The designer flash drive is usually overlooked as a status symbol, but not anymore. Whip out a one of a kind state of the art wookden beauty at your next cocktail party, and prepare to bask in the envious OOOHs and AHHHs of your friends and acuaitances.

Made by quirky Netherlands design company Oooms, each USB memory stick is arafted from an actual branch, handpicked from sylvan forests,. That means no two pieces look quite a likfe - some have knots or squiggly marks left by worms.

The drices are avaiable in 512, 1GB, and 2GB sizes. Its a steal for a piece of art, coz price is kinda steep.

But the sight of a protruding twig on you notebook is priceless.

A bill requiring “anyone answering or initiating a call at a center used by a U.S. business to disclose location” is currently under consideration in the US Congress. In short, if this becomes law, we’ll probably see employees at local centers say “My name is Juan dela Cruz, and I’m from the Philippines” at beginning of each call.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jason Altmire, a democrat from Pennsylvania, also wants it to apply to call centers based in the US. “It may make a difference for people in deciding who they will do business with” he said.

My source from the local call center industry (actually, a friend who used to work for eTelecare) said that she was not allowed to reveal her location unless asked directly by the customer.

So, if the Call Center Consumer’s Right to Know Act becomes law, how will it affect the growing call center industry in the Philippines? Personally, I think more “customer service associates” in the here will find out just what jingoism is, even if they’re part of the outsourcing process that lets Americans enjoy lower prices.

Would using wording like “Hi, I’m Juan dela Cruz, from the beautiful country of the Philippines!” work? Probably not.

How well do you look after your customers? Most companies probably think they do a good job, but the addition of technology into large, national call centers has caused many organizations to focus on technology solutions as opposed to people solutions.

• 1. If your call center uses a feature where a customer can leave a number where they can be reached by the next available customer service representative, turn it off and hire more customer service representatives.
• 2. A call center manager must rely on technology to track important statistics like the amount of time a customer waits on hold. Any time greater than one minute should be considered to be inadequate. By monitoring these statistics, priority can be given to improving staffing levels.
  
  
  
• 3. If your first point of contact with your customer is having a recorded message telling them how important their call is, you may want to look at changing the message. If their call was important, it would be immediately answered by a real person - not a computer.
• 4. If your marketing team suggests that a marketing campaign should be created around a “focus” or “commitment” to customer service, laugh at them and tell them they should take the marketing money allocated for that campaign and spend it on actually improving customer service.
• 5. Here’s a great idea. If your company sends invoices or bills to your customers, reduce the amount of calls to the call center by simplifying the bills. Bills that are too confusing are a leading cause of calls into a busy call center.
• 6. Make your executives and managers spend a day in the seat of a customer service representative. Give them a good idea of the challenges that are faced by your front-line workers.

Traditional ROI calculations use the level of profit generated by an asset divided by the value of the asset and expressed as a percentage. That’s fine but when we seek to ascribe a value to non-profit generating assets we need to look at ways in which we can quantify the value that the call center is contributing to overall business operations.

Call center data management and manipulation has lent itself particularly well to KPI metric and Balanced Scorecard methodology. KPI/Balanced Scorecard techniques are a mainstay of the management of any call center and using the metrics that are being produced from these management information tools allows to start calculating an approximation for ROI.

If we move away from the idea of profit centers that need to be maximized and cost centers that need to be cut so logically increasing profit, we can start thinking of the different business components as contributing value.

What is the value that we can ascribe to a call center it doesn’t create anything?

First, lets look at a revised ROI calculation, we can pretty easily work out a cost for the call center which is going to be used in the ROI calculation if we use that as asset value of the ROI number crunching.

Second, if we look at the relative contribution of call center activities we can start ascribing a value based on the effect on our financial and management accounting information. Linking information from customer service feedback and focus groups will allow us to develop an idea of the impact on repeat business for instance. Repeat business is something that our accounting and CRM system will be monitoring so we can get a value for that. The customer survey and feedback groups will also give an indication as to how important our customer service is in winning repeat business orders and that will in turn allow us to infer a value for that proportion of repeat business that is attributable to the call center efforts.

We are now close to being able to perform an ROI calculation in that we have determined a value that is created for the expense of our customer service efforts made by the call center.

Using such attributable value calculations for ROI is not flawless but it does provide a valuable tool for tracking the value of a non-revenue division that is being contributed to overall business success. Tracking ROI of this nature over time, as long as the calculation is made on a consistent basis will help indicate and highlight the relative success of initiatives and investment in the call center.

