---

Which is why at work I'm taking on the (currently not-unmanageable) job of responding to customer support requests.

However, I'm finding that gmail (we use google apps) is not really a good interface for doing this quickly. I want to be able to do things like bulk respond to a set of emails with the same message... Gmail has the canned responses plugin, but that doesn't cut it -- it's too slow to use.

So I just hooked Thunderbird into our support queue, and now I'm trying to figure out how to configure or optimize it for processing customer support emails. I'd also love it if it automatically kept stats or some how output to a CSV file on the number of emails processed through canned responses.

Or maybe I just need some lightweight CRM software. Hmm... I wonder what the best CRM solutions are for a small business? and how much can I expect to pay? If only there were a website with some reviews and a listing of top providers that would give me a sense of what to expect... (Okay, this is a shameless plug, since that's what ChoiceVendor does.)

• Office Interactive: "All you need to run your business using one system". That scares me; I don't want to run my whole business on this. NEXT.
• BatchBook: "Your Social CRM". I don't really want my CRM to be social. I want it to be efficient. This seems to be about within-company contact management, not CRM (remember, that would be CUSTOMER relationship management).
• Relenta: "Can your email do this?" Again, seems more salesforce / lead tracking-focused.

Let's try investigating "Customer Support Software for small business".

• Business.com -- ooh, that looks promising, they have a result in Google for "Small Business CRM Software: Customer Service Solutions | Business.com" (and I'm not going to link to it because I don't want to make them even more credible for their stupid site). Oh right. Business.com is a crappy AdWords linkfarm.
• WorkEtc: Okay, again they want to manage my entire company. First, dont' want that, second, not authorized to make that decision, third, we're generally pretty happy with Google Apps. (Most of us worked at Google after all, and we're pretty used to their stuff.) However, maybe their Help Desk Software is what I want.

Why are there SO MANY crappy sites for small businesses, by the way?

Okay, now I'm back to Salesforce Service Cloud 2. I can't really see if it does what I need since I have to register to walk through their product demo. Annoying. I'm pretty sure I even have an account with them already, but I'm not going to bother to look it up just to see if they even remotely have what I need.

Open source help ticket system:

Kill me now. I don't want this attached to our bug tracking and I care about the interface and how fast it'll let me get through the emails in our queue. I don't want to have to install anything anywhere, either. Back to paid / hosted services....

Searching through the Thunderbird extensions for business, CRM, helpdesk, and related keywords yielded no results.

Okay, I'm hosed; I've now spent about 2 hours researching this and haven't come up with a satisfactory discussion or solution, so it's time for me to ditch the effort and just process the emails manually.

Le sigh.

Anyway, I wanted to leave a review on the product page in the Apple store. I can't figure out how to post my review:

"Some words in your review cannot be published. Please revise your review." Huh?

Their guidelines state "avoid comments about... service and support", but how the hell are you supposed to review a product that doesn't work if you can't describe anything about the customer service response to the issue? I've tried about 8 versions of text for this review, and I have no idea why they won't let me publish this.

So on my own blog I'll say it:

Fuckers.

Love,
Ellen

The Church - A Box of Birds; Snow Patrol - Eyes Open

I listen to a fair amount of symphonic music.

I think of symphonic music first in terms of the composer (e.g. Bartok, Beethoven), then the work (5th Piano Concerto in E Flat Major), and then, in the cases where I have multiple performances of the same work, the conductor & performing orchestra (Julius Katchen & London Symphony Orchestra; Hélène Grimaud, Staatskapelle Dresden & Wladimir Jurowski).

However, music metadata format lists the conductor and symphony in the "artist" field on CDDB / iTunes. This is moderately annoying to deal with in the iTunes interface (I have to display and then sort by the correct columns of metadata) but absolutely intolerable on my iPod. Trying to listen to Smetana's Ma Vlast means that I have to remember the name of the composer and orchestra? Oh come on.

So I wrote an Applescript to fix the metadata on my symphonic catalog. It searches my library for all tracks whose genre is "symphonic" and swaps around some of the field values. I still retain the performance info, but as "album artist" instead of "artist".

(It similarly annoys me when other albums list both performers of a one-off song (e.g. Madonna and Justin Timberlake), which breaks that one song apart from the rest of the album when I sort by artist. In these cases I manually reset the "artist" field.)

