Saturday, June 02, 2007
Bikes that rock
Our next door neighbour had some visitors today. These two awesome bikes rolled up the drive. The one on the left is a complete custom build by its owner. Just look at the tyres on it.
The sound as they pulled away was incredible. It was great the kids were so interested so I could hang around and see the bikes without looking like too much of a geek with my camera phone.
More wheels within wheels, PS3/PSP connectivity over the web
Today, mainly because the Xbox360 is being repaired, I sparked up the PS3 and the PSP. The most recent updates on both these devices launched us into a world of interconnectedness.
Previously the remote play function allowed the humble PSP to act as the wireless user interface for the might of the PS3.
So, the PS3 did the rendering of things and sent screen updates over the local network to the PSP.
Now however, if both machines are signed onto the wide world interweb, anywhere, the PS3 will act as a server in remote play to the PSP. So you can 'securely' get at your content like photos and videos on the PS3 in your home with your remote PSP device.
Just to add to it, I took this picture using the N95, wirelessly pumped it to flickr. It is the PSP talking via the web to my PS3 rendering the excellent photo slideshow.
I then used the PSP to talk to the PS3 web browser and twittered the fact I was doing.
this.
So to be clear, or try to. My hand held PSP was on the external internet, talking into my house to my PS3 which was talking back out to the web and doing some interaction with the world.
The more connections and services that things can swap around responsibility with the easier it is to just do what you need to do when you need to do it.
Very clever face recognition? Its fun either way
As per usual we end up following one another around the wide world interweb.
I popped onto facebook to add some friend requests and saw that roo had posted a celebrity look alike photo face doodah from myheritage.com
I had to have a go. The results are a little surpring depending on the photo
I did try my AV in SL, but it was having trouble finding a face, and then when I manually set it it forgets to make a collage
I popped onto facebook to add some friend requests and saw that roo had posted a celebrity look alike photo face doodah from myheritage.com
I had to have a go. The results are a little surpring depending on the photo
I did try my AV in SL, but it was having trouble finding a face, and then when I manually set it it forgets to make a collage
Friday, June 01, 2007
More Perplexcity addicts
Jan's cousin Colin came to visit the last few days. Last year we had all spent an evening without the games consoles on whilst we showed him the season 1 perplexcity cards.
So now season 2 is here, and so we got him going on a new set of cards from Mindcandy.
He got quite a few silvers in his set of cards.
we also got talking about what he had heard happened at the Radio 1 big weekend, which is all part of some things talked about in the ARG part of perplexcity.
The big weekend last year was a watershed when Rivers Run Red ran the woodstock of the virtual world with the live event in Second Life.
Also perplexcity is using twitter now aswell :-)
Mark Wallace over at 3pointd has also made some references to perplexcity and ARG's
Now I really must get on and solve some cards, I just need this crazy personal appearance roller coaster to stop
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Dear Alan Day Honda portsmouth you are completely useless
Dear all, I know its a bit of a niche but Alan Day Honda in porstmouth should be avoided at all cost.
Why? Well the work customer and service really does not seem to be part of their make up.
We have bought an FRV from them. A nice car. BUT..... Aside for the incompetent sales approach and the weeks of unreturned calls once the car was ordered, that required me to go the garage and get in their face, they then found the car and handed it over.
Well, hand over, yes right. The car did not start, so they had to hit the battery with a booster. Great.... Understandable. Then when Jan drove off the entire car has no power, engine and warning lights on. It takes us 20 mintues to negotiate back to the garage.
Sudddenly many Honda people turn up "oh this never happens" like I give a toss! it is happening and it is happening to us. The car is borked.
So they whisk it of, the less than competent salesman who we had dealt with just cant seem to cope. The bosses whisk the car out back. Then return to say, well it needs an ECu reset, you know cars and computers and modern stuff.
Anyway, they give us the demo car, we drive home. They say "we will call you in the morning". This was a good test as they seldom call back. Why? becuase they really do not give a stuff about customers and service. Anyway, no big surprise NO CALL.