Calculating an overall ROI can be done by a broader attribution of value that is created by the call center and the total expense that is incurred by it. Used alone such an ROI calculation is not going to be of much help but the use of the incremental ROI that can be calculated for discrete costs and further investment in the call center is very useful for helping to justify whether incremental investment should be made or not.

The last time that you purchased something, did you happen to see on the bottom of the label an 800 number that you can call to find out information about the product or other products or services that the company offered? Or the last time that you traveled and had a question regarding the tickets that you had purchased, were you referred to and given a number to call? These places that companies now have you call with questions regarding their products or services are called “contact centers.”

Running a business such as an airline or drug company has its own problems, without having to constantly deal with customers or clients that have questions or problems. Also, when these customers and clients do have their issues it is imperative that they be solved as expediently as possible, so all parties involved are happy. Managing a contact center is a major undertaking, because if it isn’t done right a business will lose customers and money.

Contact Center Outsourcing Services Are Experts at Customer Relations

This is why more and more businesses are turning to contact center outsourcing as a solution to this issue. By using a contact center outsourcing service, business managers are then freed up to focus on actually running the business. Also, the business benefits by having a company handle this area of customer relations and service that specializes in it.

Cost Savings for the Business

A contact center outsourcing business is able to help the businesses that they serve to cut costs at the same time, which allows them to be more competitive. This is because, when a call is placed to a contact center outsourcing business it can all be handled over seas or by cheap labor subcontracted by a states prison industries in the U.S.

I got this article while reading Yahoo News,written by Chris Radcliff.

William Yuan, a seventh-grader from Portland, OR, developed a three-dimensional solar cell that absorbs UV as well as visible light. The combination of the two might greatly improve cell efficiency. William's project earned him a $25,000 scholarship and a trip to the Library of Congress to accept the award, which is usually given out for research at the graduate level.

“Current solar cells are flat and can only absorb visible light,” he said. “I came up with an innovative solar cell that absorbs both visible and UV light. My project focused on finding the optimum solar cell to further increase the light absorption and efficiency and design a nanotube for light-electricity conversion efficiency.”

You know, that's just what I was thinking when I was 12, but my idea didn't quite work. Well, it was just a paper towel roll with "Solar Rays" written on the side in Sharpie, and I tried to use it to melt G.I. Joe figures. But still. Well done, William!

Modular Office Furniture for You and Me

Here is a simple rundown on the basic things that you should consider when it comes to choosing modular office furniture:

After learning about the two different types of modular office furniture, it is now time for your to look at how flexible they are. Consider circumstances such as, will you be able to bring them along with you when you move? Or can they easily be arranged in cubes or the traditional bullpen style? If these are your main concerns, then check with your local office furniture retailer to see if they are indeed flexible enough for the requirements of your workspace.

Aside from the element of flexibility, durability comes in your considerations more than ever. While your company probably will want a new set of modular office furniture after two years or so, it is still right to invest in good modular office furniture that can see through the company's changes. Check the warranty offers of your dealer as well, most especially the service that they will give, and the easy availability of its parts.

Basically, the most common cubicle sizes range from 6'x6', 6'x8', and 8'x8'. These sizes are good enough to allow ample breathing room for the employee, and probably even a computer or two, wide space for writing, and perhaps even a single chair for visitors. They are known as the 2'x4' call center workstation, or the 12'x12' manager's cube which is the biggest standard size.

Lastly, aside from the size itself, you will also have to consider the height of the walls. Remember that they are partly for the privacy of the employee as well do be conscious about this critical element. Heights can range from 34” to 85”, and this is highly relative to how the employees are comfortable working. Many people like to have that ability to stand up and chat with their co-workers, but enjoy their privacy when they are seated. 54” walls are a good height for interaction, while 67” to 72” create more privacy. Take note though, that too much privacy may also take away the natural lighting conditions if the workspace, or it can also breed a relaxed workstation that may lead to laziness. 42” walls are the ideal of all since it makes it easier for the employees to work while still being able to maintain their own privacy.

Cambridge Silicon Radio — the leading Bluetooth chip supplier — shipped over 600 million chips in 2007 and is expected to ship about a billion more this year. That’s just one supplier. The total number of chips buried in other products is well over several billion. The reason for such high volume is that the number one use of Bluetooth is to implement the wireless headset in cell phones. That means two Bluetooth chips for each: one in the handset and the other in the ear piece. Most cell phones have this feature today. And since cell phones sell in the one billion per year range, you can see how Bluetooth got to be number one. There are dozens of other uses, as well. ABI Research — a market information company — predicts that about 2.4 billion Bluetooth-enabled products will ship in 2013.

