90% Chance of Success

I got around to calling technical support at Horizon Fitness yesterday morning to see if they could help me diagnose what is wrong with our treadmill.

I called and got right through to a man who walked me through the process of checking a few things. A few things I noticed right from the beginning:

  1. He brought up the details of my machine from the online registration. I didn’t have repeat information to 3 different people.
  2. It was the second time I have called technical support and the first person took notes which the person I spoke with yesterday actually read and referred to.
  3. He wanted to help me, not get me off the phone ASAP.
  4. While I was on the phone, he emailed me a diagram of the machine and instructions for replacing many parts on the treadmill.

After checking a few areas of the treadmill, he said that the problem was likely the computer board and offered to send out a new board for me to installed. I asked if he felt certain the board was the problem. He explain why he thought it’horizons was and then said, “I’m 90% certain it’s the board giving you problems”.

I got off the phone and started to wonder what made him say 90% and not 100% or 99% or even 95%. I like my odds when 9 of 10 times replacing the board works. I hope he’s right. I’ll find out in a few days when a new board arrives.

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The best vacuum ever

Back in college, I worked for a janitorial supply shop as a delivery driver for a summer. I spent a lot of time delivering floor supplies to the Delta Center and churches around the area.

We also sold a high-end commercial vacuum made by Windsor called the Versamatic. These vacuums were used in each Mormon church and temple around the area and many hospitals. Of course, there were many churches and temples around the Salt Lake City area so I kept quite busy delivering new vacuums each day. Very seldom would I pick one up for repair. They are notoriously sturdy and reliable.

One time a church returned a vacuum because they wanted a newer model and I bought one for about half price. Our model retails for between $650-$850 depending on accessories.

That was back in 1992 and we are still using that same vacuum. I’ve replaced the HEPA filters several times and the bags, of course, which I’ve only been able to find online. This past year I replaced the prong end of the electrical cord. Otherwise, the vacuum runs as well as the day I brought it home. What I love most about the vacuum is that it has two motors. One for the brush and one for the pull-out hose. The hose has stronger suction than many of the vacuums found at car washes. It also lays flat on the ground making it easy to reach under beds and tables.

I’ve tried a number of really nice vacuums from Hoover, Kenmore and even the trendy Dyson. None of them are in the same league as the Versamatic. And they shouldn’t be since the Versamatic is the only commercial grade model of the lot and is priced accordingly. The Versamatic is quite heavy making it not as easy to maneuver as most vacuums. But it’s such a powerful, reliable vacuum that I can’t imagine going with another brand.

I certainly don’t want to shell out $850 for a vacuum. But if it lasts 15 years or more I consider that a bargain.

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DVD Burner Confusion

My Sony DVD burner died while serving well for just over four years. It was still sort of working but having problem ripping audio CDs. It was also starting to rattle and make weird sounds that a burner shouldn’t make.

So I went to Fry’s tonight to check out a new burner. I decided to look at the newer SATA versions. Fry’s has half an isle dedicated to burners, a third of which are external models. I skipped over those and figured I’d be in and out of the store in less than 15 minutes.

Well, nearly 40 minutes later I was still in the store pulling out boxes and reading labels. You’d think that Fry’s would have a section of SATA drives and a section of IDE drives but that wasn’t the case. Everything was tossed together, except for the well organized section of external burners I had no idea people still used.

Samsung Some brands included a SATA cable. Some didn’t. Ditto for power adapters. In fact, it was very difficult to tell if a model was IDE or SATA. Some brands like Sony put IDE right on the front of the box. Others required reading the cryptic label. Had I been able to read Chinese I may have been in business.

Maybe I’m getting old, but I’d sure be frustrated trying to choose a DVD burner if I were a regular user. I’d have about a 50% chance of returning home with the wrong type of drive or a drive that doesn’t include a cable. Reminds me of some printers that don’t ship with a USB cable. Very very lame indeed.

I left the store with this model from Samsung and in the 2 hours I’ve had it I’ve been impressed. It rips and burns a lot faster than my older Sony.

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The Lionel Richie drive-by

I don’t know what I did or how it came to this. I have no explanation for what I’m about to write.

I’ve been using Slacker internet radio for a few months and like it a lot. But I’m starting to wonder if Nicole Richie is the DJ behind the scenes. No matter what channel I’m listening to, a random Richie song will play a couple of times a day.

I’ll be jamming out to the classic rock channel and enjoying some Boston or Pink Floyd and suddenly “Dancing on the Ceiling” will come on and shock my musical tastes to the core.richie

Maybe I accidentally tagged Lionel Richie as a favorite but I’m not sure what would possess me to do that. Maybe one of my coworkers is playing a trick on me which wouldn’t surprised me because a while back I forgot to lock down my computer only to return to my browser homepage set to this famously bad site.