So they have the money, we have the demo car, they have the new one.
At 5pm we phone to say, "hey". They make some crap excuse "oh we cant mess with it its a new car we cant mess with it without approval and ...THEY HAVE NOT CALLED US BACK" no sh1t! Their track record of never calling us back must pervade the company.
Anyway. we have no new car, they are the worst firm I have EVER come across. No excuses, this is not isloted, this is not one or two forgivable cockups.
This is Alan Day honda porstmouth being the most useless set of people for talking to customers. So the car is broken, TALK TO US !
I cannot imagine ignoring a customer, or someone that I say "I will call you" However its not just the main salesman we talked to, its the sales manager too.
I am at a loss as to what to do.
Oh and when picking up the car I ask "So the mp3 connector then?" reply "Oh I am not the expert on that you need to talk to parts". I go and see parts "No mate no idea".
Ok so its only a 3.5mm jack but for gods sake its a 18K car. You must know about the damn wire.
Incompetent Alan Day honda. I dont care what they do now, they need to not have any customers any more they dont deserve them.
We are of course going to complain on the more official channels, we have a complete record of how completely rubbish they are, but ..... Damn this is the worst customer service I have ever received and I am a brit !
*****Update
We seem to be getting some movement now on getting the thing fixed, and also in getting told what is going on. After a call just now I am reassured that this will be rectified, of course there is a long way to go to build our customer satisfaction back up, and its not fixed until we have the car and it all working.
Apparenly part of the standard engine management system is not behaving and the part needs to be swapped out, which means it has to be delivered first. Also a slight delay because "Honda Technical" were out on training all day yesterday and ignoring dealers. So lets see. where this goes and if I morph this post title over time.
******* yet more updates
So they ordered the ECU "it will be here tuesday". Tuesday comes and its "Oh, Honda did not send it it was out of stock". So today (wednesday) the demo car was taken back, the ECU was ripped from it and popped into the "new" car. Jan came home somewhat deflated. Its a new car, but still the experience is not yet done.
For a start they need to put the new new part in if it ever turns up, they also did not do the simple thing of putting any mats in the car, and finally sticking the ipod lead in (which they will do later) is not a big deal its just a start. But then given the salesman pretended he was throwing in the scotchguarded seats when we bought the car only to find its standard, I am not surprised.
So The complete log has not been sent to Alan Day, we have a car. The matter is not closed. If they work VERY VERY hard, and I am not talking a £10 cable or £20 set of mats then I may archive this post. However, for now, this post still stands and service like this, when spending this amount of money is not acceptable.
Why? Well the work customer and service really does not seem to be part of their make up.
We have bought an FRV from them. A nice car. BUT..... Aside for the incompetent sales approach and the weeks of unreturned calls once the car was ordered, that required me to go the garage and get in their face, they then found the car and handed it over.
Well, hand over, yes right. The car did not start, so they had to hit the battery with a booster. Great.... Understandable. Then when Jan drove off the entire car has no power, engine and warning lights on. It takes us 20 mintues to negotiate back to the garage.
Sudddenly many Honda people turn up "oh this never happens" like I give a toss! it is happening and it is happening to us. The car is borked.
So they whisk it of, the less than competent salesman who we had dealt with just cant seem to cope. The bosses whisk the car out back. Then return to say, well it needs an ECu reset, you know cars and computers and modern stuff.
Anyway, they give us the demo car, we drive home. They say "we will call you in the morning". This was a good test as they seldom call back. Why? becuase they really do not give a stuff about customers and service. Anyway, no big surprise NO CALL.
So they have the money, we have the demo car, they have the new one.
At 5pm we phone to say, "hey". They make some crap excuse "oh we cant mess with it its a new car we cant mess with it without approval and ...THEY HAVE NOT CALLED US BACK" no sh1t! Their track record of never calling us back must pervade the company.
Anyway. we have no new car, they are the worst firm I have EVER come across. No excuses, this is not isloted, this is not one or two forgivable cockups.
