Is blogging dying?  Dead?  For me the answer is pretty simple.  Most likely.  With Twitter and Facebook, most people are using those social networking sites far more then a blog.

What is the answer?  Should blogging be expanded, encouraged?  Should it be eligible for some sort of government bailout :)

At the end of the day, it comes down to time.  Facebook and Twitter are easy to use, and users will always gravitate to what is easiest.

So I haven't given up on blogging, just haven't had a lot to say lately.  At least not anything I want to say publicly :)

Simple question.  What is the McDonalds policy for telling someone at the drive through to pull ahead and wait?

This morning I ordered breakfast (my turn to cook) and with only one car behind me, who order basically the same thing as me, I was told to pull forward and wait.

A minute later the manager came out and brought the food, no one else was in the drive through.

I asked him why I was asked to pull ahead and why the person behind me got their food before me.  He just stood there, no answer.

I am guessing McDonalds has a policy to move cars through the drive through at a specific rate.  Moving a car ahead doesn't count as a wait at the window.  So he pushed me through, gave parts of my order to the car behind me and met his quota (or at least caught up).

Moral of the story, don't ignore your customers and treat them equal. It's McDonalds, and he probably isn't making a lot, but still he shouldn't cheat the numbers at the expense of the customer.

Oh well, I'd love to find out what McDonalds policy is for moving a car to the waiting area.  Anyone ever say no?

Letter to the Industry: “Don’t Print” isn’t “Going Green”

Charlie Corr, Chief Strategist at Mimeo.com published this open letter to the Industry highlighting the “issues” we see with the challenges the printing industry is facing with people not printing things, and somehow thinking that not printing is saving the environment.

Mr. Corr makes some good points about paper in general and it’s environmental impact.  However he fails to address the key fact that technology has replaced the need to print and archive documents.  Especially unimportant documents, such as email or web pages.

Certainly, printing out billing statements, contracts and other important documents aren’t in question (well, maybe billing statements) but the generation of workers who’s first reaction to email is to print it out needs to change.

He also doesn’t address the cost and labor associated with the safe and secure storage of the billions of pieces of paper printed each year.  In industries link insurance and health care, there are many reasons other then the environment to reduce the amount of paper printed.

Overall, the challenge the printing industry is facing is self induced.  The industry predicted such a dramatic growth of printed pages due to digital print technologies.  However, they failed to see the convenience factor of not having to print or carry around printed materials with the adoption of PDA’s, cell phones and ipods.  it wasn’t the environmental movement that caused the printing industry its problems, it was the failure of the printing industry to adapt to the changing market and the adaption of non-printing technologies, such as the internet and email, text-messages, instant messages and blogs.

Let’s face it, I could have written this blog post out on a piece of paper, using a ballpoint pen, then had someone type it, then send it off to a printer to be typeset once again, then proofs made, approved, plates made, printed 10,000 copies (to get the cheapest price / piece) and then mailed it out or stood on a street corner somewhere and handed them out.  But I didn’t.  Why? because this post cost me nothing but my time.

Paper isn’t going away, but the use of paper, especially in printing and distributing a message is changing dramatically.

So, please for Mr. Corr and the entire print industry, please print this post.  Ironically, Mr. Corr could have printed and mailed out his article as well, yet he choose to use the “new” technologies to get his message out. 

FYI, I have made it easy for you to print this, at the bottom of this post, you will find a “Printer Friendly” link to format this page for printing. Oh the irony…

Ok,

My rant for the day is about trying to use Microsoft C# and LINQ and XML and WPF. I spend more time trying to figure out simple stuff, because nothing exists as solid examples of how to do what I need to do.
I spend so much of my time trying to find decent examples of how to do stuff on the net, and find nearly nothing.
Why?
I know people are doing this stuff, is it because its a closed source system and sharing the code just isn't "cool" by the users?
I am sick of it, and I am going to try to lead by example and post my minor victories in trying to do things using this great platform.

Why?
Well, couple of reasons...
1. Code should be free. Not as in not get paid for it, but how to do something should be shared, knowledge isn't worth anything unless you share it.
2. Selfish reasons, I can find different things I find much easier and watch my progression through the products
3. Cause I haven't really found a good reason to keep posting regularly on my blog, and this just might be a good excuse.

So, there you have it, my rant for the day and my promise to share my code examples of what I am trying to do.

http://www.aefactoryservice.com/ae_consumer/index.html

These guys are scammers.

We had a Whirlpool washer timer fail. My wife places a service call and someone from A&E Factory Service comes out and identifies that the timer has failed.

He then says the part isn't in town and will have to order it. Even though they say on their website:

Fully-stocked vans with the most frequently used parts — Our goal is to do the job right the first time.

So, my wife pays for the call and the part on one check and he leaves and leaves a washer down for days.

I hear about this service call, and tell my wife to call around and see if she can find the part local. She does on her first try. I tell her to call back and cancel the part order. She goes and picks up the part less then 19 miles from the house and has a working washer again, same day. This is where it gets interesting.

She tells me they can't cancel the part order. What? Seriously? In this day and age? You can't cancel a part order?

So I call and speak with a Joe who is a supervisor. He tells me that they can cancel the part, but it isn't in the system yet. He also says they order parts directly from Whirlpool for warranty reasons. I am to call back the next day and they will cancel the part.

So I call back the next day and get a completely different story. A&E Factory Service says they can't cancel the part and that I have to call Whirlpool, remember they order directly from the manufacturer? I escalate as far as I can, and get denied at every level. At this point I am asking for a refund on the part, which they insist that I have to wait for the part to be delivered and then return it. What a waste to ship a part and then ship it back, when canceling the part order would have been easiest.

So I call Whirlpool to see if there is any way to cancel the part, since A&E Factory Service says they order directly from Whirlpool. Guess what, Whirlpool has no record of the order. What? Could A&E Factory Service have lied to me once more? After this many lies, what's one more? I filed a formal complaint against A&E Factory Service with Whirlpool, but I am guessing that won't go far.

Anyway, a couple days later the part arrives. Guess where from? A local address. Confirming that the service tech lied, the part shipped from a location less then 25 miles from my house. So, the tech lied, A&E Factory Service Customer Service lied about not being able to cancel an order, the supervisors lied about where the part was ordered and about giving me a refund.

End of story for now. We will see if I can get my $90+ back from A&E Factory Service for the part they shipped, especially considering we found the part locally for $70. What a scam.