Self Healing Software
SHS was the short-name for the Rogers Hi-Speed Internet "Self Healing Software" I architected, designed and developed while I was the Sr. Programmer/Analyst at Rogers Cable. I often tell folks that "I was responsible for all of the client facing software between 2002 and 2005 (ish), super sorry about that". But the truth is, this forced install reduced and eliminated in-bound call volume to the Hi-Speed call centre by 32% in the first 30 days (and continued for the remaining 2 years I was there, month over month) to the tune of saving them ~2M a month. In truth, 32% was a huge surprise to everyone. I was aiming for a 10% reduction.
This was the key software install that came on the Rogers Hi-Speed Internet CD ROM subscribers received when they wanted Internet over coax in 2001 (bleeding edge tech here folks). This was after eXcite @Home filed Chapter 11 and Rogers (as well as other MSOs) had to decide if they were going to roll their own, or find another provider and Rogers opted to roll their own until they climbed into bed with Yahoo! in 2004 and I left for v.1 Labs.
SHS was a pretty smart little piece of software, coded in Visual Basic (one of the most popular programming languages at the time). Essentially, it checked a series of Windows Registry entries and ensured that they were correct, the Packet MTU size was a common problem and this tooling simply ensured that the Windows system (95, 98, XP, ME, NT, 2000) was configured to be optimized for their network.
I learned a metric shit-ton (technical term) about enterprise software, politics, product development, better programming practices like eXtreme Programming (shout-out to Kent Beck (even if I did initially think you were nuts for suggesting TDD)), Single Step & Daily Builds, Automation, Design Patterns, and a myriad of ways that Windows is insecure and dumb. We didn't opt for a Mac version of the software as Apple only had about 1.2% of the subscriber base at that time (I was there from Inception (500,000 Subscribers) to over the 1M subscriber mark).
Fun side note: I was an avid reader of Joel Spolski (Joel on Software) while I was at Rogers, I reached out to him after reading one of his now infamious posts Daily Builds Are Your Friend to see if he could point me in a direction for Windows development and single step build processes for daily builds and he wrote a post about me emailing him! You can read his posts about 'Daily Builds' and the Final Builder product here