* What people generally call "classical," but I refer to it as "symphonic" because of a snobby old habit of mine: "classical" refers to a specific period / style of symphonic music in the Western canon, e.g. Haydn and Mozart, so I use the more general "symphonic". I guess "orchestral" might be more appropriate... anyway, the organizing genre in my iTunes library is "symphonic".

Yes, I *do* need to create join tables in my database migration definition files.
It wasn't clear to me at first, but now what I'm realizing -- and hopefully this is correct -- is that the rails migration schema file is really just an abstracted way of writing a database setup script. Rails can translate its file into the setup script for whatever database you're using, but you still have to specify all the joins, defaults, etc. just as you would if you were setting up the database in its native language. Check and check.

I do use the scaffolding command to create multiple model-controller relationships. (See O'Reilly OnLamp: Rolling with Ruby on Rails Revisited.)

"test" is a reserved word.
This is apparently a problem. I'm building a DB to track usability tests, and I named one of my tables "test". I'm trying to migrate to "usabilitytests" but i'm running into problems. Solved by deleting the entire app and recreating. Obviously not something that one would always want to do, but I don't know how to un-create models and controllers and whatnot that have already been set.

functions in the controller are lowercase with underscores.
I'm not entirely sure of this, but I downloaded a sample application and checked out that code.

TOTALLY STUMPED: Radio buttons in RoR?
Okay, I found the documentation for how to render a checkbox. Am I smoking crack? Did the entire RoR project forget about the existence of radio buttons? From an interaction perspective, radio buttons are the exact same as SELECT boxes: They afford one-from-many selection. They're just rendered in an easier-to-read and easier-to-operate widget. (Select boxes are hard for people to use, and even if you know what you're doing, they're way more of a pain particularly for administrative-type applications when you interact with the box a billion times a day.) I expect there to be a function like collection_radio that operates almost exactly the same as collection_select -- but as far as I can tell, no such thing exists.

• I am a very good HTML, Javascript, and CSS "coder".


• I am a moderately proficient PHP programmer, which I use to create prototypes for usability tests and whatnot.


• I am nigh-on retarded when it comes to hooking a webapp to a MySQL database. Ergo, I usually don't get beyond the prototype stage for a lot of cool webapp ideas I've had.


• I can muddle along in a handful of other languages and frameworks, like Perl, Java, Clearsilver, Struts, and XSLT.


• I have zero exposure to Ruby, Python, Gems, etc.


• I'm good at programming -- thinking in abstractions, being efficient, breaking down a goal into minute logical steps, etc.

My goal: I'm helping a friend create a usability testing infrastructure for his startup. I want to create a website to recruit participants for various studies, let people sign up to be a participant, and do some lightweight CRM of when they were contacted, outcomes, and whether they have already participated in a test.

Requirements:

Participant:

Firstname Surname Phone Country Timezone Email(unique) DateOfSubmission Age Gender Occupation Industry Education ContactForFutureTests? NativeLanguage Status[ New | AssignedToTest | Archived | CompletedTest ] NOTES

Note: (Each participant can have several notes)
Author Timestamp ParticipantID NoteText

Test: (Each test has several participants)
TestID Status[ Active | Complete | Pending ] Date Description ConsentFormURL Compensation PARTICIPANTS

TestParticipant:
CompensationGiven ConsentFormSigned? ConsentFormID

ConsentForm
UniqueID HTML TestID

Note that this is NOT tied to the actual test data in any way -- that's not the point. This app is just to keep track of who we talked to and when. It's a very lightweight CRM.

I had a no-problem installation of Locomotive, the Mac OS X bundled installation of Ruby on Rails. I got my little app up and running on my Mac.

But now, what the frack do I do?

I need to tell it my database schema: the start page says "Create your databases and edit config/database.yml"

I open database.yml. It looks like it's already set up a database:

development:

  adapter: mysql

  database: UsabilityParticipants_development

  username: root

  password:

  host: localhost

Is this true? Do I have a MySQL database running? Or do I need to go create one now, named Usability_Participants? (I have MySQL installed already but it's not running now.)

