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Amazon, The Big Engine That Can’t

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Sometimes when a company says they have great customer service, they don’t.

They may, though, have a hopeful program in place that aims to have great customer service, based on the fact they have bad customer service. Often this effort will be bolstered by advertising about how great their customer service is. In fact, often, if you want to know what a company is particularly bad at, just take a look at what they claim to be great at.

For Amazon, this dynamic is easy to see in the “Advantage” program.

Amazon HaystackThe warehouses Amazon continues to build around the U.S. are not justified logically. The programs they support are for small sellers (like me) and don’t work. The company is denying the complicated problem by just building more. Continue reading “Amazon, The Big Engine That Can’t”

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Apple and the New Cloud 9 Operating System (or, What’s My Password Again?)

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Do you have an Apple iPhone or computer?

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Does it ask you for your “account password” too often and for no good reason? Is it, like many, stuck, and you dread the Fort Knox password-problem-process?

You are not alone.

Even the stalwart Android smartphone operating system (nicknamed “suck-an-apple”) leans on a cloud, but the brains behind those phones and tablets, many made by Samsung, already know and aren’t too stubborn to accept, people will never live in the cloud. Continue reading “Apple and the New Cloud 9 Operating System (or, What’s My Password Again?)”

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Craigslist – The Great Poker Game

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I’ve mentioned the dinosaurs walking Earth, eBay and Amazon. But what about Craigslist? Is it even worth a mention? What’s it all about, and why isn’t it in the news until someone gets busted when a personal massage goes wildly wrong?

Craigslist must not be important. Ebay would have bought it, or Google by now. It’s just an anomaly, floating out there with no big impact …

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Or is it? On the outside Craiglist is a public place, but on the inside it’s very private. Craigslist is not, as its dot-org suggests, non-profit. Continue reading “Craigslist – The Great Poker Game”

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A Few Newthings (or, Amazon’s More Expensive No Advantage Program)

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I have canceled Amazon Advantage!

It’s a seller backend service. Without missing a beat, upon sending the message through their system to close it – I immediately lost all access. They should send me my products back now.

Amazon Advantage is for larger companies that have a logistics department. For me, a small seller, joining just resulted in me having to ship products to Amazon at my own expense with NO increased sales, despite Amazon’s effort to improve the visibility of those products. Continue reading “A Few Newthings (or, Amazon’s More Expensive No Advantage Program)”

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Let Your Inner Cat Out!

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I wrote an article recently about a fisher that ran into my screened-in porch chasing my cat.

I was sure I wanted to, but wasn’t sure how to, respond to the many comments I got from people pleading with me to keep my cat indoors. I don’t want to do that!

It’s not me, really, but I’m a diplomatic kind of soul. If I were the cat, I wouldn’t want me to do that!  Continue reading “Let Your Inner Cat Out!”

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The Smartphone Revolution (or, You Ain’t Poked Nothin’ Yet!)

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There are people all around you poking their phones! They pet them and caress their perfect smooth screens in public places!

What are they doing? Why? When will it stop?

When I was young, we learned how to properly have a pet. We were blessed with imperfect policing of the beaches and our Giant Schnauzer, Dominic (an Italian Schnauzer), spent his years playing in the sand. We poked him and caressed his perfect smooth coat!

Everybody loved him! Continue reading “The Smartphone Revolution (or, You Ain’t Poked Nothin’ Yet!)”

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“A Candle Lit” Audiobook Sample – Ch. 23, Music, Memory and the Mind

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I’m an audiobook producer and longtime radio announcer, and I’m available on Audible’s ACX platform for narration. Please consider partnering with me for a narration project!

I’m also narrator for my own book “A Candle Lit.” Here’s a sample! Continue reading ““A Candle Lit” Audiobook Sample – Ch. 23, Music, Memory and the Mind”

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The Edge of the Universe Through the Eyes of a Dolphin (or, Endemic Life on Our Abyssal Plain!)

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I wrote recently about a documentary called “Edge of the Universe” (2002). The only compliment I paid I think was I liked the title. The actual show, though, should have been called something else, like “More Nonsense About the Universe!” The Universe might have edges, but they weren’t seen in that documentary!blue-planet

Enter Attenborough … and another, much different study, this time of the sea: “The Blue Planet, A Natural History of the Oceans” (2001); a truly eye-opening mini-series! Sans hyperbole, this fabulous 8-hour series shows us through the eyes of animals there is more than one universe; it just depends on your perspective! As one IMDB reviewer put it, the series “opened (his) eyes to another planet right here on Earth!” Another was inspired to become a marine biologist! Continue reading “The Edge of the Universe Through the Eyes of a Dolphin (or, Endemic Life on Our Abyssal Plain!)”