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A Tesco Failure

Tesco-every-little-helps-lo

Ok, you shop online right? How long would you reasonably wait for an item to be delivered from a well known supermarket, 3 to 14 days sounds quite rational. How about one month? That would be pushing it right, well you haven’t heard nothing yet.

Right lets set the scene, I need a present, a present for my father. Now I always find buying gifts for him difficult, normally he is blunt and specifically states what he wants. Together with that present, I always like to buy him a few extra gifts, nothing really expensive just little surprises for him to open. I had decided to buy him a collection of Elvis Movies, nothing spectacular in terms of world cinema, but he likes them. After shopping around, I had selected the right box set and found the best retailer. I had decided to go with Tesco online, on the basis of their cheapness (yeah I’m a student you know) and I already have an account. OK – everything was going fine, but after 7 days, still no DVDs. I then received an email saying your item was out of stock and they were waiting for a delivery. I didn’t mind, the occasion was still a few weeks away so there wasn’t really any rush.

OK I’ll come clean, the occasion was Christmas 2007, I placed my order on Tuesday 6th November 2007. After the 20th notice came that my order was delayed (auto generated), I knew my order would not arrive (they came every few days). I ended up buying him something else in its place, but I became intrigued in how long my order would run unnoticed. It ended on the 16th July 2008, that’s 253  days (I think) since I placed the order. Here is a copy of the email I got;

Dear Mr Mayne,

Re: Your Tesco Jersey order placed on Tuesday 06 November 2007 (order no. 15406589)

We are sorry to inform you that we have not been able to obtain an item in your order. Don’t worry, we won’t charge you for this item, but this may affect some of the promotions in your order.

Your new order summary is shown at the foot of this email.

The item that we were unable to obtain is: 1 x Angela Lansbury Elvis Jukebox Movie Collection 

Cancelled on Wednesday 16 July 2008  We apologise that we have been unable to fulfil every item in your order on this occasion, but hope that you will return to shop with Tesco Jersey in the future.

Kind regards, Tesco.com

I must admit, this is quite disappointing. To think a company of Tesco’s caliber doesn’t have the appropriate computerised checks in place, to stop this error occurring. I’m also disappointed in the email above, which I find quite careless since I have been waiting such a long time. Is this the real face, of Britains largest supermarket?

I was trying to keep it going for 1 year, shame it ended when it did!

Come on, this must be some kind of record!

- Kyle

Posted 18 July 2008 † Kyle J Mayne § Family § Small Talk ‡

Knowledge and Twitter

For a good few months, I’ve been thinking about this idea of search and twitter. I believe twitter to be the most up-to-date information today on the web, a story breaks and it spreads like a wildfire across the ‘twitter world’ instantaneously. The problem is that the story/ information is inaccessible to the majority of the twitter users. For example, if I don’t have you as a friend with the story, how will I ever know. Things such as search.twitter.com fail, because how do I search for a story that I never knew existed in the first place? I could be lucky and stumble on what I wanted to know (maybe from the Public Timeline?), but as a user I’m now cut off from the full discussion. I could possibility send a few messages to people discussing the story, but I’m still cut off from the main discussion, unless your within that group of people, you are going to miss out.      

Obviously this is not an issue for the big twitter users who have got thousands of followers like Dave, Cali or Jason. For the average users (I wouldn’t even say I’m one of those), who follows 50 people, whom all live in a very similar geographic location, information will be hard to pass. Their information can only be passed on successfully if they have many friend connections (like a friend of a friend and so on). Again this rely’s upon that information to be passed, will it get through? Will they be interested? – It is really hard to say!   

image

This morning I awoke to the news that Russell Beattie has launched ‘Roomatic’ (via), which groups twitter users together by topics they are wishing to talk about. It overcomes part of the problem by getting ‘unknown friends’ (people who don’t know each, but have the same interests) together, in a single place, talking about what they want to talk about. Which I believe is a great idea in harvesting the power of twitter. Although as an individual, how did I know I wanted to discuss that topic, until it was right under my nose?

This issue relates back to was I was originally saying, I believe Russ to have a good baseline here, he is getting unknown people together to a common interest or discussion (Something twitter currently can not do on its own). I believe he now needs to focus on getting people to discuss a topic they didn’t realise they wanted to discuss. Encouraging more ‘rooms’ to form, but developing a way of getting people to enter these discussions. He makes a good start in outlining a few popular topics, but more could be done. I still haven’t worked out a solution, it is difficult, but it is on my mind.

How did I know I wanted to discuss the latest topic, when your out of the twitter loop.

- Kyle

Posted 17 July 2008 † Kyle J Mayne § Twitter ‡

Magic Highlights Tour

newsMTH

I’ve been waiting a few weeks for this, the digital launch of the Magic Highlights Tours album. Well officially it launches tomorrow, but to my luck it launched on the 4th July in the UK. To my amazement (yeah I’ve just checked) this was the first album I have ever purchased on iTunes, although I’ve downloaded many individual songs over the 4 years I’ve been using the iTunes Store, I haven’t actually downloaded a full album until now. It’s good to see Mr Bruce Springsteen embracing the digital era, delivering mp3s and videos online with no physical release currently planned.

