peter-tan.com

For the last time, McCallum + Partners DOES NOT EXIST. The Telecom ad that features staff singing and dancing to the song by Elemno P is completely fictional.

Alarm bells should be ringing left, right and centre when you have:

a) No drinks to be seen on a Friday night drinks event
b) A surprising number of “hot” chicks working for a law firm
c) used a stage set that reminded me of Saatchi & Saatchi’s familiar office in Parnell.

Telecom must be really desperate to feature the use of their technology on a nonexistent company. Perhaps your claim of faster broadband in New Zealand should not be taken literally too. Oh wait, I believe many of us already do.

And Saatchi & Saatchi -- shame on you. It is misleading and unethical -- at least you could have put an asterisk at the bottom of the ad saying “serving suggestion”. Perhaps you should go back and learn transference of brand image and association. When other companies claim their laptop fits into an internal office envelope, it really does.

And this goes without mention the fake ad by Land Transport NZ’s demanding you have side curtain airbags on your next car. Or the fake CGI fireworks at the Olympics or the lip-syncing. Moving along now…

So I spent time today explaining to a relative how to create an email attachment. And while that may seem trivial, one starts to realise a lot of patience will be involved when you run into questions like “Which mouse button should I click?”

Most of these concerns raised would not usually exist on a Mac Operating System.

#1: There is only one mouse button to explain to a user to click on a Mac. Imagine explaining a left-button click for an action and a right-button click for a context menu to a user and how to differentiate between them. Would you allow one to get behind the wheel if one does not know which pedal slows down a huge metal contraption?

#2: How do I locate the file to attach?
Simple. 1. Click Start, Then click “Search” (Windows Key+F) 2. Click “All files and folders” 3. Enter search criteria 4. Click the “Search” button. 5. In the results pane, right-click (see #1) on the file and click “Open Containing Folder”. 6. Note the location of the file. 7. In your webmail client, click on the “Browse…” button. 8. Navigate to containing folder and select the file you wish to attach.  9. Click the “Okay” button. (Skip step 2 if you are on Vista)

On Mac OSX: 1. Enter search criteria in Spotlight (Command-Space) 2. Click “Show All” on the first line returned 3. Drag and drop the file over to the “Browse…” button in your webmail client to attach any file..

9 steps versus 3. You be the judge.