“World’s smallest”
Bluetooth headset released

A Bluetooth headset weighing less than 6 grams (.21 ounces) and measuring l.3 inches long and .63 inches wide was released by INVISIO, who claims that the G5 is the “world’s smallest Bluetooth headset.” The headset provides up to 4 hours of talk time and 150 hours of standby time and comes with a “Protective Charging case” that charges the headset each time it is placed in the case. When used with this portable rechargeable charger, INVISIO states that the G5 provides up 20 hours of talk time and 30 days of standby time.

INVISIO G-5 Specifications

Chrome is Not a Windows-Killer

I’ve been reading all sorts of starry eyed accounts as to how the new browser from Google dubbed Chrome is going to kill Windows. As someone who is absolutely dazzled by Chrome, I’m here to tell you that it isn’t the case. Certainly, we may be looking at one of the best browsers to date, particularly for the Windows platform. It’s sleek not just in appearance, but load times and memory usage.

That said, it’s just plain impossible for it to be an operating system, and it’s a pretty big stretch to say that it’s anything close to replacing the desktop.

That hasn’t stopped a number of pundits from proclaiming it to be the first nail in the coffin for Microsoft’s dominance of the desktop. One of my favorite foils, Drama 2.0, is actually in agreement with me on this issue as he calls out Henry Blodgett on an article which appeared on Yahoo Finance that makes a number of statements only a financial analyst with a smattering of technology know-how could make.

In the article, Henry states that “the need for Windows and other operating systems is declining,” and calls Chrome “an operating system for cloud computing.”

When I read that, I was just as bewildered at Blodgett’s qualifications as Drama. If you don’t have a good understanding of what technology is about, and how an operational personal computing device is put together on the hardware and software level, then everything Blodgett says makes sense. It’s no secret that Google, at least in some ways, has its sites set on Microsoft. The apps they provide, the search business, their advertising plays and now the browser all are direct, one-to-one affronts on Microsoft.

But to say to finance folks (and Web 2.0 pundits who lack the technical chops to know the difference) that this is a play to displace Microsoft with cloud computing shows an ignorance not just the underlying tech but also the history of long term Microsoft strategy.

Bill Gates was Talking About This Almost 20 Years Ago It’s as if Blodgett has completely forgotten that Bill Gates had this same idea a decade ago, and that Internet Explorer was supposed to lead into this world of client/server computing in which the boundaries between the desktop and the “wide area network” were indistinguishable. He started down that path in 1993, in which he gave his blessing to client/server computing.

It’s understandable to have missed that, but to have forgotten completely about Microsoft’s thin-client play with WebTV is just a bit of funny. The way that the product faded to black after it’s acquisition for nearly half a billion was nothing short of noteworthy to anyone worth his salt in tech.

Since Blodgett failed to remember these launches, it’s not surprising that he fails to connect the dots between WebTV’s failure and the XBox’s success in further blurring the lines between the network and computing, what’s local and what’s remote.

Simply put, Microsoft is several iterations ahead of whatever “cloud is the computer” strategy Google is working on, Google is still the underdog, and they aren’t coming close to threatening them yet.

Is This Semantics or Fundamental Strategy Difference? At first read, it’s easy to play off this rebuttal as me playing semantics. Obviously, the need for an OS is never going to decrease. The operating system is the software that lets your monitor talk to your processor and your hard drive Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive and your keyboard and all those otherwise useless hunks of plastic and metal you’re reading this from.

What most of these pundits actually mean to say is that Chrome is going to replace the desktop, and the overall Google strategy is to develop a robust and responsive browsing environment suitable for replacing the traditional desktop with.

This, too, is myopia induced analysis, though. Blodgett and other bloggers are completely forgetting the Android initiative when they go down this hypothetical road. Almost everyone who’s brought up this idea that the “browser is the desktop” has implied or explicitly said that we’ll see Chrome start showing up on PCs, Macs, phones and palmtops.

The reasoning is that it’s based on Open Source codebase, and can easily be integrated into a wide number of hardware platforms as the desktop of choice. To do so, at least from a developer standpoint, is akin to buying a thousand umbrellas to replace your leaky roof. It simply wasn’t designed to reside on an environment other than the typical desktop you see on Windows, Linux and Mac environments. Android is the initiative where they adapt the Webkit codebase for mobile applications (and even then, there’s an OS and Desktop layer aside from the browser). Chrome only exists within desktop environments (not instead of desktop environments).

So What’s So Exciting About Chrome?

On the surface, it’s exciting because Chrome is a great browser, hands down. It beats the pants off any other browser I’ve tried, and I’ve tried them all. I hate bloated software, so my life is generally accompanied by a dull roar of misery since I’m for the moment stuck with Windows Vista Windows XP Era Ends . I’ve always wondered why it’s still called software advancement when despite consistent stark upticks in hardware capabilities, our software runs slower and slower with each iteration.

