Tag Archives: Consumer

Where Did You Shop This Christmas?

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In GNC #539, Todd related the problems that brick’n’mortar stores were having competing against the online retailers and I agree entirely with Todd’s sentiments. While I’m happy to use Amazon et al for specialised purchases or gifts to faraway relatives, I now regularly buy from local stores to try and keep them in business.

And do you know what?  Although it started out as a point of principle, I’m actually discovering that I can sometimes get things cheaper or else I get some freebies thrown in.

To illustrate, while shopping this Christmas, I would price goods on Amazon and then go into town to see what I could get in the real world.

1) In a local toy shop, K’Nex was being sold 2-for-1 at a price only 10% more expensive than Amazon.  Gift just went twice as far.

2) In a sports shop, a “brand name” golfing jumper was being sold with a free box of six golf balls, again at a price very similar to online golfing retailers.  The recipient is always in the water with his shots anyway….

3) The main bookstore was offering best-sellers on three for the price of two, basically a third off, pretty much matching Amazon.  Great for stocking fillers.

So I encourage you to get off your backside and at least see if your local stores can come close to matching the online retailers.  Sure, if they’re wildly uncompetitive, walk away, but at least try to keep some of your money in local circulation.  Local businesses support other local business and we need them to keep our communities thriving.

Unscrupulous Scruples: Watch where you click.

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antivirus

I’ve been seeing this more and more. You have to upgrade a product – a home (free) edition or something. You press the link and it sends you to a page that talks about upgrading. In fact, everything this page screams is “We don’t have the free version, you must buy an upgrade to continue”.

But if you scan the page, you see on the bottom in small print “No thanks. Register the Free version”.

Another case in point: I was searching for Drivers for a friends computer. I got to the companies webpage and selected what I thought was the driver. Instead, it shuttled me to download a program that would then collect information on my PC and find the right drivers.

It was not malware, but more of Bloatware. And that program wasn’t afraid to do the same thing – ask to install more Bloatware.

This practice is on the verge of misleading. You have to really scan pages to make sure you are selecting the right option.

Case in point #2: There is a great website out there that helps webmasters. We won’t get into the name, because this is not a witch hunt. I will say that when you purchase something on their site, you are taken to a page that looks like you have to press an “OK” button. However, this button is not to OK the purchase, but to add additional services. By scanning down the page, you find the “No thanks – Continue” option stuffed in the bottom part of the page.

In advertising creation, you learn a little trick. When an eye hits an ad, they instinctively start in the middle and work clockwise around the ad. Therefore, you put your “Hook” in the middle and the other items on the sides, including the name of the product.

What these sites have done is made the ad, but then put the “No thanks” in a spot where upon first glance, the eye will miss.

I just bought my ticket for Blogworld / New Media Expo. I used a discount site to purchase the plane ticket and hotel. After making the initial purchase, I was inundated with options I should look at. I suppose it’s so the discount site can offer lower fares. Once again, I had to carefully scan for the “No Thanks” option, although those other buttons looked like they were part of the processing.

Recently, people have been finding extra charges on their credit cards. They went to an online shopping site and chose the great deal of the day. They then pressed a button that looked legitimate to sign up for monthly deals (or something like that). Of course, those deals came with a price.

I really think that the FTC needs to start recognizing these little nuances in websites. It would be like if you went to the grocery store and the clerk started asking “Should I also add in a gallon of milk?” even if you didn’t grab milk.

As for this upgrade – I understand you need to make money off the product, but being sneaky about doing it is only going to make me go somewhere else. Put the “No thanks” in a more visible area. The consumer will buy your product if they don’t feel they are getting swindled.

Google can help, Google can hurt

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There are many great things that Google has come out with in the last couple years. I have been all for what they accomplished, even if I don’t use everything. But the last couple ideas haven’t been warmly accepted by the IT populous.We’ll take a look at a few of the ideas, Good, bad and indifferent.

The Good

We’ll start with the one thing that Google has been doing right for years: Search. I remember when it came on the scene – I was pretty much torn between Metacrawler and Dogpile; I was never a Yahoo or MSN search user. Google just seemed to fit better. The later additions like images and news helped out a lot. Add to it the fact the default search on Firefox was Google. Even when i used IE I would switch it over.

Bing is a nice alternative nowadays, although I like the Google vs. Bing site. They do have to think of another name. google-vs-bing is a bit long and if you forget to put in dashes, you will not be on that site.

Gmail: I switched to Gmail a few years ago. I didn’t like the fact that Yahoo was holding my email hostage – even if it was a free service. Hotmail is no different; if I don’t pay the yearly fee, I don’t get to download my mail.

