You don’t have e-mail..

How will we keep in touch?

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Amazon, that is a river,

Blue hieroglyphics in your e-mail,

Links are what you get in chains.

I only wanted to know

What you’d like for Christmas.

 

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Join Facebook? No thanks,

What, you’ve put me on already

And my date of birth…

Hey come and look at this picture,

You’re not on Facebook, how come?

How do you keep in touch?

 

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Kindle, what’s that?

Self publish, what a dream,

But I don’t DO technology.

You’ve got your book on Kindle,

Tell us how…

Yes, it’s live now.

Artists and Writers’ Year book thrown out,

I’m an Indie Author now.

How many novels have I sold?

Two or is it three,

One for my sister and one for me…

 

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Websites, domains, Goodreads, Twitter,

Google, Pinterest, Linked In, Tumbler

Too much trouble

Just a muddle,

Two domains by error.

My picture’s gone sideways on Goodreads,

I’m only Linked In to three people,

I’ve lost my Twitter account.

Only four friends have Liked

My Facebook Author  Page.

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Blogs, no time to read or write,

My novel I must complete.

 

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On WordPress there’s a pattern,

Where my photograph should be,

I don’t know how to schedule

Or understand the Stats.

 

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My website is sunshine yellow,

My blog is sea green,

But neither flash or move

And I wish I could be seen

As a jolly cartoon

For my Author Persona.

I have an identity crisis

How do I become an Avatar?

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Being In An Anthology

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 4 Comments

Anthologies, collections of various authors’ stories, are an attractive prospect for many new or not so new, but still aspiring authors. The chance to have your writing in print, your story chosen by strangers is an affirmation and you have something to show your relatives. Your story will be surely be read by all the friends and relatives of each writer who features in the anthology and perhaps one of them will be a publisher, head of BBC Drama or a film producer… The route to these exciting possibilities is often via a competition, you might also win some money and impress your family.

Back in 2009 I was browsing in Borders, a heavenly mix of music, books and magazines; lurking on a bottom shelf under writing and history magazines was a colourful monthly publication called First Edition. Get Yourself Published For Free it proclaimed. Of course that meant they would not be paying YOU for your stories, but that didn’t seem to matter and one of my stories, Reality, was accepted, my brief biography sent off and in due course my free November copy arrived in the post. I immediately rushed off to check the shelves of Borders and WH Smith to buy another copy to send to my mother. I then e-mailed friends and family who hunted in their local branches; I could say I was in print nationwide. Alas, that edition, only the ninth issue, was the last and by the end of that year Borders had suffered a similar demise in the UK. I wonder what happened to the second story I sent them?

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The first time I won a prize was second place in Wrekin Writers’ competition, the cheque for £70 impressed Cyberspouse. The story, Darren’s Day Out, was the first I wrote for the writers’ group I still belong to. The subject was the door, I later added the second part. You can read that story and others at my website.

https://www.ccsidewriter.co.uk/chapter-six-fiction-focus

Dorset Voices was compiled by Poundbury Voices and published by Roving Press, foreword by Prince Charles.  Poundbury is an experimental new town on the outskirts of Dorchester in the county of Dorset, England. The development is built on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall.

https://www.rovingpress.co.uk/DorsetVoices.html

Writers were invited to submit short stories, articles and poems, paying £6 to ‘encourage’ them to send their best work; they didn’t have to write specifically about Dorset, but I figured it would increase my chances. Photographers were invited to submit black and white photographs. My story ‘Four Days In June’ was accepted and the book was launched at Bournemouth Library. Those writers able to attend each read an excerpt from their work. By happy coincidence my sister was on holiday from Australia – Cyberspouse was happy as he didn’t have to come to the launch and my sister could take a copy back for my mother, thus saving on postage. I did get a free copy, but also bought several as gift ideas. Prince Charles did not come to the launch.

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My favourite covers are those of the first two volumes of An Eclectic Mix. I have two stories in each.

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Thanet Writers publish articles, stories and poems daily on their website and a dozen of mine have featured. This year my story ‘Thanephant an Elephantasy’ was included in Shoal, their first anthology, published as a paperback and on Amazon Kindle. It was launched at Turner Contemporary Gallery, Margate in May.

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You can read Darren’s Day Out, Four Days In June and stories from Eclectic Mix in the  third collection of my own stories, Times and Tides.

 

 

 

 

 

No Time Like The Present

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 2 Comments

There’s no time like the present, especially for authors. How long does the present last; a year, a week, a day, a second?

