Regrettably, Dell has canceled your recent order for a Dell Nuvi 275T GPS or Nuvi 265WT GPS

Dear Customer,

This is to notify you that, regrettably, Dell has canceled your recent order for a Dell Nuvi 275T GPS or Nuvi 265WT GPS. Due to our error, the system was shown online at an incorrect price and was far below the correct price for that product, Because of the large difference in price, we have not reinstated your order, but we invite you to visit www.dell.com to re-order this item at the correct price.

As specifically noted on our web pages, catalogs, ads, and customer order documentation, Dell reserves the right to cancel any orders resulting from such errors.

We truly value our relationship and reputation with our customers, and we realize the negative impact from these types of errors.

Please be assured that we are working hard to try and prevent these problems going forward.

We are sorry for any inconvenience that our error may have caused.

Regards,
Dell Employee and Education Personal Purchase Programs

Thank you for being a Dell Customer

I think they mean ex-Dell Customer.

When companies make this mistake, they need to stand behind the company and stand up for their customers. If companies realized how much future business they lost from stupid mistakes like this they would honor the deal in an instant.

In the last five years I purchased two laptops from Dell for a total of $4,000. That’s $800/year that Dell will not be getting from me. Think about how many other loyal customers Dell ticked off with this stupid customer disservice move. I would wager that Dell is revoking this deal for at least 1,000 of their customers. Let’s assume that 10% of those customers spend as much as I do on Dell products.

10% of 1,000 is 100 customers. $800/customer/year * 100 customers = $80,000/year that Dell has lost to its competitors.

The deal was for a Garmin Nuvi 265WT which retails on Amazon.com for $217.84 (at the time of this post) and was being sold on Dell’s site for $130 + tax. That difference is $87.84 and at 1,000 customers that’s $87,840. In just over one year, Dell would have broke even by honoring this deal and now has lost many valuable customers.

What a stupid move. Way to go, Dell!

No related posts.

I was blown away by the price difference:

Amazon.com - Garmin Nuvi 250 - Price comparison between silver and pink versions

Silver: $109.99
Pink: $471.99
——————–
Difference: $362.00

The difference alone could purchase
3.3 units of the silver model!

Garmin isn’t the only company who discriminates based on color. Want a black Mac? Better have some “I’m rich!” money laying around. Apple used to have both black and white MacBooks and the typical difference was $100+.

What ridiculous discrepancies have you found?

No related posts.

Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.

Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers.

It is simple. So simple.

• Sign up for an account.
• Download and install the awesome S3 Firefox Organizer (S3Fox) Firefox add-on.
• Upload the files you want to be served up like hotcakes.
• Update the links in your HTML files to point to the new location.
  Example: http://s3.amazonaws.com/jeremy/blog/images/large_bandwidth_sucking_header.jpg
  Note that the example is intended to show the format of the URL and does not point to a valid resource.

Too good to be true? Nope. The S3 files are served up lickety split and best of all it takes the load off of your cheap host which allows it to function much more efficiently. So far I have moved my site’s header and the LightBox JS file. Why didn’t I move the other JS files and images? Because Google hosts all of the popular JavaScript libraries for free.

How much does it cost?
Very little, unless your site becomes wildly popular. 1 million requests costs one dollar plus 17 cents per GB transfered. That’s right. 1,000,000 GET requests = $1.00 + $0.17/GB.

Let’s assume the average size of the elements being served from your Amazon S3 bucket is 10KB.
10KB = 0.01MB = 0.00001GB
1,000,000 requests x 0.00001GB = 10GB
10GB x $0.17/GB = $1.70
1,000,000 requests x $0.01/10,000 requests = $1.00
Total Download Cost: $2.70

Your cheap site can now support 1,000,000 requests per month for a whopping $9.65 ($6.95 for BlueHost and $2.70 for Amazon S3). And if your site gets Dugg or on the front page of Reddit, Amazon S3 will scale without sweating a drop.

No related posts.

No related posts.

