At the beginning, it was the dream: Never having to carry heavy bottles up the stairs, always having fizzy water when required and, in the long-run, saving a fortune whilst at the same time being eco-friendly. They had even improved the flavours so we saved a significant amount on expensive pop as well. We only treated ourselves to a nice bottle of Coca-Cola, as they still have not been able to get this flavour quite right, even though we think that Sodastream and Coca-Cola collaborated on the recipe.

Great deal! What is there to complain about?

However, the bubble quickly burst. After just under a month, our gas bottle ran out and we were catapulted back into the eighties. Firstly, it ran out two days after our weekly shop near the Comet store where we originally bought it from. Considering this was a very long drive, we thought to save the petrol and find a closer store that sells it. Well, the closest Comet store was still 4.33 miles away.

Groaning and moaning about the inconvenience already, we embarked on a mission and ventured to the new, unknown Comet store. When we entered with our hugely obvious gas bottle, that hardly fits in any bag, we were greeted at the door with the comment that they have ran out of stock and we would have to come back another time. Unfortunately, the staff was not even able to tell us when they expect the next delivery. So we turned on our heels on the doorstep and returned home without results.

The weekend after, we gave it another go. Optimistic, with the sun shining, we grabbed our gas bottle, got in the car and damaged the environment further by driving back to our new friends at Comet. As already worryingly suspected, they still did not have any new bottles in stock. So we ended up ordering in the bottles for pick-up the next week. Bearing in mind, at this point we had been out of water for over a week already. This time we wanted to be clever, we ordered in not one, but two bottles, so we would have a replacement bottle and something like this would never happen again. We paid in advance and drove home, at least partly satisfied. Then at home the awakening. Comet called and told us they could only give us one bottle as they ordered two replacement bottles, but we only had one gas bottle to return. Okay, accepted, fine. At least we will get one bottle next week. So we thought…

The big day had come. Finally, that night we were going to get a new gas bottle and our household would be back on the fizzy water wagon for good. Unfortunately, we did not foresee what was about to happen. Hopeful and chirpy, we entered the Comet store with our big, obvious bottle and were immediately jumped on by a customer service assistant who had no clue what we were talking about. I had the feeling he tried selling us a completely new Sodastream. By the time we had successfully explained our reasons for coming, we were directed to a till with TWO further service staff to assist us in our needs. After a lot of back and forth, signature exchanges, payments, refunds etc. etc. The three little piglets finally managed to provide us with a sealed bottle at the right price. We left the shop happy about our success and slightly amused about the incompetence and lack of training of Comet staff in the Sodastream bottle exchange policies. In the end, it “only” took us two weeks to manage to acquire a new gas bottle. But the story does not end here, no.

When we came home we were dying of thirst and the first act was to put the new gas bottle in our Sodastream and stream away. This is when we realised that the bottle we had received was in fact EMPTY! This was, with absolute certainty, the most devastating moment of the whole Odyssey. Now we still don’t have any fizzy water and paid £8.99 for an empty bottle.

This morning I was, of course, straight on the phone to the Sodastream customer careline. Luckily, the number is provided on the back of the gas bottle in a big red box with large lettering, so I did not have to search around for it. Thinking about it, it is probably that big because many people need it. Anyway, determined to get this solved I rang them at 10.30am on a Friday and … Nothing! After letting it ring for over one minute, there was no answer. I would at least have expected some announcement stating that the customer service advisors are oh so busy and if I hold the line, they will be with me shortly, but nothing. So let’s try again…

I finally got through to Sodastream and after talking to them on the phone it becomes clear that Comet seem to have a problem with their staff training. I suspect that Sodastream provided the right training and information, it was just never fully passed on to the store staff, as the Sodastream customer service department was very competent and helpful. A new gas bottle is on its way to us, free of charge. Yippieh!

I will soon be able to fizz up everything liquid in the house again. Oh joy! Besides that, I think that Sodastream has to address this problem with their retailers, otherwise the Sodastream will never completely fulfill its purpose. The concept of refills only works with great customer service, full staff education and high product availability. So far, it has not saved me any money, time or the environment. Although I absolutely love the concept of the Sodastream, If I had known that it is this hard to acquire refills, I would have thought twice about buying one.

