I haven’t posted anything here for a couple of weeks. I think it’s because I took a week off for Spring Break (to help my daughter do the college tour thing) and whenever I have more than seven days away from the office it seems it takes another seven to get back fully in the groove.
By that logic I’m about two days away from having something useful to talk about here but why let that stop me? Here are a couple of fragments that will have to do until then…
MEEBO – A cool web-based chat client–which means you can use it from just about anywhere. Supports AIM, ICQ, Jabber, Yahoo, MSN and Google Talk. This might have potential for libraries trying to ramp up IM services (to replace the online reference bloatware that dominated this space a year or so ago).
Other World Computing – I’ve ordered a couple of things from OWC over the past couple of years but not enough that I’d register on their radar…but I want to take a minute to rave about their customer service. About 6 months ago I bought a 12″ aluminum PowerBook battery from OWC. When it arrived, the plastic battery had come unattached from the aluminum plate. I decided I’d just superglue the thing back down (so I wouldn’t have to get into the hassle of shipping it back and waiting, etc.). I thought it went well enough but I apparently didn’t line everything up precisely and after a few months use, the battery started falling out at odd times as I carried the laptop around. Not realizing I’d already “fixed it till it broke,” I pulled the battery apart from the aluminum backing plate and thought I’d reglue it. Dumb move—the little aluminum plate bent. I felt like it was completely my fault now, but dropped a note to OWC on their “contact us” form, asking if they’d sell me just an aluminum plate. I got this response back the next day:
How about we just arrange a cross ship and get you back to base with a new battery? 🙂
Best Regards,
Lawrence R. O’Connor
Digging around, I discovered that Lawrence (“Larry”) O’Connor is the CEO of Other World Computing. Not bad, huh? I boxed up the mess I’d made and mailed it. Two days ago my new 12″ battery arrived. Needless to say I’m now a really loyal OWC customer (http://www.macsales.com).
And finally…
…the Google hegemon advances