My worst internet shopping experience - gogglesgiant.com

My worst internet shopping experience, by far, has been with GogglesGiant.com , trying to get replacement goggles for my son's ski goggles, in the middle of the season.Order two pairs, in early February, from their online store at gogglesgiant.com, promises of fast shipping etc.

After two weeks I ask them that I haven't' seen a shipping notice and what's the delay and they reply that there's a high order volume and will ship when they can! Seriously, I will forward anyone their email!

I know I should've asked for the order to be cancelled right there, but I can't take a hint, eh?

After another week I receive a shipment notice with no tracking number. After another 3 weeks I receive the package, for a grand total of 6 weeks.

By now is late March and the season is basically over!

Done? Nope.They screw up and send me the wrong size for one of the lens. I write them back with a photo of the SKU and get ignored! After 1 week, I write again and receive this reply: mail us back the wrong lens and we will refund the cost of the lens. They refuse to send me the right lens, will just refund the cost, without shipping charges.

Reason: "we can't modify the original order". Seriously? I know it sounds too hard to believe, but these guys are for real! Again, I will forward anyone their original emails!

I get stuff shipped for free from Hong Kong in 3 weeks and these guys take 5-6 weeks! They refuse to make good on the order! It's insane, really! I would seriously suggest you look elsewhere for goggles. Ebay hasn't failed me yet. Actually this was the first time I strayed from Amazon and Ebay and I get screwed.

Also, they are a Yahoo Store and theirs is the worse complaining and merchant rating system ever. I hope they go banckrupt. I will and you should avoid any so called Yahoo Store.

I won't send them the wrong size only to get screwed again. I'll loose 40$ but I won't throw more good moneys after the bad.

Again - Goggles Giant cost me 40$, send me the wrong size, didn't send the order until after the season was over and have the worse customer service online... who lies through their nose!

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of recourse here. I can't even open a ticket with my credit card company because it has been like 9 weeks already now... smart buggers! Yahoo stores accept complaints only 6 weeks and after 30 minutes of browsing their website I can't even figure out how to rate this store or open a complaint!

Argh!

Google wave is dead

...yeah, the "king of the interactive communication is dead, long live the king".

While enthusiastic in the beginning, I must say that we didn't used it as much as we thought we'd be. The technology behind it however is awesome, but I must agree, the implementation wasn’t the greatest. It should be embedded in google docs and integrated with email and IM. I think I already saw some of that in google docs recently…

For instance click on an email thread and "turn to wave". Or the same in IM, think of it as "persisting the thread".

In google docs, the use of this is obvious: it's turning any doc into a version controled repository, real time wiki with embedded forum etc...yeah, makes sense. Every software MUST now have this: every wiki, every forum, every Word application...they simply must! Getting this question in a flashing status bar of your favorite Word app "Do you accept interactive edit of this document, from John@somegeeks.com?". Hell, yeah...

The "playback" feature was underutilized.

May be surprising, but I used it mostly as an internet pad to copy/paste quotes, ideas, links and later develop them. Also to copy/paste things between laptops/computers, save them for later etc.

An "internet research pad", where you could invite others etc...that I still think it's worthy of its own site.

I will, spare time existing, look at integrating this with my script pad: http://scripster.razie.com/play/session - That would be bespinningly interesting.

As always, don't hold your breath.

Blogger is stupid

Trying to edit a blog (this one) I've had it: this editor right here is one of the worst I've used in a long time. It's still close to impossible to quote nice code snippets and the html it generates is riddled with DIV tags worse than a word document.

I guess this is the fate of things. The bad ones become good enough and the good get worse.

Shame. I shall investigate options to blogger, since the best voting is done with the feet...or, in this case, with the...fingertips...?

I shall create my own nice code quoting system, based on the scripster I just put together. I should probably thank them for the idea...

[EDIT] The code quoting is up and running - just need to work on embedding the quotes now. Try it at www.codewitter.com

iPods suck nicely

Just gave in and got the new iPod Touch (32G) this weekend. Let's see...

Couldn't even take it out of the box - I was afraid to break it - I went back and asked a "Mac Helper" for help and he explained how to take it out - apparently Apple just won the abnormal packaging contest!

Walked again out of the store only to come back: when turned on, the thing only displays an image suggesting plugging its USB into iTunes. I had to go back and explained that I just paid 400$ for a toy that doesn't work...they finally convinced me to just refrain from returning it and wait until I got home to plug it in and see what's what.

Well - finally got home and started playing with it. It does grow on you and you start to wonder how come every OTHER device manufacturer out there seems to be sooo stupid. They do deserve the market share they're left with!

But then you start to notice the noticeables:
- the only dark screen is the home screen...most others are the same stupid black on white as your microsoft outlook...and there's no obvious way to change the "skin".
- the browser, while smart, is also stupid. I.e. the "zoom", while nicely done with the pinching manouver, is not remembered when you click on the next page
- the home screen doesn't go wide when you turn the thing...non-sensical since when you can go back and forth between "wide" apps, you pass through the home screen and have to turn the thing again...

Overall, they can get away with all these, just because the thing is so nice in many other ways...but it goes to prove the limits of every day life - nobody's perfect.

Stupid feedburner

Sorry folks, after many troubles and wasted time trying to get my feedburner feed to work, AFTER migration to google, I am giving up on using feedburner. It's the worse cloud ever and the worse migration of anything, ever!

This will be my feed. Yahoo pipes rock!

xxx url

Cheers!

[later edit] ... came to my senses...they still suck, but you should use this feed instead: http://feeds.razie.com/Razvan