As a little side note, in case someone from Sodastream is reading this: the word “Exchange” on the back of the bottle is spelt incorrectly. It is not “Excahnge”.

We watch GMTV in the mornings to find out what is going on in the world, before we start into the day.

Last Monday morning, we woke up and switched the tele on, only to realise that GMTV was dead. It is now called Daybreak. This would not matter so much, in the end, what is a name change really. I would still be the same person if you would call me a different name. And I think this is what ITV tried, to stay as close to the old format as possible, but bring a fresh look into it to bring the format up to scratch.

However, I have discovered that we do not really enjoy watching it anymore. The colours and appearance reminds me a lot of low budget Channel 4 productions. Whereas the old logo with a warm colour palette (orange, yellow and red colour mix). Made me feel like it is summer and the sun is rising to say good morning, Daybreak makes me feel like it is still the break of dawn and very cold out there. Not the best way to start the day. In general, I find that the purple colour scheme is a bit too much for my empty stomach in the mornings. I particularly loath the multi-screen weather forecast, what was wrong about a nice blue screen where you can see the whole country without being separated by black lines?

For everyone who has not seen it yet, here is an image of the new logo:

What does this logo suspiciously remind you of? For everyone who cannot see it yet, here the solution:

Of course, there is a lot of good change to it as well. For example, I appreciate that the presenters are out in the field more often and closer to the public. I particularly like that the Make-Over is now coming to you instead of bringing people to the studio. The format now has a more personal feel to it, but still, for now, I will have to say:

“Good luck with the new format GMTV, I am sure it will be successful. As for me, I might give Breakfast on BBC1 a go for a while. “

This feature comes onto the market at a time where it is of most interest to me as I have been monitoring the market for several months now with the aim to buy a nice little property in the near future. So of course, when I heard about it, I had to try it out straight away.

It is a bit tricky to find the option for the first time. When you type in the area you want to search for properties, access the link “search options”. A dropdown field will appear. Choose the option properties.

So thanks to our fast connection I didn’t even have to wait to get a nicely dotted map of all the properties available in my area. On the left, above the search results, you can refine your search for rental or sales properties, by property type, number of bedrooms and bathrooms.

I must admit, I am impressed!

I have been monitoring property websites like findaproperty.com and rightmove.co.uk on a fairly regular basis. After several months of looking for properties in the same area, I keep getting back to finding the same properties over and over again. On top of this, these houses seem to be extortionately priced. The new Google Maps feature seems to find significantly more and cheaper properties in my area. This gives me more hope that I will ever find an affordable property in my area.

Another point I like is that I can see where exactly the available properties are dotted around the map. I can visualise the whole area around the property a lot better and if I want to look at a house, I can go on Google Street View and have a look at the street. Previously I had to hope I would get a postcode or street name with the property advert, I had to go on Google maps, find the street and then still did not know which house it was precisely.

Google Maps for Property search has already changed the way I look for properties. Where I sorted my search results by ascending price before, I am now looking at my preferred area and look at these properties first. This means I can localise and narrow down my search results so much better.

In conclusion, Google always have great applications and they hardly ever fail to deliver on their products and this new feature is a nice value-added to their portfolio. Thumbs up from me on this one!

The service is nothing new to the social media savvy internet user. Websites like Foursquare, Yelp and Google Places have offered this service for a fair while already. However, this is a big step forward in location-based social marketing for Twitter and they have supported their service through partnerships with experienced players like Foursquare, Gowalla, Localeze and Tom Tom.

I think this is a great opportunity for companies to create a buzz for events and attract more people. On the other hand, it can also have significant implications on revenues when bad customer service leads to negative tweets. However, this might just be what companies need to improve their customer services once and for all. Nothing helps better in monitoring performance than real-time information.

