My Review of the Philips SWW1800/27 Wireless HDTV Link
November 30, 2009 by admin · View Comments
I am a member of the Amazon Vine program. Each month Amazon sends me products to review on their site free of charge. This month I received Philips SWW1800/27 Wireless HDTV Link
The Philips SWW1800/27 Wireless HDTV Link actually works as advertised, transmitting the output of up to four high definition devices across a room without wires. It is simple to install and requires absolutely zero configuration. Plug it in and it works.
/>Philips gets bonus points for including an HDMI cable. This the first high definition device I’ve used that actually comes with one. I hope other manufacturers follow their lead.
I tested the device in my home, transmitting the output of a high definition camcorder and a few other devices approximately thirty feet across my living room to a plasma television.
See my full review at Amazon.com.
Best Buy Doesn’t Get Twitter.. Even Though They Think They Do.
November 29, 2009 by admin · View Comments
The New York Times ran an article on Best Buy’s new Twitter strategy the other day, talking about how the company is embracing customer engagement after ignoring us for so long. Unfortunately they still don’t get it.
Let me start by saying that I have never been a fan of Best Buy. Whether it was their practice of not honoring their own website pricing or how they swindle unassuming people with ridiculously overpriced cables, they’ve never been very reputable in my book. Nevertheless I am a customer. They beat me up and I keep coming back. So I guess it’s partly my fault. But I have continued shopping there mainly because I like their in-store pickup service. It’s convenient and nice to know the inventory is reserved before I make the 20-30 minute trek up to the nearest Best Buy retail store.
For a few months now Melissa and I were thinking about picking up a new television for downstairs. This weekend Best Buy had a great price on a mid-range TV that was even showing up in stock at the store closest to us. I happily ordered it and was all set to run up there this afternoon and avoid the hassle of delivery appointments and logistics. But unfortunately I was notified this morning that the unit was out of stock at my store and that I should call customer service.
Screenshot from Best Buy's customer service page
No problem. Another nearby store had stock, so I was planning to have them re-direct the order there. After all, their website says customer service is “staffed up and ready to assist” so it shouldn’t take long. Right? Wrong.
After sitting on hold for over ten minutes, I decided I wasn’t going to waste time on this holiday weekend begging Best Buy to take my money. So Twitter to the rescue. I shoot off a Tweet to @twelpforce – the Best Buy presence in the Twitterverse – right before I got disconnected from the customer service center:
LonSeidman: @twelpforce Annoyed. why no cancel button for in-store pickup orders that end up not in stock? Twenty minute hold time is unacceptable
And a few minutes later I get a reply from a member of their Twitter team:
ApplExpert50: @lonseidman #twelpforce An in-store pickup may be canceled at anytime by calling 1-888-BESTBUY. Sorry for the hold time. ‘Tis the holidays!
Huh? Did I not already do that and complain about the fact I couldn’t get through to anyone? But it gets better, as this message came over ten seconds later:
ApplExpert50: @lonseidman #twelpforce If you’d like to see a different process for canceling orders adopted, suggest it at our IdeaX: http://is.gd/56Y8u
Yeah thanks. Submit your idea to our customer suggestion box black hole. Like that’s going to solve my problem. But Best Buy isn’t done yet. Their official Twelpforce account retweets the exchange to give the impression that they’re actually helping me. I’m livid, especially given that I was hung up on twice in the intervening minutes. So I then tweet:
LonSeidman: @ApplExpert50 Forget it, third time I got hung up on. The order will sit. If it charges my card you can work it out with American Express.
And that’s what finally prompts the response I was hoping for all along:
ApplExpert50: @lonseidman #twelpforce I apologize for the poor phone experience. Email details and Ord # to twelpforce@bestbuy.com so we can look into it.
See what’s wrong with this picture? If a customer is upset enough that they’re tweeting about it, why not have a process in place to help keep the business? I surely don’t expect the website to get re-engineered in ten minutes, but finding a solution to a customer problem should have been their first instinct. If they’re paying people to monitor Twitter why not empower them to solve problems?
Comcast, believe it or not, is the shining light in the Twitterverse. They have a very active presence that combs through millions of tweets a day looking for those having issues with their services. When there is a problem, they respond immediately and begin offering customers options to get things fixed. What’s more, they direct those company resources to the customer as opposed to asking the customer to make phone calls. In my experience they solve service issues faster on Twitter than they do over the phone. Very impressive.