On to the internet: I go to http://developer.apple.com/tools/rubyonrails.html. Blah blah blah install, blah blah blah create an application. Locomotive did that for me. Ah-ha: Jump-Starting the Application sounds like where I'm at.

And here's the money shot: "Now we need to actually create the expenses_development database. Feel free to use whatever tool you're comfortable with. Here's how to create the database using the mysqladmin command-line tool:"

Thank you, Apple tech writers! I have the visual MySQL application installed in my Mac preferences panes, so I start up my server. I open up a terminal window. I run the suggested command and this happens:

ellen-beldners-computer:~ ellen$ $ mysqladmin -u root -p create UsabilityParticipants_development
-bash: $: command not found

Okay, so maybe I need to reinstall MySQL...? Google for [install mysql mac os x]; Apple recommends this installation package. It took about 400 clicks to get to the actual download link for Mac OS 10.4 x86....

Installed and running. let's try that command again:

 mysqladmin -u root -p create UsabilityParticipants_development

Enter password: [return]

Argh. Okay, what's the default mysql password for root? Hmm, I need to set it:

mysqladmin -u root password {whatever}

(Also, shouldn't I be creating non-root accounts for these databases and having custom passwords for each? I have no idea what I'm talking about, really, but I know that "root" usually means "all powerful and really scary things can happen".)

Once again:

ellen-beldners-computer:~ ellen$  mysqladmin -u root -p create UsabilityParticipants_development

Enter password: 

mysqladmin: CREATE DATABASE failed; error: 'Can't create database 'UsabilityParticipants_development'; database exists'

You bastards! You already created the database? Or did I? Fine. Be that way.

{I write a lot more, and then I SAVE this article, and in the meantime my router crashes, so firefox hangs, and i lose a lot.)

Basically, what happens is Apple tells me to set up a migration to specify my database schema. I enter the command and i get an error message

ellen-beldners-computer:~/UsabilityParticipants ellen$ script/generate migration participant
Cannot find gem for Rails ~>1.2.3.0:
    Install the missing gem with 'gem install -v=1.2.3 rails', or
    change environment.rb to define RAILS_GEM_VERSION with your desired version.

I ponder reinstalling, but that seems really scary given all the ways that Ruby on Rails can fuck your computer up. So I go into my environment.rb file and make it like this:

# RAILS_GEM_VERSION = '1.2.3' unless defined? RAILS_GEM_VERSION
RAILS_GEM_VERSION = '0.9.2'

(My environment variables at localhost:3001 told me I was running 0.9.2'.)

And now my application won't start at all.

# RAILS_GEM_VERSION = '1.2.3' unless defined? RAILS_GEM_VERSION
RAILS_GEM_VERSION = '0.9.2' unless defined? RAILS_GEM_VERSION

doesn't work either. Meh. All right, I'm starting over. Delete the Locomotive Rails ap, delete the files, and create a new one with the same name. Same thing happens:

Cannot find gem for Rails ~>1.2.3.0:
    Install the missing gem with 'gem install -v=1.2.3 rails', or
    change environment.rb to define RAILS_GEM_VERSION with your desired version.

I don't even know what this means!!! My environment variables are

Ruby version	1.8.6 (i686-darwin8.9.1)

RubyGems version	0.9.2

Rails version	1.2.3

Active Record version	1.15.3

Action Pack version	1.13.3

Action Web Service version	1.2.3

Action Mailer version	1.3.3

Active Support version	1.4.2

Application root	/Users/ellen/UsabilityParticipants

Environment	development

Database adapter	mysql

I think that the Apple site is maybe not my best bet at this point. Google [rails application with locomotive] and the second link or so is an ars technica article. They're usually pretty good.... but not in this case. Did you actually write an article on dragging locomotive into your Applications folder? Assholes. That doesn't tell me anything.

Here's the official Rails tutorial on Migrations. Same command, same problem:

ellen-beldners-computer:~/UsabilityParticipants ellen$ ruby script/generate migration participants
Cannot find gem for Rails ~>1.2.3.0:
    Install the missing gem with 'gem install -v=1.2.3 rails', or
    change environment.rb to define RAILS_GEM_VERSION with your desired version.

