IT Status of The Villages
 

I just interacted with the Villages Sun for a renewal of my subscription. I had to give a credit card number over the phone. I asked why no online presence and the ability to pay, suspend, and restart subscriptions online like 98% of publications. I was told they are a small town newspaper and that would destroy that image if they provided that service. It was all I could do not to laugh into the phone. The Sun is many things, an advertiser, housing brochure, lite news, but small town newspaper?
It got me thinking about the “computer” status here in TV.
Newspaper forces interaction on phone, limited hours and snail mail interactions.
The golf tee time system is badly in need of upgrade. Clunky interface, inability to see any open time on same day, generally looks like a 1990’s interface. The phone system is arcane and byzantine. A relative used to pride himself on setting up a tee time for a group of 12. With errors and redos it usually took him over an hour.
VCDD system somewhat better but government systems usually have limited functionality.
It is obvious that this is not a priority for the powers that be. I would think the convenience and 24 hour availability would more than pay for itself. Smoothing out tee time interfaces would make their job easier. Shopping cart technology is mature and affordable. Tee time apps, both Apple and Android are obvious needs. Even athena health care appointments on line non functional.
Just some rambling thoughts.

The folks who make the decisions here are not as techy as YOU. Howsomeever, they sure do know a lot of stuff and make a lot of wise choices. Some people can do ronde de jambe a terre and some cannot. I can barely chew gum and walk but I have accomplished a thing or two in this life.

What you can assume from this criticism is that the older generation is still in control. They are able to move Live oaks by the dozen that are fifty-sixty foot tall. They can build an amazing house and tell you what hour you will close on it. They are able to continue business in the worst economic downturn this world has seen in a long time.

I am not real techy but I am not dumb either. Just stop. I am having a bad day. I like the Morses and I have observed them closely for many years. Never met them but I can see by their works they are good people. AND SMART AS HELL.

In this day and age there really is no excuse for an outfit as large as TV to be living in the dark ages, technologically speaking. Want to make sure you can get tickets to a particular showing of a movie? You have to drive down to the theatre and buy tickets in the morning, then go back later for the show, because they are not online like almost every other movie theatre in the universe. Ridiculous. I love TV but still ...

kathy

Praise for the golf tee time system
 

When I got here, 5 years ago, I was amazed that they had their own system for requesting tee times, and it worked for so many courses. Yes, it took me a bit to figure it out, but I joined a group where someone else did the work. But it never took them an hour. Since then I have set up the tee times myself, and it is not very hard.

And here is the real point, it works, and all the bugs have been fixed. Any new system would require lots of money and lots of time to make it work as error free. (The company I worked for had negative experiences moving away from existing HR and payroll systems to newer programs by third parties. Lots of money thrown down the toilet).

So a new system would be nice, but I worry about the cost and shakedown / debugging experience that we would all have to work through.

The guys that handle our groups get tee times for a group of 24 and they do it online. If it took an hour they would stop doing it lol. I agree that it isn't the best system, heck it too a pandemic to improve the sign in at the golf courses. Not sure how upgrading would pay for it as stated, it's an expense, increase expenses requires an increase in revenue.

Agree, even my lawn care guy accepts online payments. Let my subscription expire for this reason, all my payments are on autopilot.

Also add a concern the systems likely do not have state of the art safeguards to prevent cyber attacks. Imagine the golf system locked down for ransom.

However, a real person answers the phone here, usually on the first ring. No endless loop phone answering systems. Paying for the human interaction vs technology probably is not a bad choice for this market.

LOL, funny you mention that. In every (normal) year I would renew my Happy News subscription at Market Night at LSL. Every time I offer my credit card they have to write it down on a small piece of paper to bring to the office to be charged the next day. There are FREE charge card scanners about 1" x 1" square (I even have one that I used on my previous part time "techy" business) that attaches to your cell phone ... every vendor has them .... not a big deal but definitely strange even for a "home town newspaper." :)

And you know this how since you say you never met them ? I'd bet you you're wrong. I'm sure the "younger" side of "Da Familia" which is most of them now, knows very well how to handle "techy stuff". I'll bet they even have one of them thar comfuser pc boxes machines in their office and at least a flip phone or 2. :D :D

I pay by check

I agree. By the way, how about having Villages ID card on our phones? If the airlines can scan tickets that way, I would think this is possible.

Really ? That bothered you. You must live a charmed life to give that so much thought.

Whats the big deal. I gave my credit card and also agreed to auto renewal. Never have to call again and subsciption just continues. Whats the big fuss all about???

Letting my “Daily sunny news” expire without renewal. If they cannot recycle the newsprint, I will not buy the newsprint. Not much news anyway, just advertisement for themselves. However, time to get on board with technology, much agreed there.

I agree. The generation that's in control now grew up with computers. They are as old as our kids who fix our laptops and figure out how to take three remote controls and combine the functions into one.


My guess is they don't want to spend the money on the upgrades. Just like they won't spend the money on changing the outmoded gate card system.


If the Daily Sun had an online subscription to the entire newspaper, I'd buy it. But I don't want the hassle of spelling my name and giving my credit card out over the phone, and having to call to suspend service, blah, blah--all of which could and should be online.