I decided to do some updates on my desktop computer at home tonight and the download speed was awful. The maximum download speed on my current plan is 90KB/s. That’s not gonna cut it for downloading gigabytes of data in a reasonable amount of time. Hmm…maybe I’ll upgrade my internet connection so the downloads go faster, I thought!

I called Time Warner, waited on hold for about five minutes and then spoke to Dustin, an upstanding young sales rep. I’m embarrassed for Dustin. What. A. Schmuck.

Me: I want to upgrade my Roadrunner internet connection.
Dustin: Ok, our next plan is blah blah blah…
Me: And then?
Dustin: Our standard package. Five megabytes for $39.95 a month.
Me: Five megabytes?!
Dustin: Yes, five megabytes.
Me: Five Mega B-Y-T-E-S?
Dustin: Yes, five megabytes.

Me: Let me speak to your supervisor, please.
Dustin: May I ask why?
Me: Yes, because you don’t know the difference between megabytes and megabits.
Dustin: Megabytes, megabits, they’re the same thing.
Me: No they aren’t.
Dustin: Yes, they are.
Me: Let me speak to your supervisor, please.
Dustin: Why, because I don’t know the difference between megabytes and megabits?
Me: Yes.
Dustin: I don’t think she’ll let you speak with her.
Me: Make it happen.
Dustin: Hold on, sir.

5 minutes later…

Dustin: My supervisor doesn’t think you need to speak with her about this issue. I’m not in IT, or technical support. Do you want to work for Time Warner?
Me: What?
Dustin: Do you want a job with Time Warner?
Me: No, if I wanted a job with Time Warner I would be working for Time Warner.
Me: Now, can you get me that plan you told me about? The five megabyte plan.
Dustin: Sure, let me put that into the system.
Me: NO! You can’t put it into the system because it doesn’t exist. You don’t have a five megabyte plan! You have a five megabit plan! Now let me talk with your supervisor.
Dustin: May I ask why?
Me: Yes, because Time Warner obviously isn’t training you correctly. The fact that you don’t know the difference between megabytes and megabits speaks to the poor quality of their training.
Dustin: That’s great. It’s not my job to know the difference between megabytes and megabits.
Me: Let me speak with your supervisor.
Dustin: She isn’t going to let you speak with her.
Me: Make it happen.
Dustin: Ok…make it happen.

10 minutes later…

Dustin: My supervisor is going to speak with you and he (somehow mutated sexes during the break) knows the difference between megabytes and megabits.
Me: Good.
Dustin: Hold on while I transfer you to Jocque.
Me: (Hmm…isn’t that a man’s name?)

5 minutes later…

Jocque: Hello sir, how may I help you?
Me: Are you Dustin’s supervisor?
Jocque: Yes.
Me: Well Jocque, I have a problem. Dustin quoted me a 5 megabyte per second connection for $39.95 per month. Can you sign me up for that plan?
Jocque: Haha. No, sir. I would have that plan at home if we carried it.
Me: Well then, can you please teach Dustin the difference between bytes and bits so he doesn’t misquote the plans anymore?
Jocque: Yes, sir. I can do that.
Me: Good. I also wanted to point out that Dustin’s attitude needs some work. Dustin said, and I quote, “It’s not my job to know the difference between megabytes and megabits.”
Jocque: *gasp* That is completely unacceptable.
Me: Yes it is.
Me: Now, what kind of discount can I get for having to deal with that?
Jocque: Let me transfer you to a different rep who will be able to help you.
Me: Ok.

Five minutes later, without hold music to let me know I’m still connected…

Vanessa: Sir? Hello?! Sir?
Me: Yes?
Vanessa: How can I help you, sir?
Me: I want to upgrade my internet connection.
Vanessa: Ok, we have a five megabyte connection for $39.95 per month.
Me: A five megabyte connection for $39.95 per month?
Vanessa: Yes, a five megabyte connection for $39.95 per month.
Vanessa: Ohh…sorry…it’s a five megabit connection.
Me: Did your supervisor just correct you?
Vanessa: Yes.
Me: Good. You need to learn the difference.
Me: Now, what kind of discount can I get for having to deal with this for 45 minutes?
Vanessa: Well, we can upgrade you to the standard plan (5 Mb/s) and it will only add $5 to your account.
Me: How is that?
Vanessa: Well my supervisor authorized me to give you a campaign deal for a year that we’re not running right now.
Me: Good!

