The Vendor Client Relationship
So being a consultant, this one really made me laugh. This one has been floating around YouTube recently and one of the guys at work forwarded it to me.
Habari Brightkite Plugin
Last night I cranked out a quick and dirty Brightkite plugin for Habari. It pulls the most current checked in data and displays that along with a map on your site. Here on this site, it outputs something along these lines:
Or I could have just pointed you to my sidebar to the right to see it in action here. To use the plugin you'll need a Google Maps API Key to generate the images. If you don't already have one, you can get one for free from here.
The latest version can be grabbed from the Habari Extras repo. Installation instructions are up on the wiki here. Feel free to contact me if you hit any issues.
Mac restore via Flashlight
So my hard drive in my MacBook Pro decided to start acting wonky on me. I don't think it's a hardware issue, just that the filesystem got messed up at some point.
Anyways, I went to do a fresh install of OS X and as soon as it fired up, the screen would go dark. I still got it installed, but it was a rather interesting way of doing it. I installed using a flashlight.
Brightkite maps with Sweetcron
I've gotten a few pings on how I generate the maps for my Brightkite entries in my lifestream with Sweetcron. It's pretty simple and straight forward. Looking out on the Google group for Sweetcron, I see that no one really shared what they had done in the past, so here's my implementation. You'll need to get a Google Maps API Key for this to work on your site. If you don't already have one, you can get one here.
First things first. For some reason (I haven't had a chance to dig into it yet) Sweetcron won't import a BK feed directly (at the time of this entry). To work around this just run your BK feed through Feedburner, and then use that as the feed URL in Sweetcron.
Secondly, we'll need to pull some additional information when Sweetcron pulls in the feed. To accomplish this one, we'll create a new class. You can download the class here or just copy out the code below. To install this, simply drop it into your system/application/plugins directory. Make sure to edit the file and update your GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY for image generation. (You'll also want to rename the extension from .phps to .php if you download it.)
<?php if (!defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed'); /** * @todo: Change these to match your setup */ define('GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY', '!!CHANGE THIS TO YOUR GOOGLE MAPS API KEY!!'); define('IMG_SIZE_CHECKIN', '230x200'); define('IMG_SIZE_MESSAGE', '230x100'); /** * Namespaces that we'll be working with */ define('NS_GEORSS', 'http://www.georss.org/georss'); define('NS_BKITE', 'http://brightkite.com/placeFeed'); define('NS_MEDIA', 'http://search.yahoo.com/mrss'); /** * Simple Brightkite class for Sweetcron */ class Brightkite_com { function pre_db($item, $original) { // First let's pull out the GeoRSS $_coords = $original->get_item_tags( NS_GEORSS, 'point'); $_name = $original->get_item_tags( NS_GEORSS, 'featurename' ); // Pull the BrightKite Feed info $_placelink = $original->get_item_tags( NS_BKITE, 'placeLink'); $_type = $original->get_item_tags( NS_BKITE, 'eventType'); // Convert to something we can use // @todo: Find another way to do this, SimplePie should include a default way. list( $lat, $long ) = split( " ", $_coords[0]['data'] ); $name = $_name[0]['data']; $type = $_type[0]['data']; // Populate data to be saved along with the item. $item->item_data['geo']['name'] = $name; $item->item_data['geo']['lat'] = $lat; $item->item_data['geo']['long'] = $long; $item->item_data['bk']['placelink'] = $_placelink[0]['data']; $item->item_data['bk']['type'] = $type; // Check to see what type of pose this is. // $type will be set to one of 'photo', 'message', or 'checkin' if ( $type == "photo" ) { $_caption = $original->get_item_tags( NS_BKITE, 'photoCaption'); $_imglink = $original->get_item_tags( NS_BKITE, 'photoLink'); $imglink = $_imglink[0]['data']; $item->item_data['bk']['caption'] = $_caption[0]['data']; $item->item_data['bk']['imglink'] = $imglink; } elseif ( $type == "message" ) { // @todo: Figure out why SC doesn't pull this by default. $item->item_data['description'] = $original->get_description(); } elseif ( $type == "checkin" ) { // Don't need any additional info. It's just a checkin. } return $item; } function pre_display($item) { // Generate the URL for our image $mapimg = 'http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center='; $mapimg .= $item->item_data['geo']['lat'] . ',' . $item->item_data['geo']['long']; $mapimg .= '&zoom=12&sensor=false&markers='; $mapimg .= $item->item_data['geo']['lat'] . ',' . $item->item_data['geo']['long']; $mapimg .= '&key=' . GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY . '&size='; // Make sure to choose the correct size for the image if ( $item->item_data['bk']['type'] == "message" ) { $item->item_data['gmapimg'] = $mapimg . IMG_SIZE_MESSAGE; } else { $item->item_data['gmapimg'] = $mapimg . IMG_SIZE_CHECKIN; } return $item; } } ?>
