Hillcrest Electronics – a lesson on customer service

A long time ago (when Psych hospitals were all about client focused money making) I attended a course on customer service. I learnt a person who receives good service tells an average of five people but people who receive bad service tell an average of 17.
But first, some background…

Way back in September my amp started to play up. I removed it from the cabinet (in case it was overheating), tried it with different speakers but no, it was still not working right. I took it to Hillcrest and paid a $50 deposit to have them take a look at it. They did and said it worked perfectly. I said there was definitely something wrong and they offered to look at it some more. I’m not sure what “looking at it” entailed but they had it for a few weeks more and said there was still nothing wrong with it. When I came to pick it up, they suggested I take it home and try it again. The bill was $30 and I said hang on to the difference because I was sure I would be back.

I took the amp home and straight away it played up. I rang them and again they suggested it was my speakers and I should try it elsewhere. I tried the amp at a friend’s house and had the same issue.

I returned the amp to Hillcrest Electronics and suggested they try it on something other than the radio. Long story short, they had the amp for a long time. I rang at one stage and they said they still hadn’t found the fault.

Months later I get a “second notice” and a dirty phone call asking why I hadn’t come to get my amp. No one ever rang to say it was fixed and I never got an invoice. When I went it to collect it and pay they bill they wouldn’t take the $20 credit off the account, stating their warranty is only for 90 days. Eh, what warranty? They never fixed anything initially.
In this age of blogging, prolific social networking and Facebook, is it worth the $20?

By the way, I have one four-year-old 5.1 channel Panasonic amp for sale (supposedly repaired). Any offers?

html, flash and moodle – oh the humanity

My posts seem to be filled with stories of “I spent way too much time trying to solve the most ridiculously simple problem so now I’m sharing it with you so you don’t need to”.  Well this one is no different.  All I wanted to do was embed a small piece of flash into a moodle course (for my level 7 multimedia class) and float it right.

I would perhaps this think this should be straight forward and indeed it was but I must have gone about arse-about-face because I managed to send my moodle page down in a never-managing-to-load loop.  My problem was using Dreamweaver to write my embedding code to insert the flash file.  I should have used something older and less classy.  The float thing was no problem btw, just a matter of wrapping the whole thing in a div tag.

Here be some old but useful Flash embedding code for your moodle site:

<div style="float:right; margin-left:10px;">
<object width="300" height="400" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,15,0">
  <param name="movie" value="http://your.moodle.site.com/file.php?file=yourflashfile.swf" />
  <param name="quality" value="high" />
  <embed width="300" height="400" src="http://your.moodle.site.com/file.php?file=yourflashfile.swf" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" />
</object>
</div>

Remember to update the swf file size to the size you require as well as replace my fictitious file name with yours.  Both of these things need to be done twice (see orange text)

welcome all new comp.4105

This is my obligatory  first of the semester welcome to all “contemporary technology for the mobile user” students.  Thanks to those of you who came to the first sessions and started your own blog.  It was great to see at least one student already had one and was actively blogging (and it was a very “educational” and amusing).

We will be adding a few extra things to the blogs over the semester but feel free to use your new blog to add any other bits of information/images/amusing things/thought that you would like to share.

I look forward to reading more

cute loader gif image creator

Just had to post this.  It is a nicely designed site with a cute loader image generator.  ajaxload.info A few examples:

gaps, excess characters, include files & BOM

I must have spent a good hour trying to work out why I had a random full stop on my web page tonight.  After adding in test echo’s here and there I worked out that it appeared where my include file was.  I searched google but I was looking for the wrong thing.  Anyway after a good deal of searching I have it sussed.

All my web pages are encoded using UTF-8 but for some reason the include page was also adding a Unicode signature or Byte Order Mark (BOM).  As I’m using Dreamweaver it was easy to fix.  It was just a matter of Modify > Page Properties >Title/Encoding and removing the tick from Include Unicode Signature (BOM).

Phew, it was that easy.  I hope you find this answer before you spend all your time looking for a fix.

Flash and Dreamweaver templates

On a random note, I have spent the good part of an evening either being a complete n00b or numpty trying to get the linking of Flash files embedded in my Dreamweaver template to be updated correctly in any files based on that template.  I searched the Internet looking for the solution but came up with very little (nothing that worked at least).  Finally after some trial and error I have it sorted.

If you are having a problem with Flash linking correctly, try this:

Create your layout in an ordinary html (php or whatever) file.  Add Flash files by Insert > Media > Flash.  Save the file and Dreamweaver will create the JavaScript file in the scripts folder and add a link to it in the head of the file.  Once you have set up your page including adding the Flash files, then save the file as a template.  Linking should all be working nicely and you wont need to spend your evening search the net to find a solution.

Don’t forget to upload the scripts folder and the flash files.

Making wool dreads

whipping up a tasty dread or two

I had gone looking in Spotlight to find a felting needle (more on that to come) and while there I found merino wool roving in 10 and 80g packets.  Each packet contains a strip of roving which I cut into lengths of around 50cm.  I experimented with different thickness but never any thicker than existing strip.

I used the palm rolling method for making dreads using a bucket of hot water and some sunlight soap.  It’s a bit like hard work so I tried rolling them on the wooden chopping board.  This was a lot easier but made looser dreads.  I found it better to go back to the bucket/palm rolling method afterwards to tighten them up.  Even better I got someone to help me.  I found it made a lot neater thinner dread if one person pulls the dread upwards through the other persons hands while another palm rolls it.

Dreads Narissa style – part 2

think this might be too short to dread?

I started looking for info on how to create dreads and looking at dying them (I love colour) which led me to pages on synthetic dreads.  I liked the idea of instant gratification (I am so frustrated with growing my hair – you can see from the photo how short it was a year ago) but I didn’t like the idea of my plastic hair melting to my neck in some kind of Guy Fawkes or barbeque freak accident so I looked for a natural alternative.  Enter merino roving.

I found online some awesome dreads people created from wool and there seems to be heaps of places to buy readymade ones but not in New Zealand so started my next lot of research – how to make and attach wool dreads. (I’m sure there’s a research output or two in here somewhere Annabel)

Dreads Narissa style – the beginning

Okay, classes are over for the year and now is an opportunity for me to go off on a tangent about something completely unrelated to work: my hair.

I have always wanted dreads (I have always had a passion to stand out maybe just a little bit).  I fancied being a truck driver in my younger days and would still like the opportunity to drive one (even around the warehouse car park if anyone’s offering) but that’s a whole other blog.  Anyway…

I never did the dread thing and I’m not sure why.  Probably because I was too worried about what people would think of me (silly I know but that’s just the way I am).  Now that I’m older, I would like to say that I’m not so worried about what people think of me but that just isn’t true.  The difference is I am now more comfortable and confident in myself to know that the group of friend I have are not going to point and laugh at the short white girl with dreads (or if they are it will be with me, not at me).

So I have been growing my hair for a year.  A slow process thanks to my hairdresser who keeps ‘trimming’ my hair as she is abhorrent to the thought that I might dread it (or is it that I might not be back to spend my hard earned money on the lavish attention that she spends on my hair/eyebrows/lashes – don’t worry Kelly, I’m already thinking new ideas for dying).

The easiest way to get extra marks from your tutor?

I saw this page the other day and thought you might find it useful. Rashad, this had your name all over it