Shopping

Shopping

I’m sitting outside panera in the mall whilst Kristen goes into one of them lady shops :-; Kaufmann’s were having a nice sale so I’ve got some levi’s for $27 – well cheap compared to uk prices. Also got some cargo trousers and shoes so I don’t feel like “little orphan annie”

Just how hard is it to buy a laptop?

I’ve been looking around trying to find a laptop, as cheap as possible but with a decent spec – probably around the £500 mark (plus the dreaded vat) and £100 for office. I had shortlisted it down to a dell, acer or samsung and Hi-grade. I’ve only had favourable experiences on the samsung, having used 2 of other peoples, heard horror stories of dell (but they are so big,disasters are likely to occur occasionally) and acer, a reseller friend says they are a lot better than they were 6 years ago when we purchased 4 and all 4 had to go back for repair (and only 1 still works). Higrade won a recent laptop comparison in PcPro. And scarily, this is the narrowed down selection. I know Neil commented about the Ferrari Acer and said it was really expensive, but like the car and the rest of the fashion world you are paying for the name (and in this case the bright red flash and a prancing horse).
Anyway, I sent an email to higrade, querying the price and a week and a half later I’ve not heard anything. Trying to determine which of the acer laptops are cheap is impossible when you look at their laptop site.They have 22 models all with buzz/marketing words describing them, but none telling you which are the budget laptops or the differences between them without looking at the individual pages, 1 by 1. Could you tell the difference between “advancing the innovation of ultraportability”, “widening multimedia connectivity”, “unwired innovation”, “streamline your unwired world” and “mobilize your workplace”? At least 4 of those imply wireless networks and not a lot else to choose between them.
So I settled on the Samsung and saw two good deals on the simply website. However both descriptions say that wireless is an option but don’t really say whether it is included(it does if you look closely) and both say that you can have xp home OR pro but the price is only for home. A quick email to [email protected], their published contact and email address, asking for more details returns the response “Thank you for you email and thank you for choosing Simply Computers. Unfortunately we are unable to answer sales enquiries via email. ” I’ve left the spelling mistake in on purpose. What I really can’t understand is why publish a sales@ email address if you are not going to answer the queries and if you are going to send back a form letter, then at least make sales@ an autoresponder so that I don’t have to wait 2 days to get the reply! They do then give me the option of ringing their (national rate) phone number to place an order. Sorry Simply, but thats simply not good enough customer service.
grrrrrrr

Post arrives

The post arrived today with the UV filter that I purchased from 7dayshop on the 12th May. Not impressed with the service at all. Also the uv filter when fitted to the lens adapter means that you can’t actually use the lens cap as it won’t clip to the filter. I know you could argue that you don’t need a lens cap as the uv filter is protecting the lens, but whats protecting the uv filter from getting scratched? Not sure if this is Fuji’s design fault or the filter – I suspect the former. So that was £7 down the drain as I’d rather have a lens cap on the camera than a scratchable filter.

I also got my voting papers in the post today – we’re part of the country that is trialing paper voting. The system seems clear enough, BUT you have to get a witness to sign the paperwork to say that you are the person that you say you are – how that is preventing fraud I don’t know and what if you live on your own and don’t know your neighbours?

7dayshop speed

The stuff I ordered from 7day shop arrived last monday – the 24th May. This was stuff ordered on Wed 12th May and which was in stock but not yet despatched until the 20th May. I’m still waiting for an outofstock item that has come back in stock sometime last week but still not been processed. I really don’t think I’ll bother ordering from them again.

No response from MetroNOmy PC

Its been two weeks now since I received a request to stop any more comments being made on my comment about Absoblogginlutely: MetroNOmy PC sends an email stating that they won’t be shipping out pc’s for the time being.
I emailed Julian this afternoon with the following –

Hi Julian – its been some time now since you contacted me about comments that Gavin made. Have you had any more details on how many pc’s you have shipped out and references? Many thanks

I have removed *some* of gavin’s comments which were sailing close to the wind, but others I have left as they were from his own personal experience of working at Intersaver, where Julian agrees that he worked and the fact remains that Intersaver did go bust.

After GCC’s email about libel I did check up on libel law. What does seem daft is that as GCC said, its the only uk law where you are guilty until proven innocent! I have therefore removed any possible unfactual comments from Gavin’s posts and I am still awaiting a reply from Metronomy for more information.

MetroNOmy PC sends an email

Further to my fairly recent blog about the ack of a free pc from Metronomy I had some comments from other not-so-happy potential customers and also some comments from someone called Gavin who posted some interesting comments and allegations about the companies behaviour and certain employee’s. It didn’t take long (although too long) for an ex Metronomy employee to stand up for them and then tip them off about the comments – (thanks ss!) and I have now received an email from them asking for the libelous and untrue comments to be removed.
The problem is, that if I did as they asked I would be taking their word against Gavins and they have not offered any proof to refute these allegations – and I’ve yet to come across anyone who has received a pc from Metronomy. Also looking at some of the allegations, there are several reports about intersaver going bust and taking a lot of peoples money – just take a look at VNUnet, chinwag, bankrupt.com, dooyoo (although there are some favourable reviews on dooyoo, dvdreviewer. As to the comments about him paying himself and his friends a lot of money I can’t comment, although if SS or Julian Jones would like to forward me a copy of the company accounts,detailing the wages paid to these executives in comparison to the rest of the company and its income then I’d be delighted to take a look, the same goes for the trading standards quotes in the local paper.

As for Gavin, apparently they know who he is so I suggest that you contact him and ask him to retract his comments and I will issue an apology on his behalf. However, although I’m not a lawyer, there hasn’t been any proof offered by Metronomy to refute these allegations.
I have closed the comment on the original thread and also contacted the Register as they covered the story in the past and it will be interesting to see what response I get from them.

Oh and by the way Julian, I’m sure you know who SS is as he uses the same internet access/pc that you do so its likely that you also know who Gavin is.