So what does this class give us? It gives us access to all of the GeoRSS information along with some extras that we can use in our _activity_feed.php. The following are now available to you in _activity_feed.php in your theme:
/** * Returns 'type' of BK entry * This will be 'photo', 'message', or 'checkin' */ $item->item_data['bk']['type']; /** * For type 'photo' */ // URL to image $item->item_data['bk']['imglink']; // Caption for image $item->item_data['bk']['caption']; /** * For type 'message' */ // Text of our note that we posted $item->item_data['description'] /** * For all types */ // Link to Brightkite object $item->item_data['bk']['placelink']; // Place Name $item->item_data['geo']['name']; // Google map image URL $item->item_data['gmapimg'];
So if you're still wondering how to use this at this point, pretty simple. You just need to modify your _activity_feed.php file (located in your theme directory) to handle the additional data. Here's the loop in mine that builds my lifestream:
// ... <?php elseif ($item->get_feed_domain() == 'brightkite.com'): ?> <?php if ( $item->item_data['bk']['type'] == 'photo' ): ?> <p class="activity_image_text"> <a href="<?php echo $item->get_permalink(); ?>/<?php echo $item->get_name(); ?>"> <?php echo $item->item_data['bk']['caption']; ?> </a> <span class="activity_image_content"></span> </p> <span class="type_label photo"></span> <a class="activity_image" href="<?php echo $item->get_original_permalink(); ?>" style="background: url(<?php echo $item->item_data['bk']['imglink']; ?>) center no-repeat;"></a> <?php elseif ( $item->item_data['bk']['type'] == 'message' ): ?> <a href="<?php echo $item->item_data['bk']['placelink']; ?>"> <img class="bkite_note" alt="<?php echo $item->item_data['geo']['name']; ?>" src="<?php echo $item->item_data['gmapimg']; ?>"> </a> <span class="type_label regular"></span> <div class="inner_container"> <p class="bkite">"<?php echo $item->item_data['description']; ?>"</p> </div> <?php elseif ( $item->item_data['bk']['type'] == 'checkin' ): ?> <p class="checkin"> <a class="checkin" href="<?php echo $item->item_data['bk']['placelink']; ?>"> <img alt="<?php echo $item->item_data['geo']['name']; ?>" src="<?php echo $item->item_data['gmapimg']; ?>"> </a> Checked in @ <a href="<?php echo $item->item_data['bk']['placelink']; ?>"><?php echo $item->item_data['geo']['name']; ?></a> <br> </p> <?php endif; ?> <?php elseif (!$item->feed_id): ?> // ...
This is obviously not the only way to do it, nor the best, but just the way I have it running here. Have fun!
Cisco Mobile Supervisor
While the Cisco Mobile Supervisor Application has been out for over a month now for the iPhone/iPod Touch, my site was down, and I didn't get to post about it, so I'm doing it now, as a few people have been asking me about it, and wanting to see a few of the screens.
Mobile Supervisor provides a pretty basic interface to monitor the call center, and it's a free download from the App Store. While most call centers that I've done in the past use some sort of wall board for this type of functionality, from a Supervisors standpoint this is still pretty neat when sitting in meetings all day away from the call center. (Of course, if you have a laptop, you can still just fire up CSD there, but if you've got an iPhone, why wouldn't you geek out and do this?!)
Once you've downloaded the app, you configure it from the iPhone Settings screen. Scroll to the bottom and the configuration will show up along with your other apps. You'll need to fill out your UCCX server information here and as you can see, the app does support HA deployments. You can also setup your thresholds for "alert" status on the screens: (Click on any of the thumbnails for a larger image.)
Upon launch of the application, you'll need to login to your UCCX server (Don't worry, it will remember your login between sessions):
Once you're logged in, you'll see your teams listed that you're configured for. Under each of those, you'll be able to break down into the CSQs, or individual agents. My one complaint here is that even if agents are not logged into the system, it still shows all of them.
Under the CSQs, you can get the same information that you could from the Supervisor Desktop:
Overall, cool little app. Not sure that it will see a lot of use out in the field (as I don't know of a lot of call center supervisors running around with iPhones), but I love the fact that Cisco is actually putting out these types of apps for their users.
Cisco's Quick Start Guide can be found here and their video datasheet for Mobile Supervisor can be found here (no iphone demo in the video).
