Ilium Software Blog

Some people may not know it but we have a great mobile version of our website (in fact we’re only officially announcing it this week). The thing that I like best is the mobile List Exchange. You can get access to any of the 600+ lists on the exchange from your Pocket PC or Smartphone, even performing searches and downloading whichever lists you need. I thought of it again over the weekend because my friends and I were arguing about which season finale of Deep Space 9 had that great battle with Klingons and the Jem’Hadar (it was Season 5 if you’re interested…yeah, this is the kind of thing we argue about) and we ended up betting on it. I won the bet and proved it by pulling the DS9 episode guide down from the list exchange onto my e800 via the coffee shop’s wireless network. Woo-hoo! Free coffee for me. 🙂

If you want to check out the List Exchange on your mobile device just visit http://mobile.iliumsoft.com and pick the List Exchange link at the bottom of the page.

Today we released our newest online service, PassBuilder.com. It’s a free password generator program that can create unique passwords based on the different criteria that users choose. It’s really great – it lets people pick lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, and punctuation. They can even choose to get a memory aid when they generate their password – which is important these days, when nobody has just one password to remember! I admit, for some things that I need a password for on my home computer, I still use jumbled versions of my cats’ names and book titles. Maybe now that PassBuilder is out, I’ll go home tonight and fix some of those passwords online!

Another great thing about this new service is that it works with or without JavaScript enabled in your browser, and it works great on mobile devices too. So now, wherever anyone goes, they can visit PassBuilder and create new passwords at the drop of a hat.

Seth Godin writes today about customers and their responsibility, whether companies can (or should) blacklist customers, and consumers gaining power. I wish he’d written more, actually, but since he didn’t, I will.

Anyone who spends any time with the public knows that some people are going to take advantage of, or behave irresponsibly in, any situation. I think it’s the responsibility of the company to their other customers to control this behavior however they can. For example, if someone is talking on a cellphone in a theater (I can’t believe this happens, but it does), I think it’s the theater’s responsibility (not just their option, but their responsibility) to throw the offender out. Their responsibility is to the other people who have also paid for their seats (upwards of $110 on Broadway).

[Read more…] about Responsible Customers