[Warning: Rant eminent]

The following is an account of our tale of woe using Cintas Document Storage for our offsite tape storage. 

Background:

We currently back up our infrastructure to tape in multiple ways.  Including but not limited to:

- Critical daily backups, these get rotated off-site daily.  There’s a box with these tapes that get’s swapped out with the vendor every morning exchanging the tapes from the previous nights backups and retrieving the tapes for the next days backups.  These tapes never leave their carriers.  The carriers are stored at the offsite facility and are never opened by them.

- Weekly archives, every weekend we backup all the critical stuff, plus the next level of things deemed necessary are backed up every weekend.   These go off-site in bulk about 2x a month.   These tapes also live in a storage container and are never touched by Cintas unless we move them to the archive pool.

- Archives, we also backup everything, full server bare metal restore, at a minimum monthly.  We also backup *most* workstations on a best effort basis nearly ever 60 days.   These also go offsite for bulk storage approximately monthly.  these tapes are handled by the vendor, they are removed from the travel containers and are slotted in storage racks.

Service:

A little over a year ago we contracted with Cintas Document Storage for off-site vaulted media storage and tape rotation.   The rotation part has always been acceptable.   The tape retrieval process has failed miserably.  While we have been fortunate enough not to need our tapes critically fast, we contracted with them to have this ability.

They use a web based application to ‘request’ tapes or items to be delivered the next business day during their run.   On multiple occasions (3x in one year) they have failed to service our tape retrieval requests in less than 5 days.

They have miss-slotted our tapes, and simply miss placed them.  They have also miss-placed our daily rotational containers…   All of these things are bad, very very bad.

A better solution comes along…

About two months ago we were contacted by a competitor.  Unfortunately for Cintas this sales person called on us while we were in the midst of a miss-placed tape container episode.   So we were certainly open to receiving a quote for services.

This competitor is just as secure, and is actually geographically 30 miles farther away.  Their cost for the same daily rotation and tape storage space was literally 1/2 the monthly cost of Cintas and they don’t have any of our other document storage or shredding business (yet).   This may be too good to be true, but it honestly can’t be any worse so we agreed to switch.

While signing the contracts we were warned by this vendor that Cintas would not play nice.   That they behave like 3 year olds when it comes to customers leaving them.  They flat out told us we’d have trouble retrieving our tapes.   Imagine that… 

Well silly us, we thought they’d be professional.

The following Monday we requested our archival tapes through the website.   We should receive these tapes the following day (Tuesday) per our contract.  Tuesday came; no tapes…   Wednesday came; no tapes…   Thursday came and the Jig was up… 

We had already started our daily rotation with the new company so it became clear to them that we were no longer going to be customers.

This is when all hell broke loose.

Nearly a week went by with no contact from Cintas, emails and voice mails were not returned.   Then out of the blue we get a phone call from the sales person attempting to save the account.  Something that should have taken place after any of thier tape handling failures.   Once it became clear that the account wasn’t to be saved they decided to play hard ball.   We received an invoice for 3 months of tape transportation and a year and half’s worth of storage  (discounted 50%).   Apparently I didn’t realize we had to give 90 days notice.  Fair enough.   I was not aware that their contract is so one-sided. 

They can drop you at any time for any reason.

You on the other hand, have to give them 90 days notice, and 30 days to resolve any issues.   So when they misplace your tapes as long as they get them to you within 30 days, they are off the hook for their poor service.   As a penalty for leaving them you still have to pay them 50% of the storage fees for the remainder of the contract.   (In our case another year and a half’s worth).

Given their repeated failures, I was not about to give them that.   Regardless of what the tapes were worth.  (We have and still have duplicate archives of nearly everything we’d need on site anyway). 

About two weeks ago they sent out another representative to try and salvage the account and discuss the ‘settlement’.  This obviously wasn’t going to go anywhere, but we agreed that we’d pay for 90 days of service (the notification period), provided one of those months was the current month.   We’d pay the transportation/delivery fees for this period and a final delivery charge, but we wouldn’t pay for vault storage past the 90 day window.   We reached an accord.   I now have checks on my desk for the 90 day period, and the previous monthly invoice. 

We’re ready and willing to exchange these checks for the hostages  (our tapes), but even that has proven to be difficult.  Again they are non-responsive to emails or voice mails.  I suspect it will happen, but I don’t know when.

My advice to you:

If you’re a Cintas document storage/vault customer, get out while the getting is good.   Review your contract, if it has clause 16 ‘SERVICE GUARANTEE AND TERMINATION’ you’ll need to be stealthy about getting your stuff back.   It appears even though they have you over a barrel contract wise, they think nothing of going Al Queda on you and keeping your stuff hostage.

Yes they will loose our other business, and that’s a damn shame.

It gets better…

As part of our settlement, we paid a Final delivery charge.  I just spent the last day and a half trying to arrange this final delivery (basically the exchange of the hostages for the ransom money).  I was just informed that:

“Apparently they trust their drivers with our entire business on our tapes, but they don’t trust their drivers with a couple of checks of their money.”