Gmail let me control my mail the way I wanted. It had some great features to connect with others and I really wanted my mail to come through in Thunderbird. Now with the iPhone, it just seems best to stay in the cloud, although i still download to TB for another way to archive.

Toolbar: I have to admit, I haven’t used the toolbar since the newer versions of browsers had the search feature added on the top. Why add another layer? It might just slow down the experience and clutter the screen.

I remember using the highlight tool a lot. Now with Firefox, I just use the highlight add-on. Works pretty well, especially if you are using webpages for reference – highlight the key points.

Maps: This has grown immensely in the last few years. It’s even changed the way I search maps. Satellite view, street view, even hybrid maps have enhanced my use.

I remember when first found out the map could be moved by click-dragging or re-sized by scrolling. I think I played with those features for hours. And yes, I tried to find my house when the Satellite feature first came out.

Labs: This was an impressive feature. No closed beta testing – the ability to put something out in public without giving to everyone. I could then use the “soon to be” features at my discretion.

Analytics: What can I say? I need help with my websites. Being able to have someone help me understand where problems lie is key. Having it come from the place that pretty much wrote the rules on how search is done is even better.

The Bad

SideWiki: Google’s recent choice of SideWiki is not a good one. It takes away from a website. As an administrator, I want comments on my site to be on my site. I don’t have sidewiki setup and I don’t want to confuse people as to where they comment on.

I also don’t like sites that steal my comments. Digg is a good example. While I don’t like Facebook or Twitter stealing comments for tweets, it does promote my brand a lot better with replies on posts.

Chrome Frame: As an IT professional, I hate this idea. It would be like having the Ford dealer put in Ford parts into your Chevy. Once they were done, they cannot really guarantee it’s not going to fail.

If  your company runs IE6 for some reason at this point, they may have legitimate reasons to keep it that way. It’s not that a company doesn’t want you to have the latest version of software. It’s all about how it works with the other programs you have to use.

The Dead Pool: Jaiku, Video, Notebook and Dodgeball were all parts of Google that didn’t work out. However, they sometimes did enhance other areas with the technologies within. Notebook helped with Docs, for example.

Indifferent

Docs: I use Google Docs, but only for simple items. Documents I have to share that are not sensitive, for example. There is a lot of functionality in Office and OpenOffice that Google Docs hasn’t even touched. There are even some quirks in Docs that make it tougher to switch over.

Reader: I guess I just haven’t gotten the gist of this idea yet. I’ve used feed aggregation before, but sometimes I like to “Hunt” for news. When I used newsgator, I found that I was going back to the same items time and time again.

Blogger: I used Blogger when it first came over to Google. I remember that year I decided to give up meat for 40 days (a personal choice, although I did it during the same time as “Lent”). I used Blogger for my personal journal. And yes – this was before “Supersize Me” came out.

I like to control my own brand, though. Therefore, I moved off the platform. I also wasn’t serious about my Blogger profile. It ended up being pushed to the wayside and forgotten until it was removed by the system. I won’t get that data back.

Feedburner: There are a lot of people who live and breathe by this item. I personally don’t use it, although I do have my site up on Feedburner. You never know where a lead will come from.

YouTube: This was a great item, but then they put too many restrictions on the site. I don’t like being told what I can or can’t say or promote. Nonetheless, I know that being on YouTube is a powerful marketing tool. Therefore, certain items go on YouTube, like promoting a new show or item.

Chrome: The browser is an interesting one. It’s got a lot of great features, but as an IT pro, I cannot recommend it for business. It’s like I said with Frame – You may have to control the environment. Chrome doesn’t always give you choices on updates.

Book Search: Of course this is new to a lot of people. I still like the feel of a paperback while I sit in bed just before I fall asleep. I think there are a lot of people out there that are just like me, too. Digital books haven’t really found the happy medium yet – But when that someone comes out with the way to read a book online that is more inviting than the paper copy, the proverbial pendulum will swing.

There are a lot more products out there. It really is interesting how many pots Google has their hands in. It may someday get them in trouble with the FTC or EU, but for now, there are some great free alternatives to items you need to use.

Cash for Clunkers for your Computer?

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A couple weeks ago I changed out my computer to a new Quad Core machine. I won’t go into details because I talked about it in a previous post called Changing out to a new computer. Nonetheless, I have been impressed with the new functionality and possible energy savings that I am getting. It does get me to wondering – should your computer be part of this “Cash for Clunkers” program?

The US did a C4C on automobiles that ended last week. Now the government is talking about allowing you rebates to change out appliances. Your refridgerator, washer, dryer and even heating – A/C units could be affected to rebates. Run on a slightly different system, you buy the appliance, then send in paperwork for the rebate. Disposal – I would guess – is your responsability.

