I got a response from the customer service team with an email address.  I was at a holiday party so I waited until late Saturday night to send an email. The next day I went into Barnes and Noble and the staff was super friendly and willing to help.  They had to contact the Nook support line who requested I take the phone to verify information.  She then informed me that their computers were down and if I CALLED BACK in an hour they would be able to issue me a replacement.

Um…NO.  Luckily (well maybe not so lucky), when I informed the gentleman helping me he said he would get his manager’s consent to exchange it for me.  I was just going to return everything then and there but I thought maybe I just had a defective one, because after all, it happens.  They issued me an exchange and I took my brand new replacement home.

Thinking I would be a good consumer I plugged the Nook Simple Touch in to  charge and went about my day.  When I got home I was eager to get back to reading the book I was so rudely interrupted in reading.  The Nook was completely unresponsive.  It hadn’t charged, which means it wouldn’t turn on at all.

I called customer service and tweeted again (because you know most times, if you publicly call out a company they will respond).  The customer service hotline assured me that it MUST be a bad USB cable and that I could go into the store.  By the this time it was too late and the store was about to close.

Monday, I got a response back from the customer service email that had been tweeted to me.  When I explained that it MUST be the USB cord he replied saying he would send me one in the mail.  I got it today.

It didn’t work.

Sorry Barnes and Noble, but 2 defective devices in a row and I’m out.  I returned it tonight with no problems.  For the most part your customer service is great, your products? Not so much.

I’m going to buy a Kindle now.  Hopefully I’ll have more luck.

I definitely wish I was going to this game – it will probably have that awesome playoff vibe.  I love this time of year, playoffs are growing near! You see what I did right there?

In other hockey news, the Red Wings blew a 3 goal lead against Phoenix on Saturday night.  I knew at the beginning of the third period there was a good possibility they would lose the game.  To say I was disappointed is an understatement.  Let’s hope by Wednesday when they face the LA Kings at home they look better.  Do you think Babcock had them skating without pucks with that loss to Phoenix?

Saturday night we were switching back and forth between the Chicago/Toronto and Wings/Coyotes games while streaming the Tampa/Montreal game.  It was pretty awesome, you have to love technology.  Another reason it’s good to live near Detroit? We get CBC as a basic channel, Hockey Night in Canada.

©Andy Lopusnak Photography

Let’s Go Bolts!

PS…I can haz my own Thunderbug? He is too cute

original image

© Kate Wall

I had my second pretest today.  The last one before I will (fingers crossed) test for my first degree black belt.  Even more awesome is that my dad is finally (fingers crossed again) testing for his fourth degree on the same day.

I went to  my dad’s black belt testing for his first degree.   I remember standing in Grand Master’s school and being in total awe by the synchronization of the students doing their poomses.  The things that they had memorized and how confident they all looked.  It’s amazing to me that I will soon be testing for my black belt.

I’m also amazed by the amount of confidence that I’ve gained in tae kwon do.  I remember being near panic attacks before testing.  It wasn’t until after my (I think) blue belt testing that I became more comfortable.  Probably because at that testing I completely blanked on my poomses.  It was in front of a bunch of people and being video taped.  Needless to say I was completely mortified.   It was the worst case scenario and I lived through it.  It helps too, that I know what to expect, and  most of all, I’m  much more confident in my skills.

© Kate Wall

One of the questions that was asked of me today was “How has tae kwon do improved my life?”  My answer was  my health and that I get to spend more time with my Dad.  My health and spending time with my dad are definitely the most important but in retrospect I realized that there was a  hole in my life that tae kwon do fills.  It was something that I didn’t even realize was missing until I started kicking.

Tae kwon do is more than just poomses, blocking sets, kicking bags and sparring.  One day I will write a post about the numerous ways that tae kwon do has changed my life.

© marialaitan.com

When the opportunity came up to create a new website for my dad’s taekwondo school I jumped on it.  I’m still testing my skills at design and web coding but his site is mostly just informational.

So without further ado, my first website: kilstaekwondo.com.  It is nothing fancy.