The lesson? Just being on Twitter isn’t enough. Business in the 21st century is about engagement and fixing problems, and doing whatever it takes to keep the business. Small businesses have known this forever: an angry customer in a small community can easily escalate into a bad reputation. Big business knows that now even the smallest customer might have 75 Facebook friends. I have nearly 1,300 who will be reading this shortly.
This blog post would have been considerably different had somebody worked to solve the problem. Instead Amazon got the business.
UPDATE: Apparently the head of social media at Best Buy finds the above post insulting. Can these guys be any more out of touch?
UPDATE: I received an email from a ‘twelpforce’ representative today. This confirms my assertation that “Twelpforce” really is not a vehicle for customer service but more for driving sales. Here’s an excerpt:
..in general Twelpforce is meant to resolve product inquiries. In reality, most of our Twelpforce representatives are sales associates who are working in stores, or departments that may not have access to the proper systems to assist with changing your BestBuy.com order. In this case, the options they have is to either direct you to call in or email us directly.
Comcast resolves issues directly through Twitter, directing company resources to help the customer get the problem resolved. Best Buy clearly doesn’t, and will continue to funnel customers into overloaded customer service centers.
What they need is to have a staff of “twelpers” who are equipped to solve these customer issues. In the meantime I took my business elsewhere.
2009-11-29 Weekly Twitter Update
November 29, 2009 by admin · View Comments
- Here's an interest statistic: 50% of all LocalOnlineNews.TV video plays came from sites other than our own: http://bit.ly/7hm506 #
- Looking forward to seeing the @bliptv channel on the @rokuplayer when the update is released tomorrow morning. #
- Bummer: RT @RokuPlayer: Sorry for confusion, but at this time cannot update player manually to get Channel Store. #
- MSNBC partners w/ @breakingnews 20 y/o in Netherlands on his own gets 1.4 million audience. Is news a commodity now? http://bit.ly/6WUr5a #
- Will be on This Week in Media starting at about 3:15 p.m. EST. Watch live at http://live.twit.tv #fb #
- Apple firing back at Verizon in new iPhone ads: http://bit.ly/5czzwB #
- NASA sets the record straight on 2012 doomsday scenarios. Everybody can calm down now : http://bit.ly/2UOXCj #fb #
- Google comes up with a smart way to better explain Google Wave: http://bit.ly/07O1a9A #
- New York to issue emergency alerts via Xbox. An interesting point: how to reach people when they stop watching tv? http://bit.ly/7tlrFu #
- Just submitted a @knightfdn News Challenge video pitch for @localonlinenews. Check it out: http://bit.ly/8hzotd #knc10 #
- Not very impressed with @DacorKitchen right now. Oven is stuck open and microwave display is shot. Total crap. http://yfrog.com/35rr7j #
- Amazon's giving away $3 in free music! http://bit.ly/5OibD5 #fb #
- RT @davewiner: The fact that every tweet flows through them is what makes Twitter Corp worth $1 billion. #
- Thankful for a great family and all of you. What are you thankful for today? #fb #
- Wow thanks @mediatemple for ruining my thanksgiving. #
- Time for a class action against @mediatemple .. who will reimburse my time for fixing the mess they made on my sites? #
- Thankfully the Media Temple hack doesn't look too bad, only impacted root index.php files on my domains, don't see anything else impacted. #
- Some great deals at Amazon today! And the stuff is in stock too. No gimmicks: http://bit.ly/5Y0BhD #fb #
- My appearance on This Week in Media with @daisywhitney @alexlindsay @theresident @alexlindsay @1timstreet is up! http://bit.ly/8e9c1f #
- Holiday season 2009 will finally kick-off blu-ray adoption. The players are at the magic price point of around $100. #
- Does anyone know of a way to turn off autoexposure on the Nikon D300s movie mode WITHOUT having to hold that button down? #
- Cool image of Shuttle Atlantis, with empty cargo pay, separating from the Space Station. http://bit.ly/4yfcmn #fb #
- And this one is spectacular: orbital sunrise: http://bit.ly/6kh7Pb #fb #
- Very cool! Any Mini9 images? RT @davewiner: Dell provides custom Google Chrome OS image for Mini 10V users. http://r2.ly/pvcv #
- So True.. RT @badbanana: Our nation is under siege by aspiring reality TV stars. #
- Gosh this decade sure went by quick. #fb #
- Annoyed with Best Buy, why no cancel button for in-store pickup orders that end up not in stock? Twenty minute hold time is unacceptable #