I started thinking about the computer; It’s been sometimes referred to as an appliance. The old P166 takes a lot of power to run. Therefore, should a personal computer be a C4C?

The new machine I got was an AMD Phenom II – a Quad core machine. The Motherboard touts 140 Watt usage. Add hard drives and other items, you would want a power supply of about 450 Watts, even though usage may never take you to that amount of power. If I was to run 4 machines with that same power, they would hit about200-300 Watts each – depending on what I have installed in them. Then we have the heat factor: Let’s just say I might as well paint the wall blue and fill the room with sand because that room will be as warm as a Island day.

I have replaced 3 computers with 1. The power consumption is going to be a lot lower than before. I turn off my machines, but I know that a lot of people leave their machines running and hope that power save mode kicks in. Still, I like the idea of consolodating the machines down and saving power. By the way – I still have 2 other machines I use.

I have an old Apple G4. This machine has the PowerPC chip inside. When Apple moved to Intel, they touted that power and heat issues were part of the reasons why. Therefore, if you use a PowerPC G5 or Dual G5 to run your business, you might be really paying for a new machine just to keep that current computer running.

While we probably wont see a program for computers, you might want to consider upgrading that old machine in the basement. You might find that within a couple years that computer will pay for itself.And yes, the CRT should be replaced, too. You can find a 15″ or 17″ flat panel for as low as $30-$50 if you don’t want to buy new. I just bought a 15″ LCD monitor a few weeks ago at a garage sale for $5.

Athlon 64 Netbooks enter market – Could a $100 machine become possible?

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  • gateway_netbook3.04 lbs
  • 1.03 inches thick
  • single-core CPU  @ 1.2 GHz, with 800 MHz FSB & 512 KB L2 Cache
  • 2 GB of DDR2
  • ATI Radeon X1270 graphics
  • AMD RS690E chipset
  • 250 GB hard drive
  • 802.11b/g
  • 11.6-inch high-def WXGA Ultrabrite LED-backlit display
  • 3 x USB 2.0, multi-card reader,
  • high-def audio support, a mic & audio out
  • 0.3 mp webcam.
  • Windows Vista

This is the Gateway LT3103u – a new netbook containing the AMD Athlon 64 L110 chipset. The price? Well, this one is $400. But if they can make an Athlon 64 Netbook for $400, what can they do with a mobile Turion?

Can you say $100 netbook?

Last week I listened to Dr. Michio Kaku talk about “Disposable Computers”. The data will be in the cloud, the computer will be a facet to get to it. It won’t be totally disposable, but the idea is you will not continue to use the same machine to get to your information.

In order to get to that state, we need machines that are not only deemed “Disposable”, but also safe to dispose of.

Still, the first step is to create low cost machine. A netbook is a low cost machine. More compact and easier to use in some ways. Heck, I wished I had one on the flight to Vegas last week. I sat trying to use my laptop with the 13″ screen. You would have laughed at how I was positioned to use it.

The guy next to me had an iPod and a guy across the aisle from me had a DVD player to watch movies. The person in front of us had a netbook. They were working on a project – but they were working more comfortably.

So what would we need to get to a $100 Netbook? Well, first and formost, technology must have low overhead. A $100 machine should cost less than a $100 to make.

According to Business Week, an Apple iPhone 3GS costs $180 to make. It’s predecessor – when it came out – was averaged to cost $220. Next years model could cost $140. Within 5 years we could see Apple iPhones at $99 simply because the phone costs less than $80 to build.

Apply that ideal to a netbook.

AMD says they are not entering into the Netbook market, but wanted to give a “High End” solution for netbooks. I am sorry AMD, but you can’t really say “We are not in the netbook market – by the way, here is a netbook”. Besides, if you don’t embrace the technology, someone else will find an alternative and you could be left to explain to investors why you didn’t take the opportunity.

Do we have $100 Netbooks already?

A couple months ago, we heard about Freescale semiconductors efforts to use an ARM chip and Google Android to make a $100 netbook. Great for surfing, video and small tasks. Yet, it’s not a netbook; It is a Smartbook.

Functionality of a notebook – portability of a netbook. Add to it a price that can’t be beat. That is what we want.

Wait, no. Add to it the fact that a netbook can now be FASTER than the notebook I currently own for a lesser price than I paid. Yet that is the Technology way, right?

Dear AMD: Make a low cost netbook. Thanks.

Post Zune Booth Visit Commentary from CES 2007

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The folks at the Zune booth at the 2007 Consumer Electronics show would not go on the record. In fact I think the guy I talked to was aware of some of my previous commentary and was not happy about it.

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Sony Ultra Flat Screen ProtoTypes at 2007 CES

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Sony had some Prototype Ultra Flat screens at the 2007 Consumer Electronics show that were simply amazing

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