I don't want to deal with all that paper, either. My morning cup of coffee is enjoyed with my online newspapers.


Rant over.

Newsprint is being recycled into electricity.

Some tree had to die first. The accepted slogan is REDUCE, reuse, recycle.

Multiply the number of people using Villages.net by $8.00/month (used to be free, btw). No, I have no idea how many people, but it must be in the thousands. There is plenty of money to get a new ttime system (lots of them out there, they don't have to create one), and even have it tweaked for our use. What they have is so antiquated, it's almost funny.

Thats funny

It works. Besides, system upgrades are nightmares......can you imagine all the old golfers!?!?!?

Don’t know what the OP is talking about. We moved to TV nearly 5 years ago and every time we go back up north or on vacation I send an e-mail to circulation.dailysun@thevillagesmedia.com (per their web page) with the the date to start suspension and the date to resume deliveries. In less than 5 minutes a get an e-mail confirmation that my request was processed!! Never failed for the many times I’ve done so in nearly 5 years!!!

Shows how spoiled we have become. Nothing wrong with slowing down or working a little harder.

OMG I know how you feel
I also spent the longest 2 minutes of my life renewing my newspaper and I feel your pain having to buy my movie ticket from a live person who could use the job , I envy some people who have such busy lives that even minutes count

I wish that the worst problem in my life was having to verbally give my credit card number to the Daily Sun for a subscription. There are people that you could give them a check for $1,000 and they would complain that it wasn't enough, took too long to get it, why didn't they get it a long time ago, why couldn't it have been in cash instead of a check, why wasn't it deposited directly to their checking/savings account because now they have to make a trip to the bank, why did they have to to to the mail station to get the check because it should have been hand delivered to their house, and on and on.:ohdear:

I saw with my own eyes they have an old IBM 440 with a Unix based system a WAN - wide area network but I would guess staff can’t login from remote. The only things they go outside for is web hosting and renewal of domains. Their systems
are so old it’s hysterical. I don’t know what the Sun charges for their advertising but I shouldn’t have to pay to find out what to do here. Instead of putting everything on an updated platform they pay for constant fix of bugs in the code and updates and revisions.

While it certainly isn't the worst thing it certainly IS one of the most INSECURE ways of protecting your credit card. Lots of credit card numbers are on sale on the web. While the odds of losing your money even if someone steals your credit card number are negligible I can tell you from personal experience it is a real PAIN IN THE AZZ recovering a stolen identity.

My lawn care guy fired me because I asked for online payments and emailed invoices and receipts. Right Donald Fournier?

The Tee Time online system may be a little rustic, but it works. Why spend the money (lots of money) to fix something that is adequately doing the job? Not only expensive, but you'd have to deal with all the potential bugs a new system could have. If anything, they should just do away with the Tee Time phone system, which is really cumbersome.

I worked for TV Sales Department for 8 years and, when I left several years ago, they were just transitioning from a mainframe based system to a PC/Server based system. It took a lot of talking to get them to make that move (not sure if it is complete yet), so I wouldn't expect them to be upgrading any of the other systems very soon.

Also, other than having a sweetheart deal with Comcast, I still can't figure out why they don't provide a Villages wide wireless internet system. They certainly have the infrastructure to do it.

Spouse has the villages.net to make tee times and still has the newspaper delivered. I never even look in the paper any more.

Credit card numbers are still available to the people in an office even with an up to date computer billing system. Thieves put skimmers in gas pumps that record your debit/credit card info, anyone you pay with a debit/credit card can take your information when you make a purchase so no system is totally safe. I've had fraudulent charges on my debit and credit cards a number of times.

Hmmm, I guess I am old school. One of the many things I like about the Villages is that you don’t have to go online to do everything, and you are not constantly being pestered to download a bunch of apps. Whenever I call the Daily Sun, someone knowledgeable always picks up the phone instead of reaching an automated answering system, and they speak perfect English. How good is that : ) And I absolutely love reading a printed newspaper rather than staring at a computer screen.

Dood. You're dealing with a community where some residents don't even own a cell phone yet. And many still use flip-phones. Why are you expecting modern technology in a community like that? A lot of these seniors don't know how to use a computer and blame their age on their ignorance, even though the guy who INVENTED the thing is older than they are, and personal computers have been around (and affordable) for the past 30 years. Thirty years ago they weren't too old to learn how to use a computer.

They don't update, because they don't have to yet. The people they'd be updating FOR - can't be bothered updating themselves.

The District website is sad indeed. Try to find things. Nothing is ever concise so you wade to pages and pages of useless information to find what you're looking for. And the district maps? What a joke! At least a year old, some two years old. Want to know where the new villages are? You're out of luck. It makes you wonder if the district actually knows what they are responsible for.

Please tell me your joking
 

30 years in Florida it’s always bee cash only for me

Totally agree! In this day an age why not have this accessibility? One writer reply’s as how TV can tell you when your closing is, down to the hour and build reliable homes during the pandemic, etc. They (TV) are the same people and this advanced accessibility/technology would only benefit their bottom line! Makes little sense!

geez, this thread fits right in with all the shuffle board courts for senior entertainment!

:boxing2::boxing2::duck: