Amazon, Why oh Why are You Using Smartpost?

by

I am very concerned about Amazon’s recent switch to Smartpost for some orders.  I have been a huge fan and customer for years and a Prime customer for many of those.  Recently I have noticed Amazon’s switch to Smartpost for some orders.  I was concerned because i have heard horror stories about Smartpost but didnt have any issues.  Now that has changed and my first delivery was missed purely because of Smartpost.  I wrote an email to Amazon.  In the event that they don’t read or reply to customer mail and before I forgot I wanted to paste the text of my mail into this post in the hopes that someone from Amazon may find it.  I get trying to cut costs, but Smartpost is just bad.  My example below is only the first example i have had with Amazon, but not the first i know of personally or professionally.

My wife pointed out that this order was formula and other supplies for the baby.  The whole reason we buy from Amazon is their price and the fact that we can rely delivery dates.  Yes we can goto the store nearby in a pinch if a delivery doesn’t happen but at that point why should I be ordering from Amazon at all for that stuff?

Email message read:

I have used Amazon Prime for years.  Very recently my family has started receiving packages via USPS Smartpost instead of directly from UPS for free prime shipping.  Today i was supposed to receive the order listed however USPS was unable to deliver it since no one was home.  Lets ignore the fact that someone was home and tried to buzz them for now.  I got an email telling me in order to reschedule delivery i need to goto a website and fill out a form to ask for re-delivery.  UPS or Fedex don’t require this.  They just try 3 times.  Also a more minor note that my building’s super accepts packages and i have never had a problem with other carriers until your switch to smart post.  Your switch to Smartpost is a step in the wrong direction compared to Amazon’s typical stellar service.

Not to make threads since i am one customer but continued experiences like this will lead me to look at alternative vendors.  I use Amazon for many things because of its ease of ordering and because I know I will get my stuff without question.  Starting to have delivery problems will get myself and probably others to rethink your services no matter how cheap the shipping costs are.

My Speedmaster Returns

by

In early January I was distressed when one night I went to wind my watch one night and felt something give when I started to wind it.  After that there was no resistance when winding it and i knew something was wrong.  I was very concerned because my Speedmaster Professional is over 40 years old and I just had work done on it almost two years ago.  Servicing that watch is not cheap so I was not pleased that it could be expensive to fix.  I took it to the Omega store the next day and thankfully the watch was still under warranty.  That was a huge relief.  On the down side they said it would take up to six weeks to get fixed.  At that point I didn’t care because it was a free fix.

Today I went to pick up my newly fixed watch.  It seems to be working perfectly so I am happy.  it always has a tenancy to run fast so I am wondering if this work has addressed that, but I am not holding my breath on it.

A New MacBook Pro

by

My mother in law is fond of saying you don’t know if you don’t ask, or something to that effect.  i don’t always agree with that but most of the times I do.  Earlier this month I asked for a new laptop from work.  I have been without a work laptop since early summer (long story I wont go into).  I have used a desktop I had an my own Macbook Air.  My company allows personal Mac’s on a bring your own support type model.  I was wanting something more powerful than what my Air could provide and I really didn’t want to keep using my personal gear for work.  I researched my options and the Dell developer build laptop they offered was powerful but very big.  I liked the power but I didn’t’ really want to go back to a windows machine.  I looked and noticed i could get a Macbook Air bundle that wasn’t much more than the Dell and it was basically just as powerful.  Since I can do my entire job on a Mac i asked if i could just get one of the new Retina Display Pro’s instead of a Dell.  My boss got approval and said yes i could get it.  I was extremely pleased.

Today the computer arrived unexpectedly early at the office.  I was on vacation but got the tracking information.  I talked with MC and she agreed to let me go in to the office to pick up the computer and come home.  That would allow me to start migrating my stuff off the Air onto the new Pro before I got back to work after the new year.

The Pro is bigger than anything I have had since a 15″ Powerbook, but it was just as heavy as my 13″ Macbook Pro I used to have.  It is much heavier than the Air I had and that will take getting used, however that extra weight comes along with the more ram and much more powerful processor.  Not to mention the bigger screen.  I wont need the bigger screen most of the time but when i am not plugged into a monitor it will come in handy.

My 2nd (or 3rd, depending on how you look at it) Jawbone UP

by

Last week I got a new Jawbone UP.  So far I have been very pleased with it.  MC saw it and I was suprised that she was interested in one too.  She wants to work out more and it seemed like a good tool to motivate her.  After trying to see what colors I could get her I ended up back at the Apple store picking up another black band for her.  Only difference between hers and mine is hers is a smaller size.

