Phone Upgrade Nightmare

I had such a wonderful experience trying to upgrade my phone from the Blackberry Tour to the new 4G Samsung Epic. First, I would just like to say that I loved the phone features, the applications and the look and feel of the Samsung Epic. However, it's hardly worth having a phone packed with so much punch when you can't keep a battery life of more than a quarter of a day.

Smartphones, learn a lesson here. Stop cutting corners and selling the new features and the great looks through marketing gimmicks. You're going to have returns (a bunch of them too) because people are not going to keep these phones, at least not the people who value the dollars that they earn. I'm not going to pay for a phone and a plan when I have to see my battery life tick away right before my eyes. It's not normal to watch a battery drain a quarter of the way by 9:30 in the morning!

Either redesign your software and processors or provide a bigger battery to deal with the ill-designed, inefficient Operating Systems. I would suggest the involved companies hire more experienced developers and engineers, but that would just cost too much of THEIR time and money. And why did they charge me a re-stocking fee when I returned a phone that was obviously defective? Yes, I consider a poorly functioning phone to be defective, so sorry if every single one of them functions the same. It just means that every single one of them is defective.

Consider this:

For every 100 customers, say 25 make a return at $35.00 for a re-stocking fee. That's $850.00.

If you charge $10.00 per each new phone (call it a new phone service fee and deduct it out of the rebate scam already in place) you can do away with the $35.00 re-stocking fee (we'll get into why a re-stocking fee is bad business later on).

If you have 10,000 customers who bought new phones and 2,500 made a return in the old system,you made $87,500.

However...

If you have 10,000 customers who bought new phones and 2,500 made a return in the new improved Diane Carlisle system, you made $100,000.

$100,000 new system
-$87,500 old system

This way of doing business would yield $12,500 more per 10,000 customers. You do the math, I've been drinking beer.

You would make a profit of $1,250,000 per million customers over the old way of doing business, and you won't piss off your customers by charging them a re-stocking fee after they're already pissed off and disappointed.

Charging re-stocking fees is bad customer service. Why do you think someone would change their mind about wanting one of your phones? Maybe because it's a crappy phone? If you put out a product that some people don't like, isn't it pretty shitty to then charge them $35.00 for the inconvenience of YOUR selling them a crappy product? STOP SELLING CRAPPY PRODUCTS! Then you won't have to worry about a re-stocking fee.

Customers are almost always happy to pay a lesser fee up front as a "just in case I want to return it later" security blanket. It's much better business than the "you didn't read the fine print you dumbass" knife in the back.

JavaScript for Xpages (8.5)

Well, I requested a new course at work, JavaScript for Xpages (8.5) and my request was approved! This is the reward I get for wrapping up a 6-month project. I think it is well worth it because I get to learn something new. I may or may not be able to utilize the acquired knowledge in a future project, we'll see.

This course is offered by The Learning Continuum Company, Ltd. (TLCC) at a cost of $499.00. The sale ends on May 5th. Get it here TLCC JavaScript for Xpages. So what do I think of JavaScript for Xpages (8.5)?

The layout of the course materials is a good one. It's easy to follow and the brief instruction on the Domino Designer Interface during the Introduction of the course made the steps flow so easily. I didn't feel lost at all. Maybe it's because I've been using Domino Designer for 4 years, just never got into the Xpage features. I'm more of a forms, views and frames person. I have to break away from that!

As is the case with all new programming courses you have to go through the traditional "Hello World" routine that only serves to remind you that you are a newbie, yet again --but only to the syntax of the new language. Yea, it's just script. So what?

I can't wait to get past the Intro and move on to the good stuff. I think I'm going to have 21 hours of a whole lot of fun today and next week. I'll probably author a post-mortem blog entry when I'm done with this course.

alert('Snoopy Dance!!')

I'm Boycotting Bill Maher

I don't agree with many of Sarah Palin's views, some maybe, certainly not all. But I sure as hell admire the woman for putting herself out there knowing that scum like Bill Maher will try and demonize her the way he did by calling her a "dumb twat".

Bill, I won't refer to you as any body part, but how about this? The next time you run your mouth about another woman that you can't stand, do us all a huge favor and put a giant condom over your head so you don't spread that nasty disease that you're carrying. It's called pure ugliness. I hope someone finds a cure for you.

When Bill got wind of this post, he wasn't very happy. Here's what he sent me:

Wow, Bill. I thought you had more class than that. You've proven me wrong.

The Burger King Value Meal Scam

So, when you order off the value menu at Burger King you must pay $.01 extra. Why? If you advertise something as being a “value” meal, isn’t that misleading when it costs more to purchase the “value” meal than if you just ordered everything individually?

Indicated on the menu for the individual items:

Double Stacker $2.00
Medium Fries $1.99
Medium Drink $1.89

Here’s my receipt. I think I can do the math here, taxes and all:

I put a red box around the phone number on the receipt just so you know, don’t bother calling that number because you have to be “invited” to make that call. You have to have an “invitation” code in order to take their “satisfaction survey”. They need to get a programmer to change this, take this phone number off the receipt and ONLY print it on the piece of paper that spits out the “invitation” code. You know?

I’ll get back to the word “value” now. Where is this added value? I think Burger King receives value in it, of course, because they get an extra $.01. With this extra $.01 they steal from their customers, they are that much closer to reaching their ROI for the user-friendly cash registers they purchase so they can cut back on the “training” time it takes to show the new guy how to operate something slightly more complex, their brain.

Next time I go to Burger King I’m NOT going to order the #11; I’m going to order a Double Stacker and when they ask me if I want the value meal I’m going to say, “No, but give me a medium order of fries and a medium diet coke.”

I can’t wait to hear, “Ma’am that would make it a value meal.” I’m just that ready to be a bitch about it.

Winning, duh

I don't think seeing my work in print is a big deal to me. I would rather have one person really love what I wrote, that one person being me, rather than many who purchased it and thought it was just okay.




I used a publishing tool once to build a PDF of one of my stories: in Times New Roman 12-point font, double-spaced with one-inch margins. I was like, "Cool, looks like the same kind of writing in books I've purchased." Then I thought how awful it must be to have an editing job, hoping that your slush pile readers are sending you something really juicy...only to discover it's another one of THOSE stories! The horror of it all, not only does it read like all others, it LOOKS like a standard manuscript....ARRRRGH! Somebody shoot me, NOW.



All joking aside, it would be nice to become a published author some day, but I have a full-time job and a family that consume almost all of my time. The time and effort required to polish a piece of work for submission would be strenuous, which is the one thing I try to avoid. Even if I did all that work, a rejection would be like throwing salt into an open wound.



That's why I blog instead. I promise I won't create a Charlie Sheen "winning" entry for entertainment. I’ll post a video instead.

WINNING, duh.

Charlie Sheen's Winning Recipes from Charlie Sheen