My first novel Brief Encounters of the Third Kind’ was set in the present, that was where I intended it to remain. I did not want to name a year; the characters lived in London and the 2005 bombings were still quite recent when I started writing, I did not want their story overshadowed by such a major event.

But first novels, especially long ones, take a while to write, to be read by others and edited. The present was fast becoming the past. World events were turning out differently to what most of us could ever have imagined and technology was racing ahead. My characters had mobile phones that took photos, they Skyped and went on Facebook, a few of them had SatNav. But they did not have smart phones, tablets, ipads, Kindles etc. and the last thing I wanted them to be able to do was Google their location or look up information on the internet with their smart phone; that would have wrecked the plot. More of the Twenty First Century passed by while I went down the traditional route of looking for agents. In the meantime I had written my second novel, Quarter Acre Block, a shorter straight forward family drama set firmly in 1964 and 1965. It became the first novel I published on Amazon Kindle.

I decided to stick to self publishing, Brief Encounters became a trilogy and I describe all three novels as being set in the early years of the Twenty First Century. As far as my characters are aware, they are living in the present and in a new century.

My work in progress was initially inspired by a local event during the Valentine night storm of 2014 and the novel should come to an end within 2014. All the places the wandering hero finds himself are real. But real places can present problems if your story takes place in the present; pity the author whose character goes shopping or works in BHS, no sooner is it published than the shops close down.

If you avoid ‘the present’ and set a year you still have to be on the alert. London and other cities have many familiar and iconic landmarks, but well known scenes can change dramatically. If you set your novel in a particular year, don’t have your hero enjoying the view from the top of The Shard before it has even been built, or the heroine after years away abroad, tearfully spotting the iconic cooling towers on the horizon that mean she is near home – the cooling towers that were demolished two years previously.

But there is no need to rely on your memory; what did authors do before the internet? Rush down to the library to search through old newspapers. Whether you are writing an historical novel or a millennial saga you can look up when Queen Victoria visited your local town, or what the weather was like in Portsmouth when your hero set sail for his solo trip round the world.

As for getting the future right, you will just have to wait and see; not many writers from the past got it completely right or completely wrong.

 

Multi Media Muddles and Miracles

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When I was four years old my parents got their first television; I thought the people on the screen lived in the cabinet underneath and I was too scared to open the doors. For all I know about computers, it could still be the case that the people who spring to life on Facebook or utube live under my desk, in the black magic box that is called a desk top computer, though it is sitting on the floor.

Even those exalted friends and colleagues who are in computers, do programming or the person who turns up in your office when you call ‘IT’ probably don’t know how the magic really works.

Until it stops working, writers don’t need to know how their computer works; they only need to know how to type and how to use the internet. Indie Authors come via many routes to arrive in the same virtual meeting room, but we have all been told along our journey that we need a media platform.

Ideally this is supposed to be in place before you start your novel, let alone finish it, but many of us would never have got our books written if we had jumped in at the deep end. Instead we learn by osmosis and help from fellow writers; probably once a month discovering some technical short cut that is second nature to everybody else.

My guide to computer technology should not be followed… Never click on any strange symbol in case you wipe out everything you are doing. If something goes wrong, switch off every piece of equipment and announce loudly that you are going downstairs to cook dinner. Then sneak back in when the computer least expects it, turn on and hope for the best.

Anything I have created that appears on line is more by luck than judgment, perhaps even a miracle. When I joined Goodreads my picture insisted on being sideways, it was a long time before I figured out how people put pictures on Facebook and it was only a few weeks ago that I managed to change from a snowflake to a human representation in those little boxes next to LIKE at the foot of Worpress blogs…

But as fast as we establish one base it changes, or our superiors tell us nobody is using that anymore. Hopefully WordPress will be around for a while. I was a latecomer, realising nearly everyone except me was on it. Domains, websites, Amazon Author pages, Facebook pages; whatever you use needs to be fed, nurtured and updated. Nothing looks worse than a website that even the owner has not visited since October 2016. Of course there is no guarantee that anyone will visit your website or blog among the millions out there in the ether. Every day, in cathedrals all round the country, choirs will be singing evensong; even if not a single member of the public turns up the service will go ahead. That is the cathedral’s main purpose. And if a single soul does turn up seeking God, they will be ready for him.

Our websites are unlikely to have such a high calling, but just in case someone finds themselves in our own special domain we want it to look good and grab their interest. My website does not have moving pictures, falling snowflakes or firework displays, but there are topical pictures and enough to read for your coffee break.

Not only is it a miracle that I am on the internet, the internet is a miracle.

https://www.ccsidewriter.co.uk/