This is Alan Day honda porstmouth being the most useless set of people for talking to customers. So the car is broken, TALK TO US !
I cannot imagine ignoring a customer, or someone that I say "I will call you" However its not just the main salesman we talked to, its the sales manager too.
I am at a loss as to what to do.
Oh and when picking up the car I ask "So the mp3 connector then?" reply "Oh I am not the expert on that you need to talk to parts". I go and see parts "No mate no idea".
Ok so its only a 3.5mm jack but for gods sake its a 18K car. You must know about the damn wire.
Incompetent Alan Day honda. I dont care what they do now, they need to not have any customers any more they dont deserve them.
We are of course going to complain on the more official channels, we have a complete record of how completely rubbish they are, but ..... Damn this is the worst customer service I have ever received and I am a brit !
*****Update
We seem to be getting some movement now on getting the thing fixed, and also in getting told what is going on. After a call just now I am reassured that this will be rectified, of course there is a long way to go to build our customer satisfaction back up, and its not fixed until we have the car and it all working.
Apparenly part of the standard engine management system is not behaving and the part needs to be swapped out, which means it has to be delivered first. Also a slight delay because "Honda Technical" were out on training all day yesterday and ignoring dealers. So lets see. where this goes and if I morph this post title over time.
******* yet more updates
So they ordered the ECU "it will be here tuesday". Tuesday comes and its "Oh, Honda did not send it it was out of stock". So today (wednesday) the demo car was taken back, the ECU was ripped from it and popped into the "new" car. Jan came home somewhat deflated. Its a new car, but still the experience is not yet done.
For a start they need to put the new new part in if it ever turns up, they also did not do the simple thing of putting any mats in the car, and finally sticking the ipod lead in (which they will do later) is not a big deal its just a start. But then given the salesman pretended he was throwing in the scotchguarded seats when we bought the car only to find its standard, I am not surprised.
So The complete log has not been sent to Alan Day, we have a car. The matter is not closed. If they work VERY VERY hard, and I am not talking a £10 cable or £20 set of mats then I may archive this post. However, for now, this post still stands and service like this, when spending this amount of money is not acceptable.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Carphone warehouse customer service?
I bought my n95 from the carphone warehouse sveral weeks ago. As part of the deal I was to get 3 years of the navigation service. I did not have anything through after a few weeks so went to ask. I got told that everyone was waiting and I shoudl just sit tight. Whilst waiting i did get a call from "customer service" threatening to mug me in order to prove I needed the insurance, but they were not about to explain about my sat nav voucher.
Today though this arrived. A personalized brochure with all sorts of things printed on it. Its all very good and very nice, even moderately well done. I am not sure though that that makes up for the months delay? If they had just mailed me a licenced number first and then sent the pretty leaflet that would have been better?
Also I must remember to rotate the clip from teh case out of the way of the lens doh!
Facebook, it seems to be doing some neat things
Being a digital native, or whatever we call ourselves, I had finally got around to signing up to facebook. For some reason this is going to break my 'i am epredator online' handle, to the point that even on onxiam it decided not to show up when I added facebook.
I had just sort of added myself to facebook, and thought I would go back to it later, but now people are finding me and some really old friends who had lost touch are turning up. This is really encouraging.
So apologies to people who found me and were waiting on freind responses. I had not got into the whole facebook mode. What I need is a social network aggregator that acts as a single point of contact, like onxiam but for stuff.
Networkr or some such web2.0 name :-) Of course that is unlikely to happen, but for now it looks like I am sucked into facebook as it has provided me with something that some of the other sites have not.
I had just sort of added myself to facebook, and thought I would go back to it later, but now people are finding me and some really old friends who had lost touch are turning up. This is really encouraging.
So apologies to people who found me and were waiting on freind responses. I had not got into the whole facebook mode. What I need is a social network aggregator that acts as a single point of contact, like onxiam but for stuff.
Networkr or some such web2.0 name :-) Of course that is unlikely to happen, but for now it looks like I am sucked into facebook as it has provided me with something that some of the other sites have not.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
