from ActiveDen:
Client: “[Indian outsourcer] says he can do this site for $200. Why should I go with you?”
Me: “Has he done any work for you in the past?”
Client: Yeah! He did [Other Site] for me.
[I load the other site]
Me: “The entire site’s done in Flash.”
Client: “Huh?”
Me: “It’s a site for iPhone users.”
Client: “I know. Cool, huh?”
Me: “It’s a site for iPhone users… none of whom can see it…”
Client: “Huh?”
Me: “The iPhone doesn’t support Flash.”
Client: “Well it looks fine on my PC!”
Me: “Do you have an iPhone?”
Client: “No.”
Me: “…”
Client: “Tell you what, I’m just gonna go with [Indian outsourcer]. He seems like he knows what he’s doing and I’m not sure you do.”
Me: “Have fun.”
Werd helemaal gelukkig bij het lezen van het interview met Marktplaats-directeur Kiliaan Toorenaar:
“Alles wat je ziet op Marktplaats.nl is getest. Alles kan altijd beter. Niets staat er bij toeval. Marketeers hebben dat vaak niet door, maar een site is nooit af. Marktplaats kent elke drie weken een nieuwe release. De site lijkt niet te veranderen, maar in 10 jaar hebben er megaveranderingen plaatsgevonden”.
en even verderop, over de overname door eBay:
“Consultants van McKinsey en de Boston Consulting Group waren daar kind aan huis. Dat betekent dat er veel aandacht is voor analyse. Marktplaats profiteert daarvan. Je moet Marktplaats zien als een grote trechter en we proberen er steeds meer vaseline in te smeren. Hoe faciliteer je het gebruik het best? Het gezonde verstand van Marktplaats en de analyse van eBay zijn gemixt. We zijn hier de hele dag aan het testen om zaken slimmer en beter te maken”.
Heb een nieuwe taal-plugin geinstalleerd. Daardoor is de huidige, reeds vertaalde content foetsie, verdwenen en waarschijnlijk alleen nog uit de database op te duikelen. Zal binnenkort een en ander opschonen…
It happened: my Macbook Pro is broken. The screen that is. Never had any problems with carrying laptops in my old and trusted ASUS-briefcase. But the Macbook Pro showed up with a broken screen yesterday… Kind of fragile stuff. Today I visited a official Apple Service Center in Rotterdam in my lunchbreak. They told me that this is not covered by warranty. The price to fix this? A stunning 758 euros without 19% VAT. The repair will last al least 10 working days. But more likely 15.
I left the shop astonished and determined to solve it in another way, To make a long story short: I ordered a new screen via Ebay. Price: 256,98 Canadian dollars. Including shipment. That is 161,01 euros. The manual that tells in a step-by-step way how to replace the display was downloaded via Powerbookmedic.com This includes details photos on how to do the job. I guess it will take me a maximum of 3 hours, probably less. I’ll keep you all posted on how this story ends. But I guess I’m in for a very satisfying solution (fingers crossed!)
UPDATE – FRIDAY AUGUST 8TH, 2008
The screen arrived! That is rather rapid: ordered Tuesday and delivered Friday from www.screencountry.com in Canada! This evening I am invited to fly with the Dutch Airforce – in a balloon. But otherwise I would have rebuild the MacBook Pro this evening. I’ll do that tomorrow. When all works out, I am done for a bit more than 160 euros. Within a week! Via the official channels the situation would differ quite a bit: at least 750 euros and a waiting time of two – probably three – working weeks…
FINAL UPDATE:
Did it. Just a day after receiving the screen from Canada, I took the thing apart and fixed the screen. Geeting it back together was probably harder than taking it apart… Nice!
It has been too long ago since I blogged here. A lot of different things kept me busy. Not that I had no stuff to blog about. It has been a rather inspiring and thriving period… While catching up, I had to delete another 545 spam comments. Askimet told me that:
Akismet has caught 7,531 spam for you since you first installed it. Now that’s what I call a blessing. I dare not think about the effort it would have been to manually delete al that crap…
Just picking up the pace again. Like nothing happened. I just finished my presentation for tommorow. I will be talking about “The Future of Direct Marketing” on the National Marketingday that will be held at Nieuwegein, The Netherlands. Just before that I finished the recording for tonight’s PitchTalk at Het Gesprek. It will be aired around 20.30 hour. Ronnie Overgoor and I had Durk-Jan de Bruin as our guest. He is the founder of www.startpagina.nl and is now busy with www.mijnwinkel.nl A very interesting and nice talk indeed.
Finally I found a plugin that was rather easy to install. So now DR | ADV is bi-lingual. I will not translate all the content at once. But once in a while I will translate the postings to Dutch. New postings will be in both languages from scratch.
