Isn’t it sad that we EXPECT bad customer service these days? That we EXPECT companies to NOT stand behind their products? And we’re SHOCKED when they do a good job? Well, as usual, eBay did NOT do a good job. And (because I’m honest,) they’re going to (eventually) get 15%+ on a limited edition watch that I’m selling. Why? Because they have a popular marketplace that gets a lot of eyes – AND, they don’t care about customers. I created an eBay listing for a watch worth many …
Last year I was trying to figure out how to build and display a ‘digital bulletin board’ on Main Street USA. The idea being that it would be remotely updated with text, video, graphics, AND would pull from RSS feeds, or just show scheduled content, and be easily updatable. The idea was to mount a flat-panel monitor or TV against a large window where there’s lots of foot traffic to catch the eye of visitors and residents when they were in town. It took a while, but I …
25 years ago today, on Friday July 26th, 1996, MSN chose my website – Bodie.net – as “MSN Pick of the Day”. My passion for Bodie State Historic Park started on a multi-week, summer high school camping trip, where we ended up making a quick stop at a pinpoint on the map to see the ghost town of Bodie. Bodie was a gold mining town in the late 1800s, located at 8,375 feet in the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains. I still remember the van rattling like it would fall …
A friend recently told me the story about how his father was scammed, and ended up in a spanish prison for drug smuggling. My own grandmother had been scammed (multiple) times, eventually causing my grandparents to lose their home. In this age of the internet, seniors are huge targets for being taken advantage of, for two main reasons: a) many of them come from an era where they tended to trust people more easily, and b) they are minimally familiar with the internet and how it works. Seniors …
One of the best web applications to come along in the past 10 years was Google Photos. Unlimited photo and video storage, mobile apps for Android AND Apple, a simple interface that uses image recognition to help organize your photos, and… it’s all free. Thank you Google. However. There’s a HUGE missing feature in Google Photos. Labels! If you use Gmail (properly) you know, use, and love labels for organizing emails. The primary reason behind labels in Gmail is for organizing and finding messages. Dare I say, it’s …
I am not into art… or painting… or art history. But I am into technology, and history, and stuff that’s just cool and amazing. The documentary “Tim’s Vermeer” is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen the video at least 10 times, and I’m still amazed, and in awe that a random (albeit brilliant) computer tech-guy, figured out something that no one else had figured out in over 300 years. Johannes Vermeer was a dutch painter, baptized October 31, 1632 — buried December 16, …
