RSS Rating System - Some thoughts

The questions is: "What is a good RSS feed?" I think part of the answer may be with an RSS Rating System. Here are some thoughts on RSS Ratings

John Robb talks about games as learning

John Robb talked about his son and Roller Coaster Tycoon. Civilization is my game of choice for learning. It teaches histroy (Wonders of the Worlds) including ancient civilizations as well as modern. Because of the geometric way a civilization grows, it also teaches math in a real way (or compound interest, if you'd like). The strategic thinking is wonderful. While John disliked the lack of backup material on engineering in Roller Coaster Tycoon, the background material in Civ is extensive. And if you don't like the game, there is always the music.

This is a tale of poor systems treating a customer badly.

Yesterday, Tuesday August 12, I took time off from work to visit your store to buy a computer for my daughter who is going off to college. We brought in the two most recent flyers because we wanted a package.

We talked to a good sales associate who helped us decide between the eMachine, HP and Compaq that you had on display. Several times he had to ask the manager a question. When we got ready to purchase the Compaq system for $519, he informed us that he had none in stock and we could order online. So after about an hour at the store we went home, disappointed we did not have the computer in hand, but confident that we could get it online.

So at home I spend over two hours trying to order the package the sales associate said was available. online. It turns out that the monitor was not available and I could not find all of the rebates. (This is a particularly horrible aspect of your website and how it differs from your flyers.)

So completely frustrated, but still loyal, I dragged my daughter to the Fairfax store. The sales person tells me that they can do the deal because they have the computer and printer in stock and the rebates will bring the price down to the advertised price. So he starts to ring it up, but his shift is over and he asks another associate to complete the sale. So far so good. After some confusion about how the gift card is deducted from each item, we are ready to proceed. I complete the credit card application which takes more time, but I understand. Then the AOL service agreement for by daughter who has no room phone number yet, but the system can not handle it.

Finally, everything is approved and the paper tape is reeling our receipts and rebates. So I go to add everything up. Gift card fine, receipt fine, rebate one fine and rebate two fine. No third rebate. The sales associated get more receipt tape to spit out, but still no third receipt. A more senior person comes over, more paper and no receipt. The senior people now disapper for about 15 minutes. I'm told they are printing out the rebate form in the back room. We have now been trying to buy this computer package, which only two piece are in stock, for about 90 minutes.

The less senior sales person is assigned to tell us that the third rebate, from Circuit City, is no longer valid. The computer system will cost us an addition 30% or $150. Sorry, there is nothing I can do. No manager or senior person shows up.

If three different sales people and one senior sales person did not know that the advertised price, after rebates, was no longer available, how do you expect a consumer to know? Any why do I have to wait 90 plus minutes to find out? Apparently the package in the flyer was for a limited time. This information should have been flagged for the salespeople when they checked inventory! Your systems are failing your business.

So still loyal, I agree to buy the system that is on the front page of the current flyer even though I have to pick up the computer from Tysons Corner, pick up the monitor whenever it may arrive in Fairfax and take the printer tonight. The senior person is now taking care of me. But wait, while backing out the other system the printer is no longer available, but it will have to be shipped to me. So now I'm buying a system and nothing is available at the store! But it gets worse.

We have now been in the store for about 2 hours and it is about 8:00 pm. My daughter, who is diabetic, is going low and needs food or sugar. I grab a soda out of your machine and explain my daughter needs the soda. I pay $1.13. She get better.

And to top the day off, the receipts start printing. More and more paper. The sales associate adds up the rebates and it does not add up. The rebates are $50 short. After some apologies, he gives me an instant $50 credit/rebate on my new Circuit City card.

It is now too late to get dinner, which my daughter disparately needs, and get to Tysons to pick up the computer.

NO COMPUTER SYSTEM SHOULD PUT A CUSTOMER THROUGH THIS. There is no excuse to have four or more sales people look at the sale and not be able to be flagged to tell the customer what the final price after rebates will be. Though I generally think that Circuit City has been a leader in customer service for electronic products, this should not be accepted by management, associates or customers.

RegEx to Remove font tags

Wrote this on my birthday and now here for safe keeping:

Here's a Regular Express for removing all font tags with Dream Weaver;

1) Go to Find and Replace. Paste this into the right Search For box:
<fon[^<]+>|</fon[^<]+>

2) Leave Replace with blank

3) Click the Option Use Regular Expressions.

This will replace all Font tags and their contents like size="99".

Have fun.

Feed Demon has a great feature of allowing you to read an item and email it. It works great with both Outlook and Netscape as my clients (two different computers). Would also make an interesting way to update your blog.

Here's an RSS Tutorial, meant for a programmer. Even programmers need a style guide to know how to program RSS. I've got to get moving on this style guide after vacation.

enewsletters move to RSS - Part 2

This is True enewsletter has grown to over 117,000 subscribers. Randy Cassingham, the author of this enewsletter was written up by Steve Outing on Poynteronline's E-Media Tidbit. This is True is moving to RSS, according to the article, to fight the clutter of spam. More evidence to come.

Lockergnome RSS feeds about RSS

Lockegnome has nearly created an RSS Feed of the Day with their RSS Resource. They have several feeds, but just recently added several about RSS itself. If you like following what is happening in the RSS world, this is the feed to follow.

Bloglines.com

This is a great service. So good it makes me wonder how they can do it for free.

Bloglines is a web based RSS reader. You create an account for free, subscribe to RSS feeds and read them in a framed web page. From work or from home, it is still the same RSS reader.

From a technical/RSS provider, this is a great service because of the reduced bandwidth to hopefully hundreds or thousands or millions of RSS hits to the server everyday. Now the load is carried by bloglines. And given the feedback to RSS providers, there is nothing not to like here.

I particularly like the New Blogs and Top Blogs that are available from the front page. Just a very easy interface to add some new feeds.

I now recommend Bloglines to anyone who I'm trying to convince to start using an RSS reader. This is much easier than trying to install a desktop reader in a work environment.

(Now if Blogger wouls just make Blogger Pro available soon. I want my RSS feeds live.)

Browser Wars: newsmonster.org

Open source tends to win: Apache and Linux. But it rarely goes against shareware.

I think browsers are starting to be commodities, so it is the value-add to browsers that brings on the Second Browser Wars. RSS readers are that value-added. I downloaded newsmonster.org for mozilla yesterday. Terrific product that competes head-to-had with Feed Demon which works with IE. This will be an interesting test of open source versus shareware.

But it points out how irrelevant standard browsers are becoming.