Advice: Don’t buy from DigiDirect.com.au.

A month ago I purchased a new Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W300 camera from DigiDirect. I did my research and decided that this was the best buy for my budget and gave me all the functionality and quality I would like.

Since then, I have spent the month making numerous phone calls and sending emails to figure out where my camera is. The last time I called, it was sitting on their desk and was about to be shipped off that day. Two weeks later, here I am, still waiting.

In today’s phone call in which it seemed their staff don’t begin work until 10am, I discovered my order was flagged for “security.” Because I used digidirect@carljoseph.com.au as my email address and didn’t have a land line number.

Using companyname@mydomain.com is my standard practice when purchasing from an unknown company. It allows me to track whether an organisation sells my email on to someone else. Similarily, GMail users can do something similar by using the account.name+whatever@gmail.com format.

Even with these concerns, they still took my money and sat on it for a month!

My complaint isn’t only about the time it has taken or that my order was flagged as potentially fraudulent. My complaint is that I have had no communication from DigiDirect at all during this period. Were it not for me continuously bugging them, I wonder how long it would’ve been until they told me there was an issue.

Lesson to be learnt: Even if there is a problem, communicate it. It is far better to know that there are issues with something (even potential issues), than to be left in the dark believing it’s all okay, or worrying that you’ve been had by a crooked company.

Update 5th June 2008: Finally spoke with the MD today. He was somewhat apologetic and I now have a tracking number to show that my digital camera is en route. I find it unfortunate that I needed to escalate this to the company owner/manager in order to get action. Not only is it painful for the customer, it’s an extremely unsustainable business practice.

I liken packing supermarket bags to playing tetris. You somewhat randomly take the items out of your trolley and place them on the conveyer belt. The checkout chick/person then uses their skillz to scan and pack items nice and quickly into the bags. Packing these bags is definitely an aquired skill. The less experienced tetris players will put things in whatever order they arrive. The better ones will pick and chose appropriately to get the best fit. These are the Master Tetris Players.

I had my first self service check out experience today, and I realise now, that I am not a Master Tetris Player. This new system has its fair share of flaws as others have explained.

The general concept …

• You roll up your trolley,
• scan in an item, and
• put it in the bag.

The bag rests on a scale so the machine can tell if you have placed an item in the bag which you haven’t scanned in. If the item doesn’t have a bar code you can look it up on the list of pictures, it gets weighed calculates the cost for you.

• Hit the “finish” button,
• swipe your card,
• enter your pin, and
• go home.

The problems …

They started when I decided to use my own enviro friendly green bags. Once I placed it on the tray the machine warned me that there was a foreign object in the bag. It obviously weighed more than the usual plastic. To continue it required the assistance of a hovering staff member to wave her RFID card at the machine. This had to be done with every bag I placed on the tray.

I also had trouble packing my own bags. Because there was no conveyer belt on which to prepare your items, I found it insanely difficult to pack the bags nicely. It was like the final levels of tetris where they come flying in too fast. I ended up with items on all sorts of angles and arrived home with squashed bread and a leaking container of antipasto mix.

The additional pressure to scan and pack as fast as the Master Tetris Players is immense and doesn’t help the experience.

I finished my first bag and quickly snatched it off the scales. The machine freaked out because it musn’t have had enough time to weight it properly. After another swipe of the magic RFID card, I was onto my second bag.

Some good points …

Muddling through some more items, I finally got to the fruit and veg. Finding an item on the list of images was pretty easy. This part I was pleased with.

Finally, the paying options were straight forward. They obviously spent a lot of time making sure they could get your money, but not as much on the rest of the experience.

Gaming the system …

Through this debacle, I realised that I could cheat this system quite easily.

1. Don’t scan items and just place them in your bag

Place an item in the bag without scanning it, wait for the machine to complain about foreign items in the bag, look confused, hail the now retired Master Tetris Player, and have them wave their magic card.

I would guess that the more often you did this during your checkout, the more likely they would think you were just incompetent with technology and the more you were likely to get away with. If they catch you in the act, just return to that confused look and you’re home free.

2. Selecting a cheaper item

With fruit and veg, you need to weigh in the items and select the picture on the screen. It wouldn’t take much to select a cheaper per kilo item. If you get caught - “Oops, sorry maam. I thought I hit the picture of the avocado. This thing is so confusing.”

3. Walk out without paying

If you’re really game, it wouldn’t be difficult to do. Hit a few random buttons, get confused, swipe your card in some random slot and walk away. You may need to move your items past a certain area to demagnetise the barcode. As usual though, if you get caught, put on your confused face and pay up.

All in all, I hope these don’t become common practice. I much prefer leaving the professional bag packing to the well practiced Master Tetris Players. It’s not a skill I wish to aquire myself.

I love to be inspired. Especially by great thoughts and ideas. TED does this for me, every time.