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2009-11-22 Weekly Twitter Update
November 22, 2009 by admin · View Comments
- I absolutely love Chromium on the Mac. Unbelievably fast. Download the updater here: http://bit.ly/ZVw3x new version released every day. #
- RT @SpaceflightNow: Check out our view of Atlantis' beautiful afternoon launch at the press site. http://tinyurl.com/yco9k37 #
- YouTube seems to slow to a crawl at primetime.. Wonder what that means for the television industry… #
- Beautiful shuttle launch today. This never gets old, awesome HD video at YouTube: http://bit.ly/226vhM #
- Saw a leonid shoot straight out of Mars.. Just as advertised! http://bit.ly/3o3mjy #
- How about that! @garyvee is coming to Madison tonight, going to swing over and meet him. His work inspired
http://localonlinenews.tv in reply to garyvee # - Listening to @garyvee at rj julias. http://yfrog.com/aummgj #
- Excited to be a guest on This Week in Media with @daisywhitney @1timstreet & @theresident Monday. Watch at 3:15 p.m. EST at live.twit.tv #fb #
- RT @CaliLewis: Been wanting a Woopra iPhone app? Here's a sneak peek on the development – http://j.mp/8QiWxq #
- Lawmaking would be a lot easier if we could predict the future. #fb #
- I like Google's semantics for Wave invites. People are 'nominated' vs. invited. #fb #
- Hello Twitterverse, I'm paying it forward. Google Wave invit..err nomination to the first @ reply I get. #
- Playing with Boinxtv, very very cool. http://yfrog.com/376ymj #
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2009-11-15 Weekly Twitter Update
November 15, 2009 by admin · View Comments
- RT @Ihnatko: At Panera Bread, in the presence of The King Of Chutzpah. It's one thing to use the WiFi all day but really: a desk lamp? #
- My dog has dozens of milk bones strewn throughout the room but she wants the one that I have to get up and get for her under the couch. #fb #
- John Boehner killed a lot of trees to make a misleading point: http://bit.ly/4aVZYS #
- Up bright and early to catch a train for the #newbiz conference. See you all at registration! #
- Lots of great pastries here at #newbiz — better get here quick before I eat them all!
# - RT @cunyjschool: Follow today's Local News Hyper Camp here: http://newsinnovation.com/ #newbiz #
- Celebrating my 33rd birthday at #newbiz #
- Our hyperlocal video news startup just surpassed 40,000 video plays since our may launch in a CT community of 60k #newbiz #
- Here's one of our more popular stories: http://j.mp/1ZdiY6 #newbiz #
- The big takeaway from the #newbiz selling panel: sell exclusivity, and sell it with your own sales team. #
- Check out our Knight News Challenge application. #newbiz http://bit.ly/17vB7A #
- In the business model panel at #newbiz — modeling doesn't look good for strictly pay walled news sites. #
- We could spend an entire week discussing #newbiz topics and still need more time. Very informative day for us. #
- Be sure to thank Veterans today for their service to our country. #fb #
- Wow Verizon/Google are pretty serious about this droid rollout. 60 second spot in primetime this evening with pricy production values. #
- I hope your Friday the 13th is uneventful. #fb #
- Brought both my dog and car in for service today. The dog is in better shape than the car :-/. #fb #
- Very interested tweets from the Future of Journalism Conference, search the #kmedia hashtag to read them. @doughardy @ahynes #
- Watched "Up" tonight. Enjoyed it, but definitely not as light hearted as other Pixar films. #fb http://bit.ly/4j3IbZ #
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John Boehner Killed a Lot of Trees to Make a Misleading Point..
November 10, 2009 by admin · View Comments
Is the healthcare bill really 1900 pages? To quote a famous government official, it all depends on what your definition of a page is.
As with everything in government, things that we are accustomed to out in the world don’t actually work the same way in government.
When most of us boot up Microsoft Word, we’re given a 12 point font and an 8.5 x 11 inch page that has one inch margins top, bottom, left, and right. When the bill printers in the capitol print a bill, it’s on an 8.5 x 11 inch paper, but nearly triple spaced, huge fonts, and a margin of 2 inches on the right and 1.75 inches on the left, with no more than 25 lines of text per page. See a random page from the healthcare bill below and click here to see it full size:
So if the bill was placed in a word processor that you and I use every day, what would it look like? This morning I embarked on two experiments. The first was to paste the bill unformatted into a text editor. The resulting document? 206 pages.