Because of this, we’ve apparently agreed to pickup the tapes.  I don’t think so… It’s the principle of the exchange and the fact that they charged us for final delivery.

As of right now their supposed to do the deal tomorrow.   I’ve never, ever dealt with a company (or manager in charge) that was so full of excuses for not doing their job.   Since they can’t commit on a time, they are to give us a call 20-30 minutes before they head over.  I highly suspect that won’t happen either.

Final Result:

As expected, they didn’t call they just showed up, and as Murphy would have it we were at lunch.  We should have made them wait longer but in the interest of getting our tapes back we rushed through our lunch to get back within 15 minutes.   We have our tapes and they have their ransom monies.   All is now well with the world.

Again, I highly recommend that you avoid this particular part of the Cintas organization. 

As you may already know, it is a sin for a Muslim male to see any woman other than his wife naked, and that he must commit suicide if he does. So next Saturday at 4 PM. Eastern Time, all American women are asked to walk out of their houses completely naked to help weed out any neighborhood terrorists. Circling your block for one hour is recommended for this anti-terrorist effort.

All men are to position themselves in lawn chairs in front of their houses to prove they are not radical Muslims, and to show support for all American women. Since Islam also does not approve of alcohol, a cold 6-pack at your side is further proof of your anti-terrorist sentiment.

The American government appreciates your efforts to root out terrorists and applauds your participation in this anti-terrorist activity. God bless America .

It is your patriotic duty to pass this on.

Well lo and behold…  The kids got talent.

I just learned that a fellow co-worker is also a cartoonist.

Check it out over at WeakCity.com, some are actually funny.

http://www.weakcity.com/

Tableau…

A product manager pointed out this product when I was showing her our new MS Analytics (olap) implementation a couple weeks ago.

They have some great examples on their site of just how powerful this product is.  http://www.tableausoftware.com/learning/examples

It is spendy, $1500 per named license + maintenance.

It’s primarily designed to go against Excel or table data, but it works with olap cubes as well, or at least somewhat.  Just enough to get you excited then you find out there’s a number of things you can’t do.  Hopefully this will be enhanced in a future version.

It works outstandingly well if your data is nice and pretty.  Normalized well.  Of course all of the sample data falls into that category.   It also works well against SQL, gain if your joins are easy to do.  It would be nice if they had a visual tool for creating joins.

Even so, I highly recommend it.

I forget stuff.  So I go to great pains to take notes.  I use a multitude of technologies, including rude text files with reminders, to two wiki’s one personal and one for my department at work.

I’ve tried OneNote, and other fancy stuff, but the wiki’s by far work the best at least so far.

The last 24 hours have revealed two pretty cool technologies or apps I’d like to share with you.

First off Jott. 

It’s not new, just new to me and it works pretty well.

It’s beta as all Web 2.0 technologies are. You simply register your phone and create an account.   Based on caller ID it recognizes you.  You record a Jott, and it transcribes your voice to text and dispatches it.

It can send SMS, an email, post to a blog, do all kinds of good stuff.   Pretty slick and free.

So far I haven’t been able to get it to post to WordPress but it’s supposed to be able to do that.

The second part which is growing on me the more I play with it is:

Evernote

Another Web 2.0 product also in beta.  Though private beta at this time.  I have invites if you’re interested.  email me at datapoohbah (at) gmail (dot) com, or post a comment.

Evernote is similar to Microsoft OneNote.  Better in some areas, weaker in others.  It’s cross platform and has a great web interface.  With both Windows and Mac Clients that synchronize your notes so they are almost always available.  It has pretty slick search and tagging.  Doesn’t do attachments worth a crap, but this could potentially replace my Wiki’s…

Maybe not.  But I can have my Jotts’s create Evernotes, and that’s pretty cool.

If there is other cool stuff like this out there that you think I should look at, review or bash, please post a comment.

-DP

16 sites for web site design inspiration (via TechTool Blog)

Obviously the new iPhone is delicious, I wrote about that here a month ago. My biggest concern though remains COVERAGE, holly coverage batman, the 3G network is worse than the Edge network which is already about 50% (by my estimation) as good as Verizon.  Hold me, I’m scared.

Someone please tell Voodoo/HP that trying to knock of the Mac Pro, just isn’t cool.  You can do better than that no?  (It is kinda sexy though).

Initially it was reported that it drained through the bottom, but this appears to be where you store your filtered beer.