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we’re building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.

- About TED

If you haven’t watched any of these videos, then you really should. I’ve found them to be some of the most inspiring and thought provoking talks. Here’s a few of my favourites:

• Do schools kill creativity? by Sir Ken Robinson. A very humorous and inspired challenge to our notions of education.
• A journey to the centre of your mind by Vilayanur Ramachandran. A fascinating view into the way our minds work when impaired by some very specific mental disabilities.
• My stroke of insight by Jill Bolte Taylor. Jill’s a brain scientist and has had an amazingly unique experience - she was able to analyse her own stroke as it occured.

Take some time out of your day and listen to a few TED talks. You’ll be glad you did it.

When can you expect the unexpected? When your crystal ball is working at full pelt.

I received this email yesterday from a vendor we do some work with:

Subject: ACME Corp. will experience an unexpected power outage tomorrow between 8 am and 12

Dear Client,

We have been notified of an unexpected power outage in between the hours of 8 am and 12 noon, Thursday 15th May, 2008. This means that we will be without power, network and phones.

I’m hoping to get them to visit our site to help us predict any unexpected issues we might have with our own systems.

@ameel’s recent tweet prompted me to drag up some blog posts I used to read on sleeping. I’m a big fan of this activity, but in my many years of practice, I have yet to master the technique.

The article Ameel pointed me to is about catching up on lost sleep. I used to have a tendency of waking up quite early in the morning, looking at my clock and then worrying about not getting enough sleep for the remaining hours before my alarm went off.

This behaviour cost me considerable hours of this precious resource. I would continually watch the clock and cause myself worry about how little time I had left to sleep.

The solution? I changed my behaviour and stopped looking at my clock. Now, when I wake up in the dark hours, I just turn around and treat myself to more sleep. I no longer worry about the time and how much of it I have left.

By doing this, I have trained my body to fall back asleep quickly. So whether I have 2 hours or 30 minutes left before my alarm goes off, I make the best use of it without worry and with some good quality rest.

If you’re interested in reading more about sleep patterns and the like, then Steve Pavlina has written a number of articles on this. It’s a great log of his personal experiments with getting up early and Polyphasic Sleep. I just wish I had the time to spend playing around with this stuff.

(I stopped reading his blog when he began crapping on too much about “intention manifestation”. Something I have written briefly about before.)

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Hat tip: Futuristic Play by Andrew Chen

“Chads” are those little circles of paper left when you punch a hole in it. You may know of the controversy chads caused in the 2000 USA election. It seems to have become quite a problem.

You see, in the USA, some voters are required to punch a hole on their nominated vote. When the small circle of paper remains stuck to the sheet, this is called a “hanging chad.” Obviously problematic when counting votes.

Chads are now a problem for us in the tally room.

Because the paper used for printing the running tallies of votes for each seat has arrived at the tally room, but the chads haven’t been punched out.

- The Poll Vault

We now have our very own “chad puncher.” Gary, is there to ensure all the chads are clear from the paper so that printers don’t jam during the election coverage on Saturday night.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qymxCMz3Uzo[/youtube]

Straight out of a Wallace and Gromit film (actually, it’s from France) comes this automatic pet washing machine, that “eliminates the stress produced by current pet cleaning methods.” Yes, they actually say that. Not only does the Pet Spa safely wash your pet with hydro massage jets, it’s also able to deliver “a variety of medications and chemicals” (like flea powder, I’m guessing). After the wash, your pet gets to enjoy a nice relaxing blow-dry.

It’s designed to be totally safe for your pet, with continuous air circulation and water jets that come out of the floor to avoid eyes and ears. Designed for large pet stores, the Pet Spa costs over $30,000. Suggested cost per wash is $15; actual cost in shampoo and stuff is only 45 cents. Although you can stuff yourself inside the compartment to keep your dog company, based on the video, I would not recommend doing the same thing with your cat.

Hat tip to OhGizmo!

First I bumped into this through Digg. Pretty amazing images but also pretty fake (check the link at the bottom of the page).

Then I found the video below on YouTube. Now that’s pretty amazing. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYM__s3R5q0[/youtube]

Not much blogging lately. No doubt I’ve now lost my very loyal following of 3 and need to spend some quality time rebuilding my audience.

This isn’t going to be a good start however as I don’t have very much to write about. Lots has been happening, but nothing terribly exciting. Here’s a quick run-down:

• I got a year older
• Work is crazy busy
• Home life is good fun - still planning the wedding and then some
• Keenly watching the election coverage although it has been quite boring this time ’round
• Entertained my family in our home today. All went well (I think!) Had my uncle and his family drop by too which made for a bit of a squeeze but much enjoyment for Stanley
• Started daylight savings so I’ll be traveling to work in the dark but have plenty of daylight hours to enjoy once I get back home