File this under office pranks!
We have a cube decorating tradition here, but this one is pretty good, apparently it was a 30th birthday? Maybe 40th?
Passed on by a co-worker.
Nice job!
The photos don’t show it but apparently the even got pens, paper clips, post-its.
Sweet!
Tags: aluminum, Fun, Office, Office_pranks, tin, foil, tin_foil
OK, so I guess we’re all just idiots.
Yesterday Metallica finally caved in and is now available via iTunes.
As most of the world knows, Metallica has been one of the biggest cry babies against electronic distribution of music since it’s inception. They single handedly turned over 30,000 names of Napster users back in the day, who quite frankly probably had a lot to do with their success.
Now I’m not advocating piracy but I can’t remember the last time I actually listened to Metallica in anything other than digital form on anything other than an mp3 player. Yes, I own the albums and ripped my own mp3s and other formats. I also deleted the crap that I didn’t want to listen too as well.
That’s the beauty of iTunes and the digital format. Pay for what you want and not what you don’t. This is a good thing. At .99 cents a tune (or less), these yahoo’s make more off of me (or anyone for that matter) that buys (3) songs, than a person buying their whole physical album. But they don’t get it.
They don’t get it or didn’t, but suddenly they see the light.
I don’t know maybe they are spending money too quickly and starting to see some red in their financial statements or something and thus the move to iTunes.
For a band that used to be hard core against electronic distribution and pull a 180 like this, something isn’t right. You’re either against it by principle or you’re not.
I you don’t see the Beatles, or Zeppelin caving in do ya?
Buncha pansies.
Today I skipped my Treo 700p across the parking lot.
I took a phone call while packing up my motorcycle which disrupted my routine. I ended up leaving the phone on my laptop bag. As I pulled away from my spot I heard it crash to the ground and caught a glimps of it skipping across the lot. Ouch!
I stopped, picked up the back, and battery then turned it over. It’s Dead Jim!
Off to the phone store I go, Verizon of course. I’ve carried insurance ever since I ran over a Nokia with a lawn mower and exploded it (literally, the battery was like a small bomb). That was about 5 years ago.
I thought to myself, this should be easy, the store was empty.
Verizon person: Can I help you?
Me: Yes, do you have any 700p’s in stock?
Verizon person: I think so.
Me: Good, I’ll need one, I just dropped my phone.
Verizon person: Oh well you’ll have to pay retail.
Me: Uh, no, I have the insurance.
Verizon person: Oh, we don’t do insurance claims, you have to call and 800 number.
Me: OK, what’s that number.
Verizon person: Fiddles around for a minute, calls information, and gives me the number.
Me: OK, thanks.
Verizon person: You know there’s a $50 deductible.
Me: No, I had forgotten that part, but it’s still cheaper than retail.
Let’s see 5 years at roughly $6 per month = 12x5x6= $360
I’ve roughly made my investment in the insurance back then. Of course there is the $50 deductible, and hassle of not having a phone for 48 plus hours and the stores can’t do the swap. But it still beats retail. (Been there done that, no good).
So I get home and dial them up. I listen to 3 minutes of voice mail garbage about fraud and finally get to put in my phone number and start my claim. I then get booted over to an auto attendant/Voice command automated claim processing application.
and…… get disconnected.
Start all over.
After 15 minutes I get through that, and get transferred to a very nice lady who wraps things up. Which is what I should have gotten in the first place. Screw all that automated crap. It was way too slow. So in 48 hours they are shipping me a new phone and I get to return the damaged one above.
Of course if I have a second claim in 24 months, I get cancelled and no longer get to have the insurance. Nice.
All in all though the experience wasn’t too hateful.
-Poohbah
Tags: 700p, cell_phone, gadgets, insurance, Opinion, phone, Verizon
See Engadget. Billboard, and Jupiter Research.
I have severe doubts that Microsoft can make a go of this. Apple knows what it’s doing and has a clear focus and vision about consumer products that so far we haven’t seen from MS, xbox notwithstanding.
But Microsoft could do well with this if they show they are serious in these areas:
1. Kill the Windows Media Player. It’s way too cluttered. And Ugly. Compare media player and iTunes side by side. See what I mean? Your stuff looks more like RealPlayer than something I’d actually want on my desktop. Cool kids hate RealPlayer.
2. Whatever you replace the media player with, make it cross platform. not that many mac buyers will buy a zune, but it will show the market you’re serious about the new platform, and that this is not just about extending the windows alien face hugger farther into our life. Nothing would shock people more (in a good way), than having an MS application run natively on linux and mac)
3. Resist featuritis. iPod is good not because of the many features, but because the few features it does execute, it executes flawlessly.
I doubt you’ll get these details right, but what the heck, you have money to burn right? At least we’ll spin up a few more flash memory fab plants and probably cause memory prices to drop. That’s gonna be a good thing.
Darik’s Boot and Nuke (“DBAN”) is a self-contained boot floppy that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.
Well let’s see, 10 months to the date from the day I received my the settlement letter. I get my check.
Yes, it was a long road to hoe. But finally I suppose it paid off. I maxxed out the ‘reward’ by picking off a Treo 650 from their special purchase page, which ended up costing me about $20 more than I paid for the v710.
Of course they dropped the price of the Treo-650 about a week later, and the Treo 700p shipped too, but that’s OK. In the end, it all worked out.
Who’d a thunk it?
Tags: check, gadgets, settlement, v710, Verizon, phone