Today, was a day from Hell…. Started off OK, but slowly went downhill.
This afternoon I had a video shoot that started off very well. There was a slight hiccup when we noticed that we forgot 1 half of our wireless lavalier mic across town, but somebody went and grabbed it with 2 minutes remaining before the main focus of the shoot that we were hired to do started.
After two hours of shooting, I looked at the second camera and noticed some green banding across the image…. basically meaning that the footage from the second camera was now unusable. Because of the time limitations of shooting DSLR, for corporate presentations, we run a two camera shoot and offset the start times so we can deliver a seemless video file covering the entire event.
After seeing this image, I was very distressed.
Notice the Green horizontal banding across the image?
So this means that we are going to have to send a camera off to Canon to get repaired, and I’m going to have to work some major magic in Final Cut Pro to deliver this video.
10 Minutes after this, I received a phone call that clouded my head even more.
After driving back to the office, I thought that it would be best if I took the cameras back with me and apply the new firmware update and see if I could resolve this green banding issue. When loading the camera case into the car, I put my iPad on top of my car. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT I NEVER DO!!!
Driving home, I heard a rattling noise on my car, and looked out the rear view the and saw something black fall from my car. It took a few seconds but then I pieced it together….. IT WAS MY IPAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I stopped the car, turned around to pick it up, got out of the car just in time to watch a pickup truck run it over.
It was truly one of those “NOOOOOOOOOOO” moments. The thought actually crossed my mind about running out in front of the truck, but it all happened so fast. Hoping for the best… my heart sank as I picked it up, and turned it on to a white screen with coloured lines.
.
I honestly think that the iPad did survive the actual fall from the car, the apple case i bought does provide some protection.
The back of the unit is very dented.
So, the perfect end to the day.
I really did enjoy having my iPad, even for 12 days. I guess lesson learned, NEVER put anything on top of your car!
Very often as a consumer, we tend to get ignored by the manufacturer. How many times have we purchased something only to have it break or malfunction past the warranty date or the 30 day return policy.
When I started my Couch to 5K program (post here) I “hacked” my Nike+ sensor to fit my Adidas shoes.
By the second week, I purchased a proper pair of Nike+ shoes so the sensor was used how it should be and more accurate.
During my Couch 25K training, I have been using both Nike+ and RunKeeper Pro. Both essentially do the same thing, but offer different types of analytics. There are features that I like in both, and so when I run, I have both apps running. It has served me well because there has been instances where one of the apps has failed and the other one kept going for me.
During my run in February during -7 degree weather my Nike+ sensor stopped working. Not a huge deal becuase I have been using RunKeeper Pro on my iPhone to track distance, pace etc. I wasn’t pleased but was taken care of.
2 weeks after that, during my run in nicer weather, my Nike+ sensor stopped tracking during the run. I figured that the battery was dead as it was very intermittent. After looking at pricing a replacement out at the cost of $34 Canadian, I posted this tweet:
I drew a line in the sand, and chose my loyalty to RunKeeper. I wasn’t going to pay for a product that guaranteed 1000 active hours and only gave me 14. The person running the Nike+ twitter account obviously saw my tweet and posted this:
I gave them the details, and received this Direct Message:
Today, the replacement sensor arrived in the mail in an envelope with “Happy Running” written on it.
My hats off the Nike+ for using Twitter to deliver customer satisfaction. I was ready to drop using the product and go 100% over to RunKeeper. Not because of the money, but the fact that I would be replacing sensors every 3 months.
Word of mouth is such an important way to market your product, if you have a great experience you may tell a few friends, if you have a bad experience, you will go out of your way to tell everybody you know. If a manufacturer goes above and beyond, it should be shared with anybody willing to listen.
Thanks Nike+, I’ll be using my new sensor on my run tomorrow and at my first 5K in May.
Since January 27th when Steve Jobs announced the iPad I knew that I had to have one. Being a developer on the platform now, it is almost a necessity as all of our future apps from RedCat film will be iPhone/iTouch/iPad compatible.
This is the first time that I have directly dealt with the Apple store on a huge product launch, and I do have to say, Apple really knows what they are doing.
We arrived at the Apple Store in Clinton Township around 10:30am on April 3rd and were greeted by an Apple employee. He asked my last name, punched it into his iPod Touch and found my reservation for 2 iPads. We picked up 2 additional units, were in and out of the store within 10 minutes.
Now onto the device. I do have to say that it is indeed a game changer. I’ve had a Hackintosh Netbook before, but found my use dwindled after the first initial novelty had worn off. Typing is really a non issue on the device, the keyboard is very responsive and easy to use (in fact, I am doing this blog post using the Wordpress iPad app). Apple really hit the nail on the head with this device. I really do feel that it is the “In Between” device fitting in with my iPhone and Notebook.
Speed: This thing is FAST! I cannot believe how fast it is on tasks such as browsing and email. I will have to go out on a limb and say that the browsing experience is faster than safari on my MacBook Pro.
Build: The first thing that got me when I unboxed it was the weight. I was surprised on how much it did weigh. After a day with it, it became a non issue. The display on this thing is awesome. Both Photos & Video looks incredible on this.
Battery life has been incredible on this thing. I’m used to having my iPhone dead by the end of each day. The iPad has had major use in the first few days, and I finally charged it last night.
Apps: While the iPad app store is still in it’s infancy as of this moment, I didn’t feel as though there was many “Killer” apps, YET. I am anxious to see what this thing can do after developers have had the unit for a few months.
Surprisingly, all of the offered twitter clients are flawed. I am waiting for Tweetie to release their iPad version.
iBooks: I did love the ebook reader on the iPad, but where it does fall short is the iBooks store. The buying process is easy, but the titles are very limited. I did buy my first ebook: “Viral Loop” by Adam L Penenberg and did get 60 pages in on my first reading experience. Apple also bundles the iBooks app with a free Winnie the Pooh book, that I did read 20 pages of to my daughter. I was pleased that Amazon did release a Kindle app for iPad, and I find that I have been using it as much as iBooks due to the vast selection that Amazon offers in it’s book store.
Along with the unit, I purchased Apple’s soft case. It’s pretty good, but I’m not sure how it will stand up to day to day use.
Bottom line: This is a device that will be part of my lifestyle for quite a while. Using it, I have found that both my iPhone and Notebook use has declined.
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