I don’t hate Lionel Richie. He reminds of my days in 7th and 8th grade. But listening to one of his songs after a Zep tune is like drinking milk right after brushing your teeth. It doesn’t go down smooth.

Scoble: Google is dead in 4 years

“Dead” as in not relevant. No longer part of the conversation among the influencers. The new IBM or Microsoft. Still around but with less influence or buzz.

Scoble created a 3 part video he called a “brainfart” on state of search. I found all three videos to be very interesting and thought-provoking. To get to the first video click the back arrow twice. It defaults to Part 3.

http://www.kyte.tv/flash.swf?embedId=6354023&appKey=MarbachViewerEmbedded&uri=channels/6118

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http://media01.kyte.tv/images/updatenotice.swf

MP3 Management and Playback Solutions

Maximum PC recently published an article how to best manage a large collection of mp3s. It focused on a product called Media Monkey which is often used by people with very large media collections and those who demand a large feature set. I tried an older version of Media Monkey a while back and figured I’d try it again since I’ve been wanting to fix a number of tags. I also played around with several other products this weekend and here are my thoughts:

Media Monkey 2.5.3 – Doesn’t give a great first impression. This program looks like it’s at least 10 years old and reminds me of an uglier version of Media Jukebox. But after you get by its looks it does include a number of advanced and helpful features. It gives you a number of ways to sort your music which makes it easier to tag files. It also manages all your media files, not just audio. I wish other players included the extensive statistics section this has as well.mmpanel 

Likes: Tons of features, many ways to sort media, easy album art import, the best library scan I’ve seen, finds duplicate files, easy global tagging. Fast library scan of all media. Awesome statistics.

Dislikes: A bit overwhelming, outdated interface, album art tagging options are limited and applying art is slow. Scaled down media player pumps out only average sound. Supposedly works with some WinAmp plugins but the two DSP plugins I tried failed to install.

iTunes 7.3 – I have no problem admitting I have a love/hate relationship with iTunes. When it works, it’s great. When it’s giving me problems I find myself vowing to eBay my iPod and find something that causes less frustration. iTunes does two things very well: Uploads my mp3 collection and playlists to my iPod and helps me find and download Podcasts. It does these two things very well. But it’s a terrible music manager and player. If you’re happy with included white earbuds on your iPod, you might tolerate the sound. Otherwise, look elsewhere for a better sounding player.

Likes: Does two critical things very well. If you own an iPod and listen to Podcasts, it’s a must have whether you like it or not. Locates album artwork well, but is very slow when it imports that art. Network share of collection is awesome.

Dislikes: Terrible performance, memory hog, and still quite buggy at times on Windows. Very few plugin options compared to other players. Default sound quality of player is horrible. Slacker stations are more numerous and sound better.

Recommendations:

If you have a large collection you may want to try Media Monkey. Or if you’re a stats nut. Otherwise I don’t see many reasons to switch from iTunes if that’s your current music manager. As much as I’d like to find a one stop solution for ripping, encoding, tagging and listening, I’m going to continue using several programs that have a more limited feature set, yet do a great job at those few functions.

Here is what I use today:

Rippers/Encoders

cdex My favorite everyday CD ripper/MP3 encoder is CDex. I’ve never used a faster or easier to use ripper. It includes the LAME encoder by default but you can configure it to others to your liking. Includes several CDDB options. This program is all about speed and simplicity. It’s the program I use to rip most of my CDs.

eac  For my favorite CDs I’ll still use Exact Audio Copy. I won’t go into details since I’ve written about this before, but if nothing by the best will do, this is for you. It’s not easy to setup. It’s not fast. But the payoff is worth it. I’ve been told that many of the online mp3 trading groups require this process resulting in mp3s created using the LAME Alt Preset Standard.

Tagger

I’ve yet to find a tagger that’s as fast and includes as many options as Dr. Tag Plus. If you’re obsessive about your tags it’s well worth the $35. My favorite feature is how it queues your tag changes which lets you see how they look before confirming the changes and saving to disk. This is very helpful when tagging large numbers of files. I also like how it allows me to change the file name. A fantastic product.

Player

ozone  When all is said and done, it really comes down to how my music sounds. All the ripping, encoding and tagging won’t matter much if the music sounds bad. With that said, I challenge anyone to find a better sounding solution for playback than the Quintessential Player with the iZotope Ozone DSP plugin. I’d be willing to give up a bit of sound quality to find an all-in-one solution. But the problem is that these two products make my music sound so much better than anything else I’ve tried that now I can’t go back to crappy sounding mp3s. If you’re used to iTunes sound quality, give this a try. If you have a nice set of headphones or good quality speakers I believe you’ll be blown away.

