The Apple TV a Guaranteed Disappointment

It's a slow news week, so people of course start talking about the Apple TV, not the Apple TV, but the Apple TV that will make everyone's wishes come true Apple TV.  Of course the problem being is everyone wishes are different, and if Apple did make a TV that met everyones' wishes no one would want it because it would be hideous.   So I going to predict right here and now, if and when the Apple TV comes out.  There be a dozen articles on how disappointing it is and that so much more was expected written before the first week of release is over.   

Last night I was on Google Plus and I was reading a post by +Kol Tregaskes about Google Currents. So I decided to set up a Google Currents edition of my own. At first it was fairly simple you can add rss feeds, articles from Epub, google docs, photo and video channels and social updates. That part was easy and I completed without much problem. Once you have everything set up you are given the option to distribute the content, that is where the trouble came. In order to distribute the content you have to verify that you are the owner of said content. There was no problem verifying my Blogger account Klandwehrs Window to the World or my Google plus account. This will only publish your public listings, so if you publish to individual circles, it may not be much use. The real problem came when I tried to verify my Tumblr blog. The problem was a tired user (me) and less then clear directions from the various web sites I visited. The Google Webmaster gives you a snippet that you have to place in your Tumblr template. The direction say to place the snippet after the , its not clear whether you are suppose to place the snippet after the actual symbol < heading > or after the < /heading > symbol so its between the heading and the body. The articles seemed indicate that the snippet went after the < heading > symbol, so I tried to place it right after that symbol, no go. Then I tried it one line down, still no go. After about an hour of working on it and almost ready to give up, I finally realized that the snippet went after the < /head > symbol, between the heading and the body. At point it gives you a url that you can give to your friends or post to Twitter and Facebook or Google Plus.   I am still working on it, but I like the idea. 

What's Wrong with American Business

My husband works for a company that manufactures nickel products including sheets, wires, rolls...etc for everything from airplane parts to generators.  Each week they have a Thursday meeting, where they set up goals and check on their progress, which sounds really nice and I am sure there is some book that tells management that this is how it is done.  The problem is the goals have nothing to do with reality.  One meeting they were told they had to ship 50x of one of the products, when one of them mentioned that they only had orders for 25x of this product, it didn't matter they had to ship 50x.  Which left half the meeting scratching their head trying to figure out how they were going to show that they shipped 50x, when the order was for only 25x.    Then one week, the upper management was mad because they weren't meeting a quota.  One of the reasons they weren't meeting their quota was because the presses and furnaces kept breaking down.  The punishment for not meeting the quota, was the company wasn't going to fix their machines, until they met their quota.  So the company answer to them not meeting their quota was not to fix the very problem that caused them not to meet their quota.  The reason for all these quotas,  has nothing to do with what there customers want, it has to do with what Wall Street wants and the upper managements stock portfolio.  The company is not serving their customers it is serving Wall Street and that is the problem with much of American Business today.

TiVo and Me

How not to do Customer Service by TiVo

I have been a TiVo customer since 2005 and am a big fan of the box and how it works. I am not a big fan of their customer service however. In the middle of October I decided to cancel the service on my Series 3 TiVo, I wasn’t using the box anymore and was going to get rid of it. So I called TiVo to cancel the service on it. The first thing that is irritating is they ask you why you are cancelling the service, saying your not using it anymore or your getting rid of it is not enough, you have to specifically tell them why you are getting rid of it (as if it is any of their business). Once I answered the question to their satisfaction, they then tried to up sell me to buy a Premier TiVo, despite the fact I had told them I wasn’t interested at this time. Finally they cancelled my service, however as I told my husband you almost have to get nasty to get them to do what you want.

About a week later I was looking at my banking site and noticed that TiVo had withdrawn $79.00 from my account for a termination fee. I wasn’t happy, but I remembered I had changed by contract back in July and it is a yearly contract so I accepted it. On Tuesday I got a letter in the mail from TiVo saying I was late with my payment and if they didn’t receive it with 2 weeks they were going to send me to collections. Mind you this was the same payment they had pulled from my bank account a week and a half before. So I called TiVo back and confirmed the payment was received, when I asked why the letter was sent out, the csr did not have a good answer, but assured me everything was fine on my account. I hung up the phone, thinking I was finished with TiVo. However today I was on my bank account again and I noticed my bank account was $76.00 lower then it should have been. When I looked at the history sure enough TiVo had removed $76.00 for the second time. When I called TiVo back they told me it was already set to be credited back, but it could take up to two days for the process to finish. So I now have to wait two days to get my money back, which by the way I was going to use to pay my cellphone bill, which will now be a day late, along with the fact if I hadn’t looked at my banking Web site and tried to pay the bill it would have overdrawn my account. In case you are still wondering, yes I am pissed off, what makes me even angrier is the TiVo box is a great product, but their customer service makes me want to stop using their product altogether.