irclog2html for #uphpu on 20060805

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02:38.11*** join/#uphpu jsmith (n=jsmith@smithfam.dsl.xmission.com)
02:38.29wpsso when do you actually move, jsmith ?
02:38.36jsmithTuesday
02:38.47wpsoh, that soon?
02:38.49wpswow
02:38.54wpsyou ready to go?
02:38.55jsmithYeah...
02:38.59jsmithNo... still more packing to do.
02:39.03jsmithBut I'm getting close
02:39.06wpsyour place sold?
02:39.10jsmithYeah
02:39.11wpswow
02:39.31wpsmoving is a bear
02:39.40jsmithSure is.
02:52.56wpsyou driving a truck yourself or paying someone to do it?
02:56.41jsmithPaying someone else
02:57.00jsmithPaying someone else to load the truck, paying someone else to drive the truck...
02:57.11jsmith... all I have to do is box up everything and put it in the front room
02:57.17wpsgood plan… going that far
02:57.38*** topic/#UPHPU by wps -> Utah PHP Users Group | uphpu.org
02:57.47jsmithYeah... plus it'll save the backs of all my friendly neighbors
02:57.53wpsindeed
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04:36.33jsmithwps: Question for you to think about, in your spare cycles...
04:36.50jsmith(since you're a visually creative person)
04:40.23wpsyes?
04:42.06jsmithHow would you make it easy to visualize the number of callers in a call queue, and the wait time of each caller, along with the average wait time?
04:42.16jsmithHow's that for a loaded question?
04:43.00wpsis this for an interface for some type of an application?
04:43.10wpsdo you actually see a list of the callers?
04:43.42wpsdo you want something quantitative or abstract (simply a graphic representation) of the number?
04:45.44jsmithIt's not an interface, just an information display
04:46.17jsmithYou don't have to see the list of callers (there's nothing interesting besides the amount of time they've been waiting.
04:46.34wpswhat type of display?
04:46.35wpsLCD?
04:46.36jsmithYou could represent it graphically...
04:46.41wpson a phone?
04:46.42jsmithProjected on a wall...
04:47.00wpslike for a call center?
04:47.05jsmithYeah...
04:47.20jsmithI told you it was a loaded question...
04:48.48wpswell, my first thoughts are that something more than simply a number (count) would be good, as to communicate the "weight" of how many are waiting
04:49.02jsmithYup...
04:50.12jsmithI'd also somehow like to incorporate the change in average wait time over say the past 5 minutes... are people now waiting longer than those who called in 10 minutes ago, or waiting less... in other words, is the queue filling up faster than it's being emptied, or being emptied faster than it's being filled up.
04:51.02jsmithAnyway, just curious if you had any ideas... I've been scratching my head trying to come up with something simple and elegant, but I'm not visually creative...
04:51.11wpsI'm thinking of an atom… with bodies orbiting around it… giving you two variables: the amount of bodies orbiting and the speed at which they orbit
04:52.20jsmithHmmmmn... I was thinking about a spiral... almost a seashell shape... the next call to be answered has obviously been waiting the longest, so he get's the tallest wedge... maybe the wedges change color depending on how long they've been in the queue
04:52.56jsmithorbiting speed (in the atom example) doesn't really equate with wait time in my mind
04:54.10wpsI was simply thinking that the orbits would slow as the system "bogs down" (ie: wait times become longer)
04:55.02wpsone big challenge with either is how to you communicate comparison… there might be more calls now with longer wait times, but compared to what?
04:56.23wpsperhaps you would have to have a "standard" next to it that is an average of days in the past or something so that the current graphical element (whatever it is) can be compared against it
04:58.10wpscurrent speed test: 6349 / 1058 (down/up)
04:59.16jsmithNot bad...
04:59.38wpsi've gotten 8000 before
05:00.32wpslatency is a little worse than my last ISP, but the download increase is nice
05:02.58wpsthe only time that I notice the latency though is when I am mounting a volume on my home computer on my work computer and navigating the file tree across the net
05:21.35jsmithwps: I may have just found something...
05:22.02jsmithMaybe I'll work something up over the weekend, and then let you tell me what you think...
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15:52.45macnewboldwade and j smith, when you get back: regarding your call queue visualization problem, to me a color coding scheme was the first that came to mind
15:53.03macnewbolda colored bar or something, that gets longer and shorter with number of waiters,
15:53.31macnewboldand the color of each chunk (representing one caller) gets "hotter" the longer they've been waiting
15:54.05macnewboldeveryone starts out pale blue maybe, then increases through greens, yellows, and then turns red as they've been waiting longer and longer
15:54.25macnewboldthen you can see how much of your bar is red vs yellow vs green at a glance
15:54.48macnewboldand the length of the bar shows how many callers there are at once
15:54.55macnewboldand whether it is growing or shrinking
15:55.28macnewboldif you had a way for it to scroll off the screen, you could keep new data at the top, and push historical data down the page,
15:55.37macnewboldso you can see if the red zone is shrinking or growing, etc.
15:55.47macnewboldjust a thought
16:12.22wpsgood thoughts
16:12.27wpshard to say without knowing more about his project
16:13.00wpsI at first thought he was looking for something fairly abstract, but it I think now that he is looking for something more detailed
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