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Now Harvey Norman likes his business model and up until now it has been very good for him. Very very good indeed. yet it has its limitations. For one the business model is predicated around the shop and only the shop. The online presence of the store is woeful as best and down right atrocious at worse (for example the site doesn’t even work if you don’t put the www in the domain name!). But there is a reason for this. If you can shop online you don’t go to the store and the franchisees would not be happy. Of course this stops a lot of the “add on” sales as well that you get from the sales person. Although I would argue that a well designed e-commerce solution can more than compensate for this.

So what brought on a rant about Harvey Norman. Well it is not just about them, but most of that kind of shopping experience. See I got a bit of junk mail today. In with all the crap for Harvey Norman, Woolworth’s. the local IGA and some other shops I can’t remember, was a pamphlet for Deals Direct.com.au.

Yes an online store only. The catalogue looked about the same quality as your average K-mart or Target bit of junk mail, but has one major difference. There is no store front. For me I believe this is the first time I have ever received a bit of junk mail for an online property only.

So know people get a bit of junk mail which says buy this item on sale. Now however instead of getting of the couch and going out to the store they can impulse buy the product from their living room.

I think getting this one bit of junk mail is more important that most people receiving will have realised. Every page has the URL emblazed upon it and all you have to do is walk to your computer. So read the catalogue with your Sunday paper and then go and buy things.

So I will listen as Harvey keeps giving out his weekly sales figures showing the decline of his stores and listen as he blames the economic downturn for all his ills. And I will keep reading the news articles online showing all the data as I have done for the last 15 years now. And then when I want to buy something I will skip straight passed his store and buy what I want online.

I just wonder what the weekly sales figures for DealsDirect.com.au are like this week…. somehow down I don’t think is the direction they are heading.

Tags: General by Me
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So I have a lot more leave up my sleeve that Cat does… so to give me something to do and to get me out of her hair.. she suggested a road trip. Heading to Adelaide Via Broken Hill was her idea….

So here is what I am thinking… I pack some camping gear in the Subaru Forester, a couple of computers, a couple of GPS’s (a new camera if I can afford it before I go), my Vodfone N95 +my backup Telstra prepaid phone, and head out on the road for 7/8 days. I have to be in Adelaide on the 23rd of December at 10:30am… but the rest of the trip is fairly flexible.

The trip has been mulling in my head, and partly due to the Roadtrip to Cowra done by Stilgherrian which showed how crowd sourcing a trip can result in some unpredictable outcomes which are make the journey itself fun, I have decided to pre-blog the trip 2 months out before I leave. (Also given that for me the Journey is the point of the holiday and the destination is just somewhere I have to be for Xmas, opening it up may just work)

So below is what I have roughly planned… thanks to my good friends at google maps… (well o.k, they are not my actual friends) and a copy of the Camping Guide to new South Wales I have managed to work out an approximate route and timetable. Cat has also “suggested” that I could buy something Opal for her at Whitecliffs as well.

So what I want is people to suggest things that are must sees/do’s along the way.

So here is the route day by day…

Melbourne to Echuca: 237 km (There are a lot of camp grounds just pass Echuca so hole up there for one night)

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Day 2: Echuca to the Willandra National Park: 379 km (Just south of Ivanhoe)

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Day 3: Willandra National Park to White Cliffs, via Ivanhoe and Wilcannia: 348 km

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Day 4: Broken Hill 274 km (Depending on Weather and Road conditions which I can work out at White Cliffs, there is another route to Broken Hill, by travelling back to Wilcannia as well)

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Day 5: Have a whole day in Broken Hill (IE 2 Nights…)

Day 6: Broken Hill to Burra: 356 km (Remembering to be in Bura before Thorougoods Cellar Door Closes to stock up on some of the best Cider in Australia)

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Day 7: Bura to Adelaide: 155 km. Most important thing to be at the Airport before Cat arrives from Melbourne.

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Total Distance of trip will be 1,794 km - Will over 2k by the time you do all those other running around bits e.t.c… but a holiday I am very much looking forward to.

Tags: RoadTrip 08 by Me
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You know those moments when you see something and you think, wow I wish I had a camera. I get those moments all the time… (of course I still want a real camera) but having my Nokia N95 with its 5meg camera on me all the time means I can get those photos that I have always wanted to.

