Put Up Fences!

I love me a good piece of software – I think it comes with the territory of being a geek. I also love sharing these discoveries with others – I think that comes with the territory of being a didactic marketer/salesman!

Do you have so many icons on your desktop that you’ve forgotten what your desktop background looks like? Do you spend more than 5 seconds trying to find a specific icon on your desktop? Do you wish you had more organization of the icons on your desktop (beyond “Arrange by Name”)? Do you wish you could move entire blocks of icons at a time? Do you wish you could just double click and make all of your icons disappear?

Well, you’re in luck because today’s topic of discussion is Desktop Fences! …and they have a free version!!!

I fit into all of the categories above: I love a nice, clean desktop, but, since I’m working on several projects at once, I have a ton of shortcuts on my desktop.

Desktop Fences was an answer to my prayers, and I bet it can make your life easier too!

Here are the best features:

• Simply click and drag to create a new “fence” on your desktop
• Name your new fence
• Just drag and drop icons into a fence
• Click a fence header and drag it to move it and all of the related icons
• Double click and your fences and icons disappear for a nice, clean desktop. Double click again and they come right back

…and, of course, there is a ton of customization available (from transparency levels to color scheme, etc).

Disclaimer (just to say I said it):  I still think that it’s a bad idea to store a bunch of documents on your desktop because, if your computer crashes, you’d lose everything, so I’d advise you (especially if you’re on a network), to keep all of your documents on the network, and create shortcuts to put into your new desktop fences.

Have you tried Desktop Fences? Any awesome software recommendations for me?

I hope you check out Desktop Fences and love it as much as I have!!!

Panasonic product “support”

So, I have this dorky little hobby where I like to send companies my feedback on their products and suggest improvements. Now, I work at a large company, so I know that the process to implement a change is quite large and that customer feedback/suggestions rarely makes it back to the folks who are actually in charge of the product design (which is a larger problem entirely).

I really don’t expect any changes because of my comments, but I am really curious to see what the company does with my suggestions and what feedback I get.

That being said, I had a suggestion for Panasonic, so I went to their “contact us” page to submit my suggestion.

First of all, it’s buried under “Product Support” option, which makes me feel like I have to have a defective product in order to write to them…not really conducive to sharing ideas!

Next, I came to this screen:

Now, I really don’t like these forms. I’d much rather send an e-mail from my personal e-mail account (I’m already familiar with how my e-mail system is set up, and, at the very least, then I have a copy for my records), but I understand why they do it this way (so they are sure they have all of the necessary information to respond appropriately). So I guess I have to live with what they give me.

Again, though, I have to select from “I have the product [and have issues]” and “I don’t have the product [but I want more information]”. They really must not want my input/ideas!!!

The biggest pet peeve on this site is the 600 word limit. Right from the start it makes me feel like I’m not worthy of their time (I’m only worthy of 600 words worth of their time, anyway). If I was already mad because my microwave burned down my house (hypothetical, of course), I’d be even more mad that you think I’m only worth 600 words!!! Yes, removing this would mean you’d get some long e-mails, but I think you would be providing better customer service by not making your customers feel unworthy to share their thoughts/issues with you!

Finally, I received an automatic response e-mail saying that they’d respond to me within one business day; I received this e-mail over a month ago, and I have yet to receive a response (not even a “Thanks, but no thanks!”). Yet another lesson in “Don’t promise what you can’t deliver every single time”.

Panasonic: Wag of the Finger to you.