Somehow I got reminded about an old support incident I had in the first company I did development for. On a regular basis we sent out disks with text files containing data that our system should import into its database. Embedded with the disk was an explanation of how to import the files into our system. Here's how I remember it:

1. Open the command windows (DOS) (Somehow all our customers knew how to do this)
2. Write A: followed by Enter (Return)
3. Write install.bat followed by Enter (Return)
   

One day I got a call from one of our customers:

Customer:	"The instructions you sent me do not work"
Me:	"Ok, what seems to be the problem?"
Customer:	"The install.bat thing does not work. None of the data is getting imported into our system."
Me:	"Do you get any error messages?"
Customer:	"I don't know. I just followed your instructions."
Me:	"Could you walk me trough it on the phone?"
Customer:	"Sure"
Me:	"Have you opened the DOS window"
Customer:	"Yes"
Me:	"Then enter A: followed by Enter. Does it now say A:\ in your window?"
Customer:	"No. It says NOT READY READING DRIVE A:"
Me:	"Have you put the disk in?"
Customer:	"No, your note didn't say anything about that!"

Found this typing test at Daniel Moth's blog and thought I share it. My result was:

Number of words typed: 185
Test duration: 3 min
Speed: 61.9 words/min. (309 keystrokes/min.)
Error penalty: 15
Accuracy: 91.9%

I know I can do better when typing in Norwegian, which is my native language, and the error penalty was bad. But enough with the excuses. What's your score?

My internet provider (NextGenTel) sent me an email about 10 months ago, informing me that my speed was upgraded with no additional cost, which is quite normal for internet providers. My down speed isn’t that important, but the upload speed hasn’t been that great, so an increase here was good news (probably good news for my blog readers as well). Anyway, from time to time I visit a Norwegian site (www.dinside.no) to check my up/down speeds. I’ve done this both before and after the upgrade and the speed has always been the same. So I thought I had to call my internet provider some day. As time passed I finally got around calling them 10 months later and it turns out I was right.

“Your internet connection has not been upgraded. We will issue an order for “them” to fix it, and you’ll get a refund for the 10 months that has passed.”

That was good and all, but this got me thinking. What about all their customers that do not check this? I see myself as a reasonable technical guy (it’s my job), so I found this upgrade to be nonexistent pretty fast (only I didn’t do anything about it for a long time). I wonder how many NextGenTel customers are out there with much less speed than they think they have? And do I have to call them every time they send me an email about an upgrade? Probably.

On Sunday 30th of September at 23:03 CET me and my wife got a boy! After 4 days at the hospital we're now back home and enjoying every second of our "new" life. My son's name will probably be Jesper, he was 2480 gram and 49 cm when he was born.

Jesper wakes up every 3d hour to get his food, which make our daily (and nightly) routine a bit different to what we're used to. Right now I'm letting his mother get some sleep, so she'll be fit when it's her turn to take over. I have just fed Jesper and he's now sleeping "like a baby".

Just wanted to let the world know that I and Gry Helene got married on 8 June! :) We are now at our honeymoon in Italy (currently in Sorrento). We’ve been driving from Rome, down to Naples, the Amalfi coast and are now headed back to Rome. Lovely scenery and fantastic views! That is after you have got used to the crazy Italian way of driving. If you go to www.torresdal.net you can see some pictures from our wedding and our trip (it’s in Norwegian).

Today when I had my usual rss read-through I came across a different blog post usually not found at a tech blog. Chris Sacca over at Google writes about a shooting incident he witnessed in San Francisco. Read his dramatic blog post here.

Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror raises this question in his blog. Are we in a new bubble right now? Will it burst? What’s different in this bubble compared to the previous one?

Personally I think the amount of companies that are in today’s dot-com bubble is fewer than in pre 2000. I defiantly see some signs from the previous bubble. E.g. the value on companies like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and the like are ridiculously high. I think most of us are not in a dot-com bubble, but that we are in some kind of bubble I’m sure of. At least here in Norway, IT-consultants probably have more to do now than back in 2000, the stock market is great and the salaries are climbing to new heights. But is this because of dot-com’s? I don’t think so. My understanding of the stock market and the financial side of this debate is not my strong side, so I’ll rest my case and won’t analyze it, but you may feel free to do so.

One of the feelings I had after the last bubble was that some people actually sold bubbles they knew were going to burst. Getting investors and hire employees without having any realistic goal of producing any value, and still manage to convince investors that this is a great thing. I feel my blood pressure rising just writing about it. Investors learned that they needed to understand IT and got very skeptical after 2000. The question now is; have they forgotten already?