Keep in mind that I will be doing behind the scenes maintenance and one day the gallery page will be something more complete but I was in a time crunch since his previous website was no longer.  In this day and age you can’t not have a website at all.

Here are the last 2 I did.

i used picnik.com for this

I used fotoflexor.com for this

I’ve  been told often that I ruin people’s professional lives because I’m so good at finding distracting things.

You are welcome.

20 of the Best Web Comics

85 Tools & Resources for Freelancers and Web Workers

Top 10 Social Sites for Finding a Job

Time Names Mashable in “25 Best Blogs 2009″

YouTube Toolbox: 100+ Tools and Resources to Enhance Your Video Experience

Personal Branding 102: How to Communicate & Maintain Your Brand

I’ve read some tweets about promoting yourself and/or company on twitter.  This is all fine and dandy but here is the problem I’m seeing.  I follow a couple different Red Wing tweeters and I have to tell you when they tweet 4 times in a row I get annoyed.  Especially where they are links in every single post.

I know what you are thinking, then just unfollow.  I guess I could.

Here’s another question for you…How do you feel about people giving up their blogs just to tweet?  I’m not for that at all.  Tweets are what 140 characters?

I found this article on Mashable about Twitter and still stay productive.  It uses tweetdeck.  I’m usually late in the game so I’ll probably continue using Twitterfox until I hear amazing things about tweetdeck.

To sum up the article here are the 10 things you can do:

1. Manage to-do lists in Remember the Milk
2. Set a timer
3. Add a Google Calendar item
4. Get flight info
5. Track your expenses
6. Get news alerts
7. Track packages
8. Freelancers track job time
9. Keep track of gas mileage
10. Get the weather forecast

That might be the dumbest question I’ve ever asked.  The answer is an obvious yes.  So the next logical question is how do I got about doing this?

I’m not the most organized person.  I have things all over the place.  I’m even having a hard time with external hard drive and organizing that.  That’s a little bit of a lie since the external hard drive pretty much organizes itself.  Though I do have a hard time accepting that.  I digress.

So if you back up your Google Docs, gmail and whatever else, what do you use? I saw an article about using Thunderbird to backup gmail.  Thoughts?  If you don’t, do you think it’s necessary?

I was skimming my Google Reader today and I saw post on Mashable about Gmail getting multiple inboxes.  I nearly peed my pants in excitement.  Like many others I have a sickness, I have about 5 gmail accounts.  I’d love to be able to manage each of the inboxes at the same time instead of having them forward to one that I keep open all the time.

Alas the “getting multiple inboxes” meant filtering by labels.  I’m glad I didn’t wet myself since I was misled.  Would it be too much to ask that we could manage multiple accounts in the same window?

I guess there is a firefox addon that allows you to open multiple gmail accounts.  Maybe I’ll try this for now.

Oh and please when you roll  new things out, do you think I could be like, first?

Google I love you.  Please be nice to me.

Sincerely,

Maria

What do you think about this new getting mulitple inboxes?

C is six years older than me and in his early 30′s.  He remembers never having a computer (he never “had” one until we moved in together 5 years ago).  I barely remember not being able to chat online using AOL.  Granted, I was 14 when AOL became very popular, but that’s about the time you really start communicating by yourself with others in your school without having mom or dad give you the phone number.

Don’t get me wrong, I know many in their 30′s and up are very computer savvy, and I don’t know if there is a solid line where the technology gap exists, but there is a gap.  My friends, both my age, are dating or married to a man 20+ years their senior.  Their significant others don’t understand myspace, facebook and blogging.  C doesn’t understand the popularity of it either.  He also thinks that my webcam is for making web porn still, you know what people thought those were for back in the 90′s.  (He may or may not have been kidding, I’m still not sure)  He is also paranoid about my picture being on the vast Internet.  If he only really understood that making profiles, including pictures and biography are the way this generation and those after us, network. 

So instead of fighting over something he doesn’t understand or maybe just taking the easy way out, I just don’t tell him the extent of presence online (my friends also skirt the issue of what they put online with their significant others).  I know that if he got online regularly or even checked him email regularly I would help him get himself out on the Internet, but until that time comes I think I’ll just keep it underwraps.