Just as I was putting on my riding helmet and strapping on my hydration pack my cell phone rang. This was just after 9:00 this morning. Thankfully I had my phone in the pack. And the ringer was turned on. It was Dave Fletcher, ITS director. Our maintenance last night caused some problems and there were web sites that could not be reached. This was a big problem, even on a Saturday. Work Force Services was in the last day of an important registration. He wanted me to know what was happening so that I could help escalate and make sure that we understood the urgency.

I was pleased to find out that a group of UEN employees had already assembled and were working on fixing the problem. My first thought was to call Pete. We talked and he assured me that several of his team were coordinating their efforts and talking with the ITS NOC.

I almost got on my bike. I'd planned a 45 mile, three hour ride. I decided to get in Instant Messenger to find out more. I was told that the team was shifting to a voice conference call and that to participate I would need to have access to Skype. It took me about 5 minutes to download and install the Mac client. Another couple of minutes were expended in getting an account. I messaged my user name back to Pete and a few seconds later my Skype phone rang. I was part of the conference call.

It took a while, but within an hour things started to get better. By 1:30 P.M. most of the ITS issues were resolved. The UEN staff did a great job and worked together well. Par for the course, as the golfers say.

Skype worked well, too. We actually lost the call once. I heard speculation that the call had been limited to two hours. There were a few echo issues. At first I wasn't using a headset, so most of that problem was caused by me. Some of the worst problems were caused by noisy PCs that induced background buzz into the conversaton, so muting of microphones at those locations was helpful.

And one weird thing still puzzles me. During the first call I had a mute capability for my microphone. It took me a few minutes to find it. After a few minutes of searching I found it under the "Call" tab. But during the second call I lost the ability to mute. The option was greyed out. Skype needs to add a mute button. That would be really useful.........
10:09:29 PM    comment []