Several of my friends have told me that Q-Player is fine for playback but not great for large mp3 collections, and I agree. This solution works for me because I only listen by playlist. I’ve created ten or so playlists based on music type. If I want to discover new music I’ll fire up Slacker. Otherwise I stick to my playlists and add songs to them as I discover and rip new music.

What programs do you use for managing, ripping, encoding and listening to your mp3 collection?

What’s the difference between a $31 and $60 oil change?

I took our Honda Odyssey to Grease Monkey to have have the oil changed. As I sat in the waiting area, several customers came looking to do the same. Listening to the exchanges was interesting. Whenever someone would ask for a basic oil change ($31), the person behind the oilcounter would ask if they would like to upgrade to one of the following:

  1. High Mileage Oil ($47) 
  2. Synthetic Blend ($52)
  3. Full Synthetic ($60)

Several people came in with cars well over 100,000 miles. These people would be good candidates for the high mileage oil. Yet I didn’t see a single person upgrade to any of the fancier, more expensive oils and I think I know why: The Grease Monkey employee could not explain the benefits in layman’s terms.

I would guess that most customers who use a quick lube and oil shop are also owners who don’t know all the nitty gritty technical details of their cars. They want to get in and out with minimal fuss. I’ll bet few know what kind of oil the manufacturer of their car recommends let alone the difference between 5W-20 and 10W-30.

The Grease Monkey employee might have given a great technical explanation on why a synthetic oil would be a better choice, but the soccer mom, the teenager and the elderly man I saw today were lost seconds into the explanation. The Grease Monkey employee was using words like grade, viscosity and SAE which confused the customer. And when a customer is confused they will revert to what the know. In this case it meant asking for the standard, least expensive oil they’ve used before.

Although the Grease Monkey employees were helpful and well trained from a technical level, they were not able to explain their services to customers who would benefit most of their services and upgrades.

Can your employees explain the services and products your company offers? Better yet, can they explain them in the terms your customers will understand?

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Song vs. Album Listening

I was listening to Slacker this afternoon and Brain Damage came on. As it ended I was reminded that Dark Side of the Moon is meant to be consumed as a whole. Plucking individual songs for play doesn’t work very well.

Before iTunes, many kids listened to entire albums or cassettes or CDs. Sure, you probably bought the album for the popular radio hit but it wasn’t uncommon to discover songs you liked as much if not more. For example, the radio hit off Dark Side was Money and it’s probably my least favorite song on the album. Had I only had that song to go on, I probably wouldn’t have thought to try out the album.

I wonder if something is lost by not listening to entire albums like I did with Dark Side. Maybe I’m wrong and it doesn’t really matter much. Maybe good music good regardless of what song precedes or follows it.

But I can’t imagine listening to the Beatle’s, “A Day in the Life” without the fantastic lead in from “Sgt. Peppers” anymore than I can imagine listening to “Eclipse” without the lead in from “Brain Damage“. Alan Parsons knew what he was doing.

Dsotm

Windows Vista quote of the Day

From Tom Halfhill from Maximum PC who recently helped his brother purchase a new computer:

Vista Premium was “preinstalled” on the hard drive, but it took nearly an hour to book and configure itself during the first powerup. Heck, I remember when clean-installing Windows from floppy disks took less time. For hours afterward, Vista’s pop-up dialogs nagged us for permission before allowing trivial actions. But when I accidentally bumped the hair-trigger power button on the computer’s front panel, Vista promptly shut down the system without asking for confirmation.

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Slacker Desktop Radio

I wrote about Slacker radio a while back and how much I enjoyed the ability to listen to a number of excellent radio stations at work. Back then my only complaint was that the service was browser based which meant that occasionally I’d close a window and bring the music to a halt.

Well today I noticed that Slacker has released a stand-alone application called the Slacker Desktop Radio. It looks nearly identical to the web version but is able to be minimized. I’ve been using it all day and find it well designed, stable and packed full of great music. I like the options better than those found in iTunes.

I still listen to my favorite playlists of MP3s but Slacker is a great way to find new music or listen to songs that are not in your collection. Highly recommended. You can download it here.

The October issue of Maximum PC names Slacker one of the best 15 web apps – “Forget Last.fm. Never mind Pandora. Don’t even think about iTunes. If you want the ultimate in fully customizable Internet radio, get your slackin’ ass over to Slacker.com…”

Here is the full sized version of Slacker Desktop

slackerapp

Here is the mini version

slackersmall