could’ve so done it myself!

Recently I had to have my photo taken for an ID card. Without giving it much thought, I headed straight to the photo shop. Yes, you’ll be surprised, they still exist in this day and age of do-it-yourself digital photography.

And they exist for a reason: because dum-dums like me are still running to them when I could have take a photo on my own digital camera, done my own online printing and voila, I wouldn’t have wasted my 19 bucks on those darned photos !

Stinkiest customer service in town

Imagine I went to pay my cell phone bill over the weekend and they wouldn’t let me! Yes, such a joke, isn’t it? I offer them money and they just wouldn’t take it!! And why? Because the phone service provider has set a cap on the number of payments they can accept each day, and by the time I got there in the evening, they’d used up all the spots available for the day!!

They asked me to come back another day! Quite frankly, this is what I call sucky customer service!! Your customer comes in to pay, you refuse to accept their money, instead you ask them to make ANOTHER trip to do exactly what they came in to do in the first place! So what do you think of that?

the basics of web hosting

I recently received an SOS call from a girl friend who is trying to set up an ecommerce site to sell clothing. It’s something she’s been wanting to do for the longest time but between getting married and the birth of her baby, she’s literally had to put this online business project on the backburner.

Well, now that she’s settled into a somewhat sane routine again, she’s all excited about setting up the store. The only problem is she’s clueless but luckily for her, I’m not too busy right now to help her. First things first, she needs to decide on her domain name which, as it turns out, is the easy part since she’s had so much time to mull over it during her maternity leave .

The website hosting part took a bit of explaining on my part but now I think she finally gets it. She’s so used to free blogs she just can’t see how important it is to have her own small business web hosting. I mean, free is good but if she’s serious about her business and wants to project a professional image, then obviously paid hosting is the way to go.

It doesn’t cost much. Like I always tell people, go to Web Hosting Geeks to do your research. They’ve got the price and feature comparisons all laid out. I mean, that’s what I really love about those guys, they’ve essentially done my homework for me. So there’s no need for me to tear my hair out working a spreadsheet.

I can find the “best” of everything from domain web hosting to reviews submitted by users. When I’m busy, I get my friend to read up so she understands what’s going on and doesn’t need me to hold her hand on the future projects she has planned.

lighter is better

My son and his computer have become almost inseparable since he started college. There’s just so many assignments and projects they need to do that’s closely tied to the internet.

Seeing that he spends so much time online, even at college, I’m so glad I bought him one of those new-fangled netbooks which is much smaller and lighter than the laptop he used to carry around.

The heavy laptop is a big strain on the back. I’ve lugged it around before and man, did my back hurt at the end of the day! So these lighter models are certainly a worthwhile buy.

trying to catch up with technology

We spent the weekend looking at what netbooks are available on the market. My son needs one for college as age is catching up with his current laptop which is a couple of years old now.

With technology moving at this speed, anything you buy is rendered practically outdated  in a couple of months. We haven’t decided which one to buy yet but we’re prepared to shell out a few more bucks to get the latest technology. At least hopefully then it will last us a little longer before it becomes obsolete or needs to be upgraded !

ripping customers off left and right

We’re on the family call package on Maxis which means we pay a certain amount each month to enjoy free cell phone calls and messages within our family and a bunch of their freebies.

Recently we discovered they’ve been charging us for calls and messages placed within our listed family members. Of course, we’re freakin’ mad because that’s outright cheating!!

Not only that, we’ve been receiving all sorts of phone spam coming through with promotions and ads we never requested to receive. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re charged for receiving those calls.

I won’t put it past these guys to have a whole department sitting there figuring out new and improved ways to rip their customers off any which way they can!

I’m in the process of looking up their toll free number though I doubt they would be so generous as to provide one, just before I barge into their office and give them a ticking off they won’t soon forget !