Friday, January 8, 2010

CHEAP! If Cheap offends you do not read any further.

Over Christmas the boys received several new games. Many were games of my youth. I had always wondered how they could sell some of these games for $5 or so. Well, now I know. They are made cheap. Let me define.




1. You have to put the game together yourself. You know, insert the piece of paper inside the plastic, take the plastic pieces apart.

2. Everything is thinner.

3. Parts come apart when you are trying to play the game

4. When there are moving parts, they jam, make loud noises and such.



Anyway. Buyer beware.



The cost has come down, so has the value.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

First day of the rest of the year.

Not sure why but I had this set to automatically publish.  It did not.  So better late...

Today is the first business day of 2010 (For some of us). Make a great start. Back to the basics.


1. Time spent in the field selling

2. Give more than you take

3. Be honest (If not to a fault)

4. Listen

5. Follow the sales steps

6. Follow up

7. Do what you say you are going to do

8. Make a difference

9. Take your time

10. Don’t waste time

11. Have fun

12. Work/home balance

13. Focus on what matters

14. Fully utilize your resources

15. Do not avoid problems, take them head on.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Picking my new Laptop.

Almost as important as picking a new wife. OK not quite as important. I can replace the laptop and it only costs me $1,000.
So I picked out my new company laptop. I had an Lenovo X60 laptop (No not a tablet) with the 12.1" screen, not sure of the processor (Single core centrino) 2 gb ram, docking station 80gb hd and windows XP. We rotate hardware every 36 months so I became really familiar with it. We traveled to 3 countries, more than 50 flights and was abused heavily. It still looks great. I did have a hard drive fail about a year ago (However it was probably my fault, I left it in my car overnight when it was well below freezing and did not let it heat up prior to turning it on)
Other than that it was great for 3 years. So what to get this time?

I did not want the tablet; I really do not see me using the table features. Plus I wanted more processing power and larger screen. The 12" was small however it was 4:3 I think the 16:9 would be better. I also would have liked to have a optical drive. The old X60 only had it on the docking station. I want small, light and rugged.
I went with the T400s. It has a 14" screen, and is standard processor and such. The s stands for slim. Lenovo's own marketing says "Take it wherever business takes you. At just 3.91 lbs. and .83" thin, the sleek T400s is highly portable without compromising power or performance." The additional specifications

2.4GHZ duo core processor
1066 Front Side Bus
2 GB Ram (I will order upgrade soon)
120 GB HD (No not Solid State, Added too much cost)
Camera
That is the basics. I was surprised on exactly how light weight it was. So you say, why not go with the X300 or X200. Well, low power processors, almost double the cost and size of screen.
It also has Windows 7 64 bit. I will keep you updated on the new relationship.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The new 23" Monitor

My dad got a new monitor for his PC for Christmas. Anyway he had some questions setting it up. The instructions were not as clear as they could be. They used terms like OSD. I had no idea what OSD meant yet the instructions referenced it a couple of times. Well Google helped me out. On Screen Display.


Anyway, the instructions were in 12 languages, yet I am sure that not one was clear. Sure, it is just a monitor, yet how are consumers supposed to understand the abbreviations. In our industry, we are the kings of abbreviations. Still my favorite is WUS (Pronounced like spelled) That was for Windows Update Server. Now they have changed the name. I am betting that they did not like being called WUS.

Just goes to say, Keep it simple and do not complicate. Write instructions like you would for your dad.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Netflix is great!

The top reasons I love about Netflix;
1. They are continually adding value (Streaming, Bluray, friends, facebook and more)
2. I can stream to Xbox, PC or more.
3. Mobile PC App to modify my que and such
4. Ease of use
5. Accurate suggestions on movies I would like
Here is my one criticism; Why do they continually hide new releases. I go to other sites to find those. You go to the tab that says new releases, yet the most popular titles are not there.

Great business model.  Only one major competitor (That I am aware of)  Blockbuster.  Yet they do not quite get it from what I can see.  If we had a local Blockbuster, there would be more value for sure.