The artists, songwriters, and music publishers are waiving all of their royalties, and Columbia Records is donating all of its net profits, for all sales to benefit The Danny Federici Melanoma Fund. The iTunes Store is donating their first year’s net profits as well.

OK - The album is a complete waste of money (4 tracks + 4 videos) for £6.99, but a least you know the profits are going to a good fund. Still a little expensive though for what your actually getting, it may put many off. 

- Kyle

Update : OK I lied, its worth downloading just for ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ /w Tom Morello

Posted 15 July 2008 † Kyle J Mayne § Springsteen ‡

Springsteen Videos

These are just Amazing, shot in HD and look brilliant on my high def monitor- Plus the sound is just tremendous. Enjoy Wink

Paris
Janey Don’t You Lose Heart
http://www.vimeo.com/1251404
Atlantic City
http://www.vimeo.com/1251316
Rendez-Vous
http://www.vimeo.com/1251223
For You (I recommend this one)
http://www.vimeo.com/1251182
Adam Raised A Cain
http://www.vimeo.com/1251092

Antwerp
Point Blank
http://www.vimeo.com/1225454
Trapped
http://www.vimeo.com/1225674
So Young And Inlove
http://www.vimeo.com/1225325
Sandy
http://www.vimeo.com/1225942
I’m A Rocker
http://www.vimeo.com/1226676

- Kyle

Posted 01 July 2008 † Kyle J Mayne § Springsteen ‡

George Carlin, RIP

This morning I heard of the sad death of George Carlin, so today I decided to watch ‘It’s Bad for Ya!’. The whole special is on Youtube, in 7 10minute videos, if you have the time there well worth checking out.

I’ll start you off with the first clip below;

 

-Kyle

Posted 23 June 2008 † Kyle J Mayne § Humour ‡

Remembering Tim Russert

At yesterdays televised memorial service for Tim Russert, Luke’s "Uncle Tony" (Russert’s brother-in-law) performed a beautiful acoustic "Born to Run" in tribute. How do you follow that? Well, Luke and Tom Brokaw had "a little surprise," which Brokaw introduced: "This was the one guest that Tim was never able to persuade to appear on Meet the Press," he said. "But they were great friends, and Tim went wherever he had to to hear him. Ladies and gentlemen, from Europe where he is on tour: The Boss."

-Kyle (via Backstreets)

Posted 19 June 2008 † Kyle J Mayne § Springsteen ‡

HAHA MINT

Go IT Team!

-Kyle

Posted 18 June 2008 † Kyle J Mayne § Humour ‡

The 4th Time

dublin1_5622

Right, in about 55 mins I’m heading off to Birmingham. Staying in a Travel lodge then tomorrow morning I’m heading off to Cardiff then the Millennium Stadium to see Bruce Springsteen. I’m so excited, watch out for the pictures on FaceyB in the next few days.

I’ll be micro-blogging my experience over at Twitter.

Here we go then, we are pulling out here to WIN!

- Kyle

Posted 13 June 2008 † Kyle J Mayne § Springsteen ‡

Horrific

Just leave it alone;

I seen this via Neatorama, it is horrific.

-Kyle

Posted 12 June 2008 † Kyle J Mayne § Humour ‡

Possible Firefox Mobile UI in Action

Aza Raskin (son of Jef who you maybe familiar with), head of UX at Mozilla Labs, shows off some very neat designs being considered for Mozilla Mobile.

Check it out if you hadn’t already;


 

Maybe I’m a little undereducated in what Aza is saying above. He specifically states the interface does not allow multi-touch based interaction, but utilises a form of single touch interaction. The problem is that he then goes on to use gesture based scrolling (in moving up and down - Aza calls it ‘Kinetic Scrolling’) . Now as I believe it, single input touch screens do not allow gesture based interactions (i.e. the typical touch screen devices you see dotted around city centres). Therefore, the device must be using Frustrated Total Internal Reflection, which allows gesture support and multi touch interaction. Meaning, why have the technology there and not use it ? - I’m wondering does Apple own the patents ? - I don’t know, its something I would have to look at (I’m fairly sure they don’t, just look at Surface). In terms of accessibility, zooming in and out of web pages works amazingly well from multi-touch interaction, it makes sense to use the technology available, doesn’t it?

From the video I got the impression it was something they went against in terms of design decisions but the problem I have is WHY?  

I suggest before you leave, have a shot of the interface in action.

-Kyle 

Posted 12 June 2008 † Kyle J Mayne § HCI ‡

Chickens

That’s strange both my last 2 posts include chickens, now what are the chances of that!

That reminds me, KFC mmm.

-Kyle

Posted 12 June 2008 † Kyle J Mayne § kylemayne.com ‡

What’s in your Wallet?

capitaloneflickrcard

It now seems Capital One credit card is taking customisation to the next level. It now allows customers to brand their plastic pal with their favourite image from Flickr.

For some reason I’d like to see somebody place a pornographic image on the front of their card, just imagine how uncomfortable that would be in Marks & Sparks.

-Kyle

Posted 12 June 2008 † Kyle J Mayne § Small Talk ‡