We now are “compeeting” with each other and seeing our results.  I hope for both of us this gets us to be more active.  If anything it makes me smile every time I see the cute picture MC took for her profile picture.

My New Jawbone UP

by

Last year when Jawbone announced the UP I thought it was a super cool idea and I got one.  I wore it every day for a month or so until it broke.  My UP was one of the many defective units that ended up being recalled by Jawbone.  Jawbone was very cool and I got all my money back so there was no hard feelings.

I still thought the idea was great but the alternatives (Nike Fuelband or the Fitbit) didn’t apeal to me.  The fitbit clips onto your clothes so i wasn’t a fan of the idea.  The fuelband doesn’t track sleep and it needed charging often compaired to 10 days with the UP.  The Fuelband is also big.  I was pleasantly suprised when Jawbone reintroduced the UP (even thought they said they would I am always skeptical until it happens).  I was in the Grand Central Station Apple Store getting a gift card for my Niece for the holidays and I saw the UP, so I got myself one.

I am excited to see how much it works.  I like the ability to track sleep and activity still but they added better food tracking.  I hope to write more about it once I use it a bit.

Meeting up with old friends

by

My friends Joe & Karen and their little one Logan were in town.  We don’t get to see them very often so I wanted to be sure I could see them.  Unfortunately the night they were free MC couldn’t get out.  It is still difficult to schedule stuff with a 2 month old.  I ended up meeting up with them on my own right from work.

We went to Sparks Steakhouse for dinner.  We meet other friends of theirs in one big group since they weren’t in for that long to have separate meetups with everyone.  I was suprised how good Logan was at dinner and I hope Teagan will be the same way!

The food was good but it wasn’t as good as I remembered from when MC & I went here for my birthday two years ago.  Either way it was great to be able to see everyone even if it was just for dinner.

My new iPad Mini

by

Even though I am the owner of a Nexus 7 and an iPad 3 I was excited to pre-order the new iPad Mini.  I bought the Nexus 7 only because there wasn’t’ any smaller offering that Apple had.  I love my iPad but holding it on the train and using it when holding at all for any long period of time is uncomfortable.  At work I carry it around everywhere.  The Nexus 7 was great for the price but has always been slow and even though I want to give Android a chance it still doesn’t beat out iOS in my opinion.  With all those factors in mind I was pleased to order the iPad Mini.  I hope to be able to replace most if not all of what I use the full size iPad and the Nexus with the mini.

I opted for the 64gig version since i do use a lot of space.  I also wanted the LTE (Verizon) edition since I thought the Nexus 7 and the original iPad that i had with Wifi only was too limiting.  Being able to browse or check information away from wifi is worth the cost.

Now the jury is out on if I like it or not.

Automater Script Gone Bad

by

Automation is great, but you have to be careful.  A few months ago I setup a script to look in a folder were i download videos and based on certain criteria I gave the script move them to another folder.  It worked great but today I dont’ know what happened.  I noticed all the videos on an entire hard drive missing.  I ended up finding them in one folder.  It seems that the script started applying the rules to all folders on the drive not just the one I told it to.  I had to spend several hours re sorting everything back to were they came from.  I was trying to be careful since I didn’t want to put in the wrong place a home movie or accidentally delete one.

I think the script went bad when I moved to my new Mac Mini.  Even though I ran the migration wizard to copy my old computer setup to the new one I think something went wrong.  I am on my new machine for less than a week and I dont believe in coincidences.  I do believe I have it fixed it so it should be working correct now.

Android vs iOS

by

I am not a professional reviewer. I want to get that out there first thing. I have wrote about my opinions and comparisons of technology products in the past I am well aware that any number of people have written about this subject. I am writing about it because I continually try to be open minded and it has been very difficult to do so when comparing IOS to Android.

I can safely say that I’ve used regularly all of the major mobile operating systems in the past 10 years. I have owned many generation Treo’s with the Palm OS. I can’t even count the number of blackberries I’ve had. I have used three or four Symbian devices and loved my Nokia E60 for the 6 or 8 months I had it before I got my iPhone 3G.  I have tried numerous Android devices, and even had a few windows mobile phones.  I mention all that because I am not someone who just gets Apple stuff by default.  I look like that but that is a credit to Apple for making great devices and software.  I actually have only been buying Android devices because I didn’t want to be so reliant on Apple. My observations started between Android & iOS only because I wanted to see what was out there.