Tonight was no exception. I caught up with an old friend over a glass of wine in town to discuss how to build some web presence for a friend of hers and ended up catching the train home at dusk.

So here are the best 4 of the photos that I took…..

But instead of just saying here are the photos, I thought I would add a few more comments.  Firstly, 70% of the photos I took worked… that is to say what I saw on the screen of the phone was what I saw on the screen of my computer.  But of course that leave 30%.  One of the reasons I don’t often load images straight to Flickr or Ovi from my phone is that on the 320×240 screen they look great.  But take that 5mg image and see it 1:1 on a big 24″ monitor and it looks utter crap.  There is still a big fail of expectation between what you see and what you get.  Sure some of it is me but a lot isn’t.

The other catch is that controlling the colour is an interesting experiment most of the time.  Of course what I see in the camera is what I get, but it is often not what I actually see But notice that, I did refer to it as a camera. Not my phone.  When I am calling some one my nokia is my phone, but it is now my camera as well.  And depending on when I am using the device and for what is often how I refer to that device.  Perhaps for me at least convergence of technology has reached a threshold.  For a truly convergent device is one that does many things with out you thinking about it.  This has become such a device.

Of course I still don’t have my real camera.  I know which one I want however (and for the record I have my heart set on the Nikon D90), and whilst my heart it set on it, my wallet is not able to stretch that far.  But maybe next year I will get the camera I want.  But then even when I do get it, I will still have my phone on me the rest of the time… and then that will be my camera, or was it my phone.

Tags: General, Photos, n95 by Me
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OK… now I am left to one strange car noise to fix before my big Xmas driving holiday….

I’d like to go to the mechanic with at least something useful…. so does anyone have ideas what this is.

(you are listening for the deep vibration sound)

The Car is a 2000 Forester GX with 145k on the clock.

Details of the noise are…

1- the car needs to be warmed up for it to occur really noticeably.
2 - The Car needs to be doing at least 50kph or so.
3 - it seems to be only when the car is under acceleration.
4 - Seems to come up from underneath the passenger area.

The car has just had a service and the noise is still there, but given when it occurs I am not suprised they missed it.  So it is going in on Thursday to try and find out what the cause is.

Please leave comments.

Tags: Annoyances, General by Me
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O.k… well I have been having some drama’s with my beloved car (Subaru Forester 2000 GX) over the last year. Yes my beloved Subaru has been giving me a drama. But most of the drama has not been with the car itself but with who to trust to get it fixed.

Firstly last year we had a clutch issue which meant that it needed to be replaced. Sigh, and a shit load of money later it was fixed.   But once it was fixed it took 2 more services and 1 slightly cranky letter to get it sorted. And yes on Friday the issue was correctly resolved by the people that did the original install.

I will rewind a bit now and name the two companies involved. Firstly I have been taking my car to Ultratune for over 5 years now and have not had any issues until this clutch problem arose. The problem was a chirp when you depressed the clutch pedal. Now, I know a lot about a lot of things… to the point that it annoys most of my friends when I drop information into most conversations. However the one thing I know very little about is cars. Yes, that is one of those boys things that I never got.

Anyway back on track… we took it back to Ultratune twice to try and get the issue fixed, and both times it would seem to be o.k for a while and then the noise would come back. So in frustration we took the car on its next service to Subaru and paid for the service with them and asked them to look at the clutch.

This they did, charging me $150 for looking at the clutch noise and told me that I needed a new clutch and fly wheel, and it was going to cost me around the $1500 mark. Oh FUCK I thought at which point I wrote to Ultratune. Now hat tip to them they were very apologetic on the phone and said bring it back in and we will have a look at it.

Now this is where it gets confusing to me. They fixed it… (and for FREE).. turns out it was the springs on the Thrust bearing thingy. Now this is the problem… Subaru were quite happy to bag Ultratune and would have been quite happy to fix my clutch. But see now they had made a diagnosis that was wrong. One that would have seen them replace the clutch and fly wheel. One that would have seen them fix everything and as a result would have most probably fixed the source of the noise. Of course for a fuck load more money that I would have had to paid, being none the wiser to the original problem.

So the question of trust is who. Do I trust Subaru who got it very wrong or do I trust Ultratune who only got it a little bit wrong, and managed to fix it.

I’ve got to go back for something else before I big driving trip at Xmas and it will be to Ultratune.

Tags: Annoyances, General by Me
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