On the contrary, as a personal user, I am not impressed with this new feature. I don’t think I will be using it. Many of my contacts twitter where they are at any given time of the day. I am still very wary about this, it creeps me out to think that random people on the net can find out where I am and if they follow me long enough, they can trace my steps and my daily routine throughout the week. Great opportunity for burglars and muggers! Maybe I am just a bit of a spoil sport here and someone can convince me that this is not an issue and I might just about join in twittering places.

According to the Marketing Magazine, the menu will comprise of bacon, butties, breakfast rolls, eggs and sausages. The previous menu from 2008 comprised of wraps, french toast and waffles. Wheras I caI can see failure in both menus.

I suppose which would theoretically target the sweet teeth of our society. However, I think this failed as Whereas the new menu seems to attract a crowd with savoury preferences

Right, this is the rebirth of my blogging. My first post in at least 5 years, with a new domain and a new title. Anyone who knows my wife, @kerrching, knows that she’s a Apple nut. Also, with a June birthday, she has conveniently positioned herself perfectly for the Apple release cycle. An iPad was inevitable for her birthday, but I knew that if I just delivered a wrapped box, there wouldn’t be much of a surprise. Where’s the fun in that? So I ra … Read More

via Ahead, Robot!

The Kinect is a motion controller with integrated microphone. It is distantly related to the PlayStation’s Eye Toy camera that allows users to play games without the need for controllers. The difference of the Kinect to the Eye Toy is that the light, contour and depth perception is a lot further advanced which will make the game experience so much better. Although I doubt that it will be able to measure your weight by “scanning” you. Additionally, the microphone recognizes noises, which allows the use of voices in games. Another advancement is the motorized head which helps to adjust the unit to the right position where before, this would have had to be done manually.

The Kinect also lovely integrates the Web2.0 requirements of our society by linking in directly with social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, giving users the opportunity to publish their scores and screenshots of the players. Video Chat is also available.

Name
I like the brilliant combination of the words “Kinetic” and “Connect”. However, I get the feeling that it is not a very memorable word. I always have to concentrate really hard to get the right word out. My brain mixes it up with the Amazon Kindle, but I am sure with time I will get used to the new word and it will go over in my vocabulary so I use it without thinking.

Logo
The design of the Kinect logo is purple. Added to the Xbox green and orange, it fits in very well. It will be so easy for buyers to spot the games that use the Kinect technology as the purple is quite dominant. I must admit, even though the font type and design is very simple, I cannot imagine a better logo for it.

Accessories
Not so good for Microsoft, but ideal for the consumer: The lack of need for additional hand controllers, tennis raquets, plastic guns or anything else makes the Kinect a lot more attractive than the Wii as every additional accessory creates additional costs. We have three Wii controllers at home. We never use all three of them, but if we have visitors, we are suddenly one controller short and to buy another one for these rare occassions is really not worth the money. However, I am sure that Microsoft will find a way to make us buy additional accessories to keep constant revenues trickle in.

Competition
Whereas the PlayStation Move is a better kept secret and only to be announced today, it does not seem to offer a big value added compared to the Nintendo Wii which is on the market since 2006 already. The PlayStation Move still requires a controller or on this case a weird microphone-like wand with differently coloured balls. In my opinion in looks very cheap and is not really a step forward compared to the Wii controllers. This show that the Kinect seems to have significantly advanced features compared to the competition.

All in all a great new product, but I think that women will still prefer to buy a Nintendo Wii as they predominantly like the fitness focus the Wii has set with their balance board where they are still unbeaten.

Compatibility
Even though the Kinect is compatible with the current Xbox 360, there are many points that speak for buying the new model:

• smaller size
• bigger storage, 250GB hard drive
• quieter fan
• built-in wireless
• same price as Xbox 360 Elite

The new Xbox 360 Slimline is available in the UK from 16th July.

The last time we had a power cut it happened on a Friday and the whole area was cut off from around 3pm until 2am the next morning. As we did not have to go to work the next day, we went to the pub right after work and everyone was out on the streets. It was quite a pleasant exceptional circumstance, but this time the circumstances were different. We had not planned on spending money or going out and all we wanted to do was to have a nice evening together in front of the telly.