As a technology person on paper iOS has problems and Android looks promising.  What I mean by that is if I read anywhere else that an operating system and an ecosystem was so restrictive as Apple’s was I probably wouldn’t try it.  When you dig a little deeper that restrictiveness some of my Android friends like to complain about actually makes some sense.  it provides for a more stable phone.  It really does.  I have seen it between my iPhone and several Android devices.  I do not want to go back to the days were I reboot my phone every few hours like i did with my Treo 600.  Lack of true multi-tasking on iOS is another item that when it was announced iOS would be that restrictive i was turned off by it.  Now Apple has come up with interesting ways to let you think you have multitasking but still limiting it and thus reducing power usage.  Restrictive yes, but in the end it probably helps the overall experience.

On the other hand that restrictiveness has a drawback.  On my Galaxy Nexus I love the Locale app that changes settings based on my location and time of day.  My ringer goes off at night except for some work numbers.  My Google Voice # would change to point to my desk phone when I was at work and Skype when I was at home.  Come on that is cool.  Using that same example though, one of the best plugin’s for that app has a big note saying it is buggy and the developer does not suggest using it.  Really? If it crashes the phone then block it.  Apple would.  I know its heavy handed but the idea here is to be transparent as possible but have the customers interests at heart.

There are plenty more examples.  The last big one i would highlight is the fact that iOS is again restrictive on how the UI of apps look.  Sounds bad on paper, its apple being restrictive again.  Only problem is have you looked at Android apps?  How about comparing them to iOS apps.  Not just any iOS apps.  Compare something to the same app on iOS.  Apples restrictiveness gives the customer a consistent user experience.  Androids openness give you an inconsistent experience.  As a user i have been frustrated by this.  Heck I still don’t know what some of the dam icons mean on my Nexus 7.  Apple uses icons also but they just come across as more intuitive.  Getting back to that app comparison.  I have used many apps on both platforms.  When I bought my first Android phone that is what i did.  I went through making sure i could get the same experience on Android I had with iOS.  For the most part i found the same apps for Android that i had on iOS or ones that did the same thing.  Problem was they weren’t comparable.  Sometimes in features, but mostly in general look and feel and polish.  Some have improved over time but Apple still has better looking apps.  Foursquare, Facebook, Lastpass, Yelp, to name a few of the ones that I have had issues with.  The last aspect of user experience I would question is Exchange mail support.  Its built in to both platforms now but have you used the email app on Android.  Not the Gmail app because that is actually a great app.  I do give them credit for that.  I am talking about the regular email app.  Or the calendar app.  Using them on Android for my exchange mail was horrible.  It is just plain ugly and clunky to use.  iOS mail app may have its problems but it is intuitive and nice to look at.  Even the 3rd party apps such as Touchdown were horrible looking and I stopped using them after their trial ended.  That exchange limitation alone is a show stopper for me.

The theme I have seen with Android is that the apps work but they leave me wanting to go back to my iPhone or iPad.  Thats the problem.  I have gotten these devices wanting to be swept away and to sell my iOS stuff on eBay, but every time I get one I end up back with Apple.  Android keeps getting better but its been 4 years and they still aren’t that close in my opinion.

By now its clear I am in the Apple camp, but I really don’t want to be.  Given the opportunity I would switch.  The 5 or more Android phones I have had since using iPhones are an indication I do want to try.  Of course in the end I have a new iPhone 5 and an iPad Mini on order.  With those purchases Apple has locked me in for another year or two.  I will see how the landscape looks then, and maybe my own personal opinion may change.

 

We Have Ourselves a Red Head (For Now)

by

On Sunday we went to the Doctor for Teagan.  MC was concerned about some dry skin on her face.  In the end Teagan is fine after some over the counter lotions, but while we were there the doctor confirmed that we have a red head on our hands!  A few people have commented about her hair having a red tint to it.  I haven’t seen it, but she doesn’t have much hair yet so we were waiting for it to come in more to be sure.  The doctor took one look at her and was like yup, she will have red hair.  Its a totally unimportant piece of information but I wanted to know.  Turns out MC was a red head as a kid.  How much red she had is open for debate.  It was either much redder than Teagan or it was just a little bit.  Either way as MC got older it got darker and she has brown hair now.  We are not sure if Teagan will have the same thing happen.  I kind of hope it doesn’t go away.  It is distinctive being the rarest hair type, even though apparently people in Australia and the UK look down on people with red hair.

The doctor also thinks that she will have hazel eyes.  He saw some brown and some blue when checking her out so his prediction is hazel.  We will wait to see on if that turns out to be true.  I am just hopeful she has good vision especially since I don’t.  So far she is an alert and active baby and that’s whats important.