But to be more realistic I went to the printer friendly display on the Library of Congress’ Thomas Site, saved it out as html, and opened it in Microsoft Word. The result? Only 506 pages.
John Boehner sure did kill a lot of trees unnecessarily to make his point didn’t he? Just another example of the twisted facts and mass hysteria some are inciting to block a bill designed to help people.
2009-11-08 Weekly Twitter Update
November 8, 2009 by admin · View Comments
- Going to finish watching In the Shadow of the Moon. Great documentary on the Apollo missions. http://bit.ly/T67Q2 #
- Going to finish watching In the Shadow of the Moon. Great documentary on the Apollo missions. http://bit.ly/T67Q2 #fb #
- GOTV! GOTV! GOTV! #
- I voted! Have you? #fb #
- Mac Chromium has come a long way in a very short period of time. It's my default browser, get the update every day here: http://bit.ly/ZVw3x #
- Wow there is some major league thunder outside my house right now. #fb #
- Hiking the Bushy Hill reserve with Sophie dog. #fb http://yfrog.us/j7kcbz #
- What an absolutely splendid Sunday morning here in Essex, CT. Get outside and enjoy it if you can! #fb #
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Apple Finally “Gets it” With New Magic Mouse
November 5, 2009 by admin · View Comments
The Bottom Line:
If you’re a Mac owner and are looking to upgrade the lousy mouse that came with your system you will be very satisfied with the Apple Magic Mouse Those looking for more buttons and macro functionality should look at similarly priced products from Logitech and others.
Review:
Apple is known for elegantly designed products, but unfortunately its input devices have fallen short over the last decade or so. That all changes today. The Magic Mouse is the first Apple mouse in probably twenty years that lives up to the elegance of the products it will be connected to.
The entire mouse is touch sensitive, and surprisingly it actually works without many ‘false’ reads. The Magic Mouse is smart enough to detect finger movement for scrolling even when my palm is resting on the device.
A ‘momentum’ setting in the software driver gives your Mac the same type of scrolling behavior as the iPhone. Fast flicks of the finger scroll faster, while slower movements give finer control. It gets a little flaky when a scrollable form is embedded on a webpage, but these are things that can get worked out with future driver releases. Best of all most of the mouse behavior works in virtual environments like VMWare and Parallels.
Magic Mouse also has a very satisfying mechanical clicking system. Like the trackpad on the new Macbooks, it just feels right. Right clicking is available, but it must be configured first in the control panel.
I am puzzled that while Apple prides itself on designing non-replaceable rechargeable batteries into its products, the Magic Mouse runs on AA’s. Batteries are included, but they are not rechargeable. You’ll need to get your own charger and batteries if you wish to use rechargeables. Battery life is decent, and after three full work days I’m still at 90%.
PROs
Beautiful design with an innovative touch sensitive surface
Satisfying clicking mechanism
Seamless bluetooth connectivity
CONs
Only has two possible button combinations (click and right click)
Apple software update required before the mouse is fully functional (as of 11-3-09)
Right clicking needs to be configured in the control panel first
You’ll need a seperate battery charger if you wish to use rechargeables
Windows users won’t get the same functionality as Mac owners at this time
2009-11-01 Weekly Twitter Update
November 1, 2009 by admin · View Comments
- Man Vs. Food. Awesome tv. Some dude just ate a 17.5 5+ pound burrito in 3 minutes and 10 seconds. #
- Ares I-X, test design for the shuttle's replacement, launches in 20 mins. @milesobrien has awesome live coverage – http://bit.ly/1SBPkh #fb #
- Cool to see @NASA make the trending topics again, this time with the Ares I-X launch. #
- Hey @cnn — your website is not displaying properly on Safari & Chrome this morning. Half the site is missing! #
- Congrats to @milesobrien on being named to the NASA advisory council! #
- Please send your trick or treaters to my house before I eat all of this candy. Thanks. #fb #
- Imminent impact @MacHeist (151.7,174.4) Witness it and get DaisyDisk ($20) for FREE to reclaim GBs of space on your Mac! http://macheist.com #
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Stuff I find interesting- Does the iPhone 4 hate the AT&T MicroCell? August 8, 2010
- FCC calls off net neutrality negotiations August 5, 2010
- The Nightmare Scenario August 4, 2010
- Long lived new windows June 10, 2010
- Vintage Apple II Sites June 10, 2010