So, for $5 more per month I go from 768Kb/s (96KB/s) to 5Mb/s (625KB/s). But I guess really there’s no difference since megabytes and megabits are the same thing!

To any of you who are still confused about the difference, let me make it quite clear:

1 byte contains 8 bits.
There are 8 bits in 1 byte.
A byte is 8 times bigger than 1 bit.
A bit is 1/8 the size of a byte.

MB = megabyte
Mb = megabit

MB = 8Mb
1Mb = 0.125MB

If you’re STILL confused please check out the Wikipedia article on “bit” here.

No related posts.

When I started jeremyglover.com in 2005 I used MediaTemple. *GAG*. They are overpriced and have horrible quotas for both bandwidth and storage. I searched for a host and found BlueHost. Woo hooo!

All you have to do is take a look at the stats on the right to see how amazing they are. And for $6.95 per month! Hah! Take that, MediaTemple.

When I signed up, BlueHost offered 200GB of storage and 2TB of bandwidth per month. Now they’re up to 600GB of storage and 6TB of bandwidth per month. Wow!

I’ve had nothing but great service from BlueHost.

Thank you BlueHost!

Related posts:

1. Caching With Zend Framework Using Zend_Cache

I bought a 42″ Vizio LCD HD TV at Sam’s on my birthday. A week and a half later I figured I should find out what the return policy was to make sure if I needed to bring it back for whatever reason I could do so before my time was up.

I meandered to the customer service desk where I asked a middle-aged woman what the return policy was on LCD TVs. She informed me that it was 6 months. From the way she stuttered I figured I should get a second opinion.

I went to the electronics department where I found an employee standing right beside a LCD TV. I asked him what the return policy was for LCD TVs and he replied 90 days. I told him that the lady at customer service told me 6 months and he assured me they were wrong and that if I had my receipt I could bring it in whenever.

I said, “so 90 days or whenever?”

“That’s right, sir,” he remarked.

At this point I’m obviously quite sure that no one had a clue what they were talking about. We continued shopping and when we checked out I stopped two more female employees who gave me conflicting answers.

1) 6 Months
2) 30 Days

I questioned the employee’s answer and she told me she wasn’t sure so I should ask one of the two managers standing over yonder. At this point I’m very curious to see what the “authority figure” at the store has to say.

I walked up behind Dean, the manager, and said, “Excuse me sir. What is the return policy on LCD TVs?”

“Do you have the receipt?”

“Yes.”

“Well there you go.”

I’m not sure what to think about the whole situation but I figured if I documented it here I’d have at least a little evidence when they tell me I can’t return it in 38 years.

I guess we’ll find out!

If anyone’s wondering, my intentions are totally legitimate. I bought this TV shortly before thanksgiving (before the good deals come out) but I do have some beef with the TV. The contrast ratio is only 1000:1 compared to slightly higher priced models who blow that away with 5000:1 and higher. When I watch a fairly dark scene everything is washed out and the detail disappears. I’m hoping I can find a good deal after thanksgiving and return this Vizio.

No related posts.

They have other items for $5 after rebate if you’re interested:

• TRENDNet 54Mbps Wireless Firewall Router, 802.11g, b $40 – $15 eRebate – $20 rebate = $5
• TRENDNet 54Mbps Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter, 802.11g, b $25 – $10 erebate – $10 rebate = $5
• TRENDNet 54Mbps Wireless PC Card, 802.11g, b $25 – $10 eRebate – $10 rebate = $5
• TRENDNet 54Mbps Wireless PCI Adapter, 802.11g, b $25 – $10 eRebate – $10 rebate = $5

No related posts.