After some more searching, I found this lovely tutorial on a first rails app with locomotive. Following all the directions to the letter, I typed

ellen-beldners-computer:~/UsabilityParticipants ellen$ ruby script/generate migration create_participants

      create  db/migrate

      create  db/migrate/001_create_participants.rb

      

It worked! Yay! I have no idea why it worked this time but didn't before; this time I openend the terminal window from Locomotion, but before, I had doubled checked to ensure I was in the right directory. Weird. Maybe it didn't set up my paths correctly and stuff??

I open the 001_create_participants.rb file. I now need to tell it about my database; but first I take a few minutes to sketch out exactly how I want my pages to flow to ensure that I'm capturing all the information I'll need to make it work.

list of Ruby on Rails migration database datatypes

So I edited my .rb file to be like this:

class CreateParticipants < ActiveRecord::Migration

  def self.up

      create_table :participants do |table|

      # note that "id" is added implicitly, by default

        table.column :firstname, :string

        table.column :surname, :string

        table.column :namepronunciation, :string

        table.column :email, :string

        table.column :phonenumber, :string

        table.column :country, :string

        table.column :timezone, :string

        table.column :dateofsubmission, :datetime

        table.column :age, :integer

        table.column :gender, :string

        table.column :occupation, :string

        table.column :industry, :string

        table.column :nativelanguage, :string

        table.column :futurecontactokay, :boolean

        table.column :status, :string

  end


  def self.down

        drop_table :participants 

  end

end

I save and type the "rake migrate" command, which results in the extremely unsatisfying

rake aborted!
./db/migrate//001_create_participants.rb:25: syntax error, unexpected $end, expecting kEND

Investigation reveals that I was missing an "end" to close my "do" statement, rerun the command, and get:

ellen-beldners-computer:~/UsabilityParticipants ellen$ rake migrate --trace

(in /Users/ellen/UsabilityParticipants)

** Invoke migrate (first_time)

** Invoke db:migrate (first_time)

** Invoke environment (first_time)

** Execute environment

** Execute db:migrate

== CreateParticipants: migrating ==============================================

-- create_table(:participants)

   -> 0.0399s

== CreateParticipants: migrated (0.0401s) =====================================


** Invoke db:schema:dump (first_time)

** Invoke environment 

** Execute db:schema:dump

** Execute migrate

The rake task migrate has been deprecated, please use the replacement version db:migrate

ellen-beldners-computer:~/UsabilityParticipants ellen$ 

So I need to figure out what this updated "db:migrate" thing means. blerrrrrgh..... it means the correct command is

rake db:migrate

Based on the information in the official rails tutorial on migrations, I am now supposed to create a model. Here's what happens:

ellen-beldners-computer:~/UsabilityParticipants ellen$ ruby script/generate model Participant

      exists  app/models/

      exists  test/unit/

      exists  test/fixtures/

      create  app/models/participant.rb

      create  test/unit/participant_test.rb

      create  test/fixtures/participants.yml

      exists  db/migrate

Another migration is already named create_participants: db/migrate/001_create_participants.rb

What does this mean? I don't know. Does it work? Is it broken? Should I do something else? Oh. Scaffolding:

ellen-beldners-computer:~/UsabilityParticipants ellen$ script/generate scaffold participants signup

      exists  app/controllers/

      exists  app/helpers/

      create  app/views/signup

      exists  app/views/layouts/

      exists  test/functional/

  dependency  model

      exists    app/models/

      exists    test/unit/

      exists    test/fixtures/

      create    app/models/participants.rb

      create    test/unit/participants_test.rb

   identical    test/fixtures/participants.yml

      create  app/views/signup/_form.rhtml

      create  app/views/signup/list.rhtml

      create  app/views/signup/show.rhtml

      create  app/views/signup/new.rhtml

      create  app/views/signup/edit.rhtml

      create  app/controllers/signup_controller.rb

      create  test/functional/signup_controller_test.rb

      create  app/helpers/signup_helper.rb

      create  app/views/layouts/signup.rhtml

      create  public/stylesheets/scaffold.css

I'm able to go

http://localhost:3000/signup

A: A howdah duty.

I was impressed -- the interlanguage (and intercultural; "howdy doody" is moderately obscure, no?) pun is pretty sophisticated.