Nathan Bush – Bigger Issues Than Imports For Book Retailers

For anyone who likes to read books, and of course purchase books, Nathan over at Another Advertising Wanker has a post that I thought was pretty interesting.

Last week the Rudd Government upheld the law which states that Australian book stores can not import any book which has been published within Australia within 30 days of its international launch. This law is in place to protect Australian publishers.

http://www.anotheradvertisingwanker.com/2009/11/18/bigger-issues-than-imports-for-book-retailers/

Theme

So I’m bored.  I’ve activated a new theme, hoorah.  I’m going to use it for a little while, and see how it goes.  Leave a comment if you hate it.

We can be Heroes

It doesn’t seem to matter what happens in the world, if you do something nice, or something you are meant to do. You’re a hero. I’ll use the baby under a train story. If you haven’t read about it, Google it. It’s been everywhere in the news. Put hero after it to find the list of heroes who have been added to the world because of this event.

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How to Fail and Pass Customer Service – In one go!

Alright, so where I work, we have a couple of laptops.  A HP which was purchased in April, and a Sony which was purchased on Friday.  Both laptops now have issues, at the same time.  One was fixed, one was a run around with an added dose of anger.

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Off-Season

So what?  The Broncos got flogged and will not win this year.  We made it further than most, and no one expected it.  But that’s not what I post this about.  Yet again, I post a rant.

About who?  I’m sure you’d understand if it was about Melbourne, and how they always beat us.  Except in a Grand Final.

But no.  It’s about dickhead Broncos fans, who year, after year, after year, will come out with the same four so called facts.

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Hippies are Dicks

As described by the wonderful world of UrbanDictionary.

a smelly, useless child of a bygone era that fostered in the loony liberalism that is currently eroding the United States of America to disasterous effect. Common attributes include: laziness, drug addiction, cowardice, a general lack of sanitary vigliance, Utopian ideals at the expense of logic and reason and a sort of general aimlessness that angers and perplexes hard working, patriotic realists to no end.
whats that smell? oh yah it’s that acid casualty hippie who Bill hired who never works, doesn’t bathe and worships Barrack Obama for no apparent reason.

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BlackBerry 9700 or 9520?

It’s been a little while since RIM had a big device release.  By big, I mean in terms of function and power.  The 8900 Curve was a basic phone, made to look good, nothing more.  The Pearl Flip should be renamed Pearl Flop.

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Welcome to Vodafone, this is India

Vodafone has advised that as part of the amagamation with Hutchinson Australia, they will close their Melbourne based call centre, and send more calls over to the Hutinson call centre in India.

Currently Vodafone Australia operate from Melbourne, Hobart and Cairo.  Yes, I said Cairo, as in Egypt.

As a long time Vodafone user, with four active and contracted connections, I find this news a little, well, I guess the best way to put it, is I’m pretty pissed off.

I have nothing against Indians, but overall, I haven’t had a lot of success out of their call centres.  Luckily, I only ever have to ring Vodafone when I want a new phone, and I would assume their sales teams will remain Australian based.  Well I hope so anyway.

Cairo, they aren’t too bad, and there isn’t as much of a language barrier that most Indian call centres have, and their support is second to none.

But this corporate money grabbing in our companies has to stop, and they need to think of the end user, and the Australian jobs that are being lost.

It’s funny.  A little while ago, a rep called me about my business service, and specifically spoke about their overseas support.  Now I can’t imagine everyone else, apart from me had nice things to say about companies sending calls to India.  Yet they go ahead, go against the customer, and do it anyway.  And now, this bloke who was employed to see what people thought about Indian call centres, is most probably out of a job.

Anyway, I’m still pretty pissed off, so that’s my rant.

Servers Servers Everywhere

Most people know I host my site myself.  Under my someone inactive business NashyOnline.  Anyway, I guess will file this away as a site update, and since I forgot to do one last time, I’ll let ya know.

NashyOnline operates three web servers:

Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Brisbane, Australia
Sydney, Australia

That is now.  Anyway, a while back the site moved from Phoenix, and has been hosted in Brisbane for a few months.  Anyway, through NashyOnline, I’ll be discontinuing Phoenix (already gone), and Brisbane.

The site is currently running out of Sydney, and I’m very pleased with the server load, and the speed.  So it looks like it’s here to stay for a little bit.

Anyway, enjoy.

iPhone Stuff

Now I’ve been pretty harsh on the iPhone, that’s clear for my absolute hatred for Apple and co-founder Steve Jobs.  But to make sure I knew what I was talking about, and not just relying on the limited use I had with the device, and any hate sites on the Internet.  Because trust me, there are a few.

Anyway, I bought a bloody iPhone, just to test it.  Needless to say, I was quite surprised an impressed.  However, it’s strong points, in my opinion, do not at all cater for business users.

Email
Most business’ still require a true push email client.  Like the BlackBerry.  The iPhone needs to connect at certain intervals, so go and check your inbox.  Much like your mail client at home if you aren’t running an exchange system.  So still not quite there, and from all views, will never compete with the BlackBerry.

Ease of Use
Typically, touch screen mobiles can be somewhat annoying to type on.  Not so with the iPhone, however, one handed typing is out, which is a big deal for a lot of users.  Also, it takes a lot more concentration that a regular phone, as you need to look harder at the screen to make sure your thumb is hitting the right icon.  Not a big deal for some, but certainly for others.

Where is excels
Simply, the iPhone dominates mobile applications, games and of course, browsing.  While I don’t agree with the App Store, and the control Apple has over what I can do with my phone, that’s easily overlooked by the amount of apps on it.  OVer 70,000 I’m told.

Jailbreaking the phone give even more functionality, and means you can make the phone look and feel just how you want it.  And of course, for the pirates among us.  You can pirate anything too.

So who wins?  Well for business, the BlackBerry still comes out on top.  They simply work exactly how people want them to work.  For a fun mobile device, the iPhone is the clear winner.

So I guess the statement I have used all along still stands.  If you want a business phone, get a BlackBerry.  If you want a toy, get an iPhone.  It’s a pretty neat toy too.

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