We checked the fuse box in our flat but everything seemed okay, so we started to play a card game in the hope the power would come back on. Unfortunately it was already so dark that we could hardly see the cards, which spoilt our fun slightly. After finishing the game, it was so dark that we were unable to play another round so we decided to ring our electric company, Southern Electric. The answer we received was not very satisfying: “We will send an engineer out to the site within the next three hours.” We left our phone number to receive updates about the progress. Of course, it was not the fault of the poor woman on the phone, but considering it had happened twice before in the last eight month and last time for 11 (!) hours, you would expect them to have an engineer on call who can be on-site within 30 minutes the most.

The two flats above us had light. I wonder if they get their electricity from a different provider or emergency power… Unfortunately we live in 2010 Greater London where nobody knows their neighbours and we have not enough courage to go upstairs and knock on their door to ask why they have power and we don’t. So we have to deal with our problems by ourselves.

Considering it was getting dark very rapidly we decided to go for a drive, have a look what’s going on outside, get some petrol, try to find some torches and a battery radio. We wanted to brace ourselves for a night without energy, but we did not take into consideration that it was 8pm on a Sunday. In a time when we have 24h supermarkets at every corner, it was impossible for us to find any shop selling a torch or a radio on a Sunday evening. We went to four different petrol stations, but without success. When we came back at 10pm the power was still off and it was dark. We grabbed the only three candles we had and did the only thing we could do considering we had work the next morning – we went to bed. Now, there is where it all went wrong, they obviously worked on restoring our power so the light kept flickering on and off. Of course, we could have just switched the light off, but we left it on in the hallway to check if it was coming back on as the light in our building went back on 10 minutes earlier.

So we had a flickering light, candles that might burn our house down, no TV, spent petrol on driving around aimlessly for two hours, I missed a great football match, my mobile phone was about to die and started beeping half way through the night and on top of it, the energy company called at three minutes to midnight to check if our light was back on. I am sure there is a compensation case in there somewhere, especially considering there were two flats in our building that had light. I am seriously considering to switch my provider.

Well, I am off now to buy an emergency kit for power cuts.

Whereas I never liked the design of Bing as I could not see the point of making the page so picture heavy, I can recognise that it makes Google look more attractive. I like it that unlike Bing, you are able to choose your own pictures. I suppose it is very pleasant for people who like to change their desktop background on a regular basis anyway. However, I feel like the new design is in dire need of some minor improvements:

Firstly, if you copy something, copy it correctly. Bing uses a very pleasant white alpha background to set the text apart from the underlying picture. At the moment, I cannot read the text links surrounding the search field on some backgrounds.

Secondly, let me choose to opt out of the new background design. This is no advertising and you don’t receive payments for every person using a picture, so why do you care whether I have a colourful background or a plain white one? Yes I know, in the left bottom corner is a link that gives you the option to “remove background image”. Here is news: it does not work! I tried it and it brings me back to the previous image and the link changes to “change background image”. After wasting 10 min. on it I finally gave up and have now lovely scenery greeting me. Which brings me to the third and final point: Tell me what the picture is of I am staring at.

I just hope that Google will still continue altering their Google logo for different occasions. I would be missing the lovely images dearly.

Other than this, I think the new Google design is a very customer oriented step forward. And for everyone out there who is not impressed with the new changes, how often do you actually access the actual Google homepage? Thanks to Google search bars in our browsers, we hardly ever start our search from the original homepage anymore and if you use iGoogle you can choose another entirely different theme anyway.

It is obviously not an issue of saving the company from bankruptcy by taking these measures. No – HP is cutting these jobs to create savings and stay competitive.

To counter the daunting news, HP announced that they will create an additional 6,000 jobs in sales, but does this make it better? There will still be 3,000 less people working for HP in the near future. Wouldn’t it be good corporate citizenship behaviour if HP could use the $1bn to create those 6,000 jobs and keep the other 9,000?

Yes, I agree, industries and technology evolve and to stay competitive, companies have to embrace change, but can’t it wait a while? We are trying to get the whole world out of a global crisis. If it is not threatening the existence of HP or endangering more jobs, shouldn’t we all try to support each other where we can, even if it means to keep on too much staff?