It has been widely reported in the media that both FedEx and UPS had problems delivering items due on Christmas Eve. Most of the reports I have seen are attributing this to weather or just unexpected demand. But in my case, the package I was expecting FedEx to deliver by 8pm on December 24th had been sitting in their Oakland facility since 7:41am on December 23rd. That is over 36 hours before the end of the estimated delivery time.
Category Archives: General
Comcast Resolution
Pretty much as expected, the telephone support at Comcast was useless. After a frustrating call which ended with a promise to have a supervisor call back, nothing happened. The Twitter support team at Comcast though did get in touch, and managed to resolve the issue without me needing to visit a Comcast store. Continue reading
Another Comcast Issue
Reply
Comcast is one of my perpetual dilemmas. One one hand, the service is pretty solid (and certainly better than anything AT&T could manage), but on the other they are such a terrible company to do business with. Then there is their telephone support, which takes appalling customer service to record breaking lows, but is contrasted by their Twitter based support team which are among the best support people I’ve ever worked with.
On Demand TV
Our toddler has found a few episodes of programs that are available on Netflix that he really likes, and he keeps asking for those same episodes. As hard as we try to get him to watch different ones, he keeps asking for the same ones that he really likes. Now, granted he doesn’t get to see much TV, so not risking the limited time you are allowed TV watching a new episode that you might not like is a low risk option, but what struck me more was not that he did this as much as how his generation are growing up without the limitations of scheduled television.
Engineering Log
Experimenting with a new service called 10 Centuries that allows me to create quick blog posts via an app.net client.
I have created a new engineering log for technical snippets hosted by this service. So, if you’re interested in more technical updates (things I am working on, as well as perhaps hints and tips related to Android, iOS or any other technology I am working with), feel free to bookmark that link.
I am also planning a refresh of this site; you’ll already see that I have moved the site from its old location to become the entire bluedonkey.org site. Don’t worry though, any links you have should still work – they will just redirect to the new location. There are more changes coming, and part of that will include having the engineering log link placed prominently on this site.
Wireless Point & Shoot
What started as being intrigued by the concept of Sony’s lens cameras, has evolved into a search for a decent quality, medium to high zoom but small camera I can throw in my laptop bag but at the same time connect to my phone to be able to share the photos online immediately.
Cutting the Cable
Another month, another increase in our Comcast cable TV bill. One too far this time. Several months ago the bill had risen to a level where we thought it was too high for how much TV we watched & we trimmed a number of premium channel packages to reduce it to an acceptable level. Last month it was back up to that same amount even without those channels. It hadn’t jumped to that level though. Instead, it has been on a steady increase. Sometimes just a dollar or so, other times more. Always creeping up.
Meanwhile, we already had Roku boxes downstairs in the family room as well as in the master bedroom which provide us access to unlimited Netflix streaming for just $8 a month & Amazon Prime Video essentially for free since we have prime for the “Amazon Mom” program (if you never use the other elements of Prime, it would still work out at less than $8/month).
There was one wrinkle in the plan: the most common show we watched, when we had the chance to watch anything in the evenings, was House Hunters on HGTV. But we weren’t willing to pay that much for a few hours of TV each month. So, just before our trip to the UK, I called Comcast and canceled the TV service completely, and returned all the TV related hardware. But I kept the internet from them. Factoring in the increased price of “unbundled” Internet, that saves us about $110/month – over $1300/year.
Crowdfunding
Yesterday’s discussion around the ParaShoot camera project and whether it was doing any more than rebadging a Chinese ODM’s product, available in bulk on Alibaba already, for sale here in the US or actually developing something novel lead to some thoughts on crowd funding and what they can, or should, be applied to.
Manu Vollens (@manuvollens) proposed that crowd funding should only be used for disruptive projects:
Whether or not that applies to the ParaShoot project, I do think it is a little too restrictive on the funding model. One of the advantages of crowd funding is that in parallel with raising the money to fund your project you are also gauging the market’s demand for your project. But why should that be limited to disruptive projects?
ParaShoot 2(.1)
A little while ago I backed a project on Kickstarter, a popular crowd funding service here in the US, for what was described as a wearable camera. I am actually not so interested in the wearable part as some of the other mounting options, like the car mount, that were promised to be in the “perk” package you receive for backing the project, assuming they are successful in raising the funds they need to complete the project, and they actually do complete it. There is always an element of risk in these projects (my Pebble watch was a Kickstarter project too, and while it was ultimately a success, and I love it, there were quite a few delays on the way).
The ParaShoot camera project blew through their $30K goal in no time, and were over $100K at the weekend when, out of the blue, Kickstarter suspended them. And suspension on Kickstarter is irreversible, essentially killing the project. At least, killing their Kickstarter campaign. ParaShoot has bounced back though, this time on the competing IndieGoGo site.
Firefox OS and the ZTE Open
A new toy arrived at the end of last week, having been ordered from the manufacturer’s eBay store a few days earlier: a bright orange ZTE Open smartphone, running FirefoxOS.
Box Opening
The mailing bag contained what looked like a brown box with the device name on it. That in fact was a sleeve around a more typical mobile phone box.
In the box was the device itself, a micro USB cable and charger brick, the battery and a (very cheap looking) wired headset.
Very simple to get into and everything you need to get started.