I’m not sure I’d want to do that, it looks kinda sharp to me…

Before you hit send on that next email, perhaps you should run down this list, just to be sure:

1. Is it going to just one person? (If yes, jump to #10)
2. Since it’s going to a group, have I thought about who is on my list?
3. Are they blind copied?
4. Did every person on the list really and truly opt in? Not like sort of, but really ask for it?
5. So that means that if I didn’t send it to them, they’d complain about not getting it?
6. See #5. If they wouldn’t complain, take them off!
7. That means, for example, that sending bulk email to a list of bloggers just cause they have blogs is not okay.
8. Aside: the definition of permission marketing: Anticipated, personal and relevant messages delivered to people who actually want to get them. Nowhere does it say anything about you and your needs as a sender. Probably none of my business, but I’m just letting you know how I feel. (And how your prospects feel).
9. Is the email from a real person? If it is, will hitting reply get a note back to that person? (if not, change it please).
10. Have I corresponded with this person before?
11. Really? They’ve written back? (if no, reconsider email).
12. If it is a cold-call email, and I’m sure it’s welcome, and I’m sure it’s not spam, then don’t apologize. If I need to apologize, then yes, it’s spam, and I’ll get the brand-hurt I deserve.
13. Am I angry? (If so, save as draft and come back to the note in one hour).
14. Could I do this note better with a phone call?
15. Am I blind-ccing my boss? If so, what will happen if the recipient finds out?
16. Is there anything in this email I don’t want the attorney general, the media or my boss seeing? (If so, hit delete).
17. Is any portion of the email in all caps? (If so, consider changing it.)
18. Is it in black type at a normal size?
19. Do I have my contact info at the bottom? (If not, consider adding it).
20. Have I included the line, "Please save the planet. Don’t print this email"? (If so, please delete the line and consider a job as a forest ranger or flight attendant).
21. Could this email be shorter?
22. Is there anyone copied on this email who could be left off the list?
23. Have I attached any files that are very big? (If so, google something like ’send big files’ and consider your options.)
24. Have I attached any files that would work better in PDF format?
25. Are there any or other emoticons involved? (If so, reconsider).
26. Am I forwarding someone else’s mail? (If so, will they be happy when they find out?)
27. Am I forwarding something about religion (mine or someone else’s)? (If so, delete).
28. Am I forwarding something about a virus or worldwide charity effort or other potential hoax? (If so, visit snopes and check to see if it’s ‘actually true).
29. Did I hit ‘reply all’? If so, am I glad I did? Does every person on the list need to see it?
30. Am I quoting back the original text in a helpful way? (Sending an email that says, in its entirety, "yes," is not helpful).
31. If this email is to someone like Seth, did I check to make sure I know the difference between its and it’s? Just wondering.
32. If this is a press release, am I really sure that the recipient is going to be delighted to get it? Or am I taking advantage of the asymmetrical nature of email–free to send, expensive investment of time to read or delete?
33. Are there any little animated creatures in the footer of this email? Adorable kittens? Endangered species of any kind?
34. Bonus: Is there a long legal disclaimer at the bottom of my email? Why?
35. Bonus: Does the subject line make it easy to understand what’s to come and likely it will get filed properly?
36. If I had to pay 42 cents to send this email, would I?

Nvidia Steps up for Call of Duty  PC Players.   WTF?  Console’s have had the maps for a month now.

Dell studio Line…  OK, let’s take the XPS line, paint them BLACK and call them the Studio Line.   These notebooks are OK, but damn, is that the best you can do?

Understand the impact of High Item counts in Exchange.

Blogger Gang Signs:

original here

Those fine folks at Insomniac are opening an office in the East.

Another Example of why Best Buy Sucks

The prize for the COD tournament was a signed Infinity Ward poster.  (whoopie)…

I understand this was Desctructoid’s first event.  Overall as a party goes it was pretty good.   There was a good group of folks playing Rock Band, a game I still don’t ‘get’.  Clearly sucking and looking stupid at Karaoke isn’t enough. At least with Rock Band you get to share the shame with 3 other people playing guitar and drums.   Some of the ‘bands’ were OK, at least they can push the buttons, but the singing, well, I should probably just stop here.

There was another station set up for people to play smash brothers.   Which to me was about as lame as it gets.  If I had shelled out $50 for that game I’d have to hurt someone.

There was a pre-release showing of a Ninja game.   Imagine the sword fighting of the Lord of the Rings PS3 games or Prince of Persia, mixed with the run around task based game Assassins Creed, only not as good and you’ve got this game.   I’ll certainly pass on that release.

The COD tourney was somewhat of a joke.  Very unorganized, and I’m sorry to say, you need sound to play that game.  That wasn’t possible hooked up to the big screens above the bar.

This review may sound negative and perhaps it is.  But the party was a blast and I’m sure it will only be better next time. 

Wh00t!

Fedora 9 on a thumb drive.

Cringlely is spot on when it comes to analysts.

I originally was going to read Corey’s book Little Brother.  But now I’m so sick and tired of seeing a blog post about it DAILY on Boing Boing that I’m not going to read it.   (great, now I’ve given it another mention).

Google Health is live…   Why not, the already know everything else about you why not your health too?

In these difficult times I believe we all need a message of hope and this image conveys that in oh so many ways.