I have been trying for