Call me crazy, but I’ve always valued efficiency. That’s what Chrome has done for the browser - it’s given users a capable and efficient alternative to the bloated options that they currently have. It’s (unfortunately) a revolutionary concept.

Beyond that, it is a potential paradigm shift in the way we look at applications, too. The ability to send a shortcut to the desktop that represents a link to a web based application? Well, that’s finally putting equal footing to web apps with desktop based applications. It is truly the fulfillment of Gate’s murky rumblings circa “The Road Ahead” of ‘a point where you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the desktop and the Internet.’

But make no mistake: this isn’t a desktop replacement - only a desktop incursion. There’s a huge difference.

Amilo Mini Ui 3520, Fujitsu’s Netbook Entry

Looks like all those ultra portable but fully-functional laptops have a new name: netbook. More importantly, it seems that Fujitsu has joined the netbook game, with the introduction of the Amilo Mini Ui 3250:

For 399 euros, you get: a netbook with an 8.9’’ 1024 x 600 Display, running on the Intel Atom Processor N270 (1,6 GHz). 1GB of DDR2 667 RAM will probably be enough to make the preinstalled XP Home run smoothly, while a 60 or 80GB hard disk (3600 and 4200 rpm respectively), plus WiFi, Bluetooth, and USB 2.0 will keep you connected.

An ExpressCard slot, VGA out, an integrated 1.3 megapixel webcam and a built-in microphone round up the full computing experience. All that in a package weighing less than 1kg.

The Sony Ericsson C902 is a great little camera phone that includes a 5 megapixel camera with face-detection auto focus and an LED flash. The camera controls are easy to use, a bonus for those who are new to camera phone technology. The Sony C902 also includes a music player, FM radio, 3G HSDPA, Bluetooth and plenty of memory to handle all of its spectacular features. This super slim and stylish phone is available in either black or red.

This phone is the first entry on the scene from Sony Ericsson's new range of phones. The "C" models are the new range of Cyber-Shot phones, formerly the "K' series, and the Sony C902 replaces the K850i. In the physical sense, the Sony C902 is a return to the best Sony Ericsson style with a classic handset but slim styling. The keypad on this phone is designed to allow fast texting and includes a 5-way navigation pad.

The screen isn't quite as big as on the K850s, but this is because Sony has added touch-sensitive shortcuts to activate the camera as well as to allow switching between still and video and changing camera settings. The shortcuts on the Sony C902 provide an excellent solution to the problem of navigating on a camera phone by giving users more control than most other camera phones do. In spite of the reduction of the screen, the resolution remains the same as previous Cyber-Shots models.

The camera on the Sony Ericsson C902 is located underneath a small sliding cover-when you slide the cover open, the phone becomes a camera. One of the great features of this phone is the built in BestPic features which allows you to take nine photos in a second and choose the one you wish to keep. Another great feature of the Sony C902 is its ability to detect how the phone is being held so that it can automatically rotate your pictures into the portrait or landscape mode.

If you have used the K850i, you will note that the Sony C902 used an LED flash rather than a Xenon flash. Though ordinarily the Xenon flash is more powerful, the LED flash used on the camera for the C902 is more powerful than a standard LED flash. Keep in mind that Sony Ericsson changed the type of flash because they were having problems with the Xenon flash, so they made a decision based upon providing the best product for their customers.

If you're looking for a high quality camera phone with video capabilities as well as one with music capabilities and bluetooth enablement, you will be quite happy with the Sony Ericsson C902 camera phone. With capabilities that match the best in the industry, you can be certain that your C902 will give you everything you want in a camera phone and more. With a camera comprised of five megapixels, you can be certain you have plenty of memory for your photos when you need them and lack a stand alone digital camera.

The question: 'O2 Mobile Phones vs Blackberry Mobile phones' is very good and also very interesting. Both the O2 brand of phones and the blackberry brand of phones are very good. They both have products which are quite advanced in terms of technology. Both of them have many features available in them. However they too have a lot of differences.

The brands differ in terms of features and facilities. The two brands have a different image altogether owning to their difference in features. They delight the users in a variety of ways.

Let us take the example of the O2 XDA Argon and the Blackberry Pearl 8110. These two phones have interesting disparities in terms of memory. The O2 has 256 mega bytes of ROM and 64 mega bytes of RAM. The blackberry has 64 mega bytes of flash memory. With both having a microSD (Trans flash) memory card and 4 hours of talk time, they differ in terms of standby time with the O2 having 200 hours of standby time and the blackberry having 360 hours of standby time. A user can connect to the Internet by WAP 2.0 and HTML through the O2 Argon and through RIM wireless modem and HTML through the Blackberry Pearl. Then this brand of the O2 mobile phones has a Tri-band technology with GSM 900, GSM 1800, GSM 1900. The Blackberry on the other hand has a quad band technology with GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800 and GSM 1900. The two phones are also magnificent in terms of connectivity. The O2 XDA Argon has Bluetooth, USB,GPRS, Wi-Fi and Infra-red, while the blackberry has Bluetooth, USB,GPRS and EDGE.

These basic features of these two phones show that when it comes to O2 Mobile Phones vs Blackberry Mobile phones both of them have different and extremely interesting features. The same goes with most of the other brands of O2 mobile phones and Blackberry mobile phones. Let the phrase- O2 Mobile Phones vs Blackberry Mobile phones- assume another evidence trough another comparison of two other brands of the O2 mobile phones and the Blackberry. Let these two brands be the O2 XDA Orbit and the Blackberry curve 8300. These two phones are still another marvellous examples of advanced technology and facilities.

The O2 XDA Orbit has 128 mega bytes RAM and 256 mega bytes ROM. There is also a microSD (Trans flash) memory card. The Blackberry curve 8300 on the other hand has 64 mega bytes Flash memory. It also has the microSD memory card option. In terms of standby time the Blackberry curve 8300 has 408 hours of standby time while the O2 XDA Orbit has 450 hours of standby time. A user can browse the internet through the O2 XDA Orbit by the WAP 2.0 XHTML browser and the HTML browser. He can connect to the internet when he is using the Blackberry curve 8300 by using the embedded RIM wireless modem and the HTML browser. Then both the phones very good in terms of connectivity. The Blackberry curve 8300 has Bluetooth, USB,GPRS and EDGE and the O2 XDA Orbit has Bluetooth with A2DP, USB,GPRS, EDGE, 3G with HSDPA and Wi-Fi. Then both the phones also have many options for worldwide roaming. The O2 XDA Orbit has the quad band technology and provides the user with the option of switching networks between HSDPA, GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800 and GSM 1900. The blackberry Curve 8330 also follows the quad band technology and has the networks- GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800 and GSM 1900. Both of them have wonderful cameras with many features. The O2 XDA Orbit has a 3 mega pixels camera and the Blackberry curve 8300 has a 2 mega pixels camera.

These two fantastic brands thus answer the question: O2 Mobile Phones vs Blackberry Mobile phones. The O2 mobile phones are very good and the Blackberry phones are also very good. They only differ in terms of the variety of features in these two brands.

Andrena Markley is the webmaster of onlinemobilephoneshop.co.uk and deals in latest mobile phones. For latest information on O2 Phones, BlackBerry Phones and Cheap Pay As You Go Phones.

I'm wondering how good is a Monaural Noise-Canceling Headset?

We are using The Plantronics H91N Encore Monaural Noise-Canceling Headset and most of us complain.Not just because we do not have our own unit,not even muffins to change,but it feels unbalanced.

They say that this is with a Single earpiece headband style, Noise-canceling microphone, Adjustable,with Soft ear cushions for all day comfort but unhygieneic for agents sharing what's available in the pod, then it's Flexible boom plus with Tone control.

Is my Center missing the benefits and requirements from the agent's end?

It seems my NEW Center thinks of how good we may sound to the caller but not how comfortable we physically feel while on the call.

Or maybe the center's not investing into that because after all, we get paid higher than the rest of the TSRs and so we must go, buy and provide our personal "muffins" as you may.

Talk about that huh!

RESPONSIBILITY and SELF RELIANCE is what I am paid to do.

For those who'd be interested to apply, send your applications directly to the HR of the company. As for those who'd be sending out their resumes to those who posts their job openings online, you're missing a lot.

Don't you know that once you get hired by this companies, the one who passed your resume gets a BIG PERCENTAGE or some referral bonus!?Just make a deal or have a pact taht you get your piece of share too

So it's up to you. If I were you, I'd befriend the post-er get to know him if its really legit, and if he really works for that company.Get his employee ID and tell the recruitment team how to hunt your new friend ASAP. Then ask if he gets the bonus once you get hired, if there is ask for your right!!

So don't just dive in! I'm only featuring this because you may find it useful dear readers. But always use common sense to avoid getting scammed! If you’re not sure, it never hurts to ask for further details and clarification.

Also, once you send out information thru your resumes you might get spam mails on your emails and other stuff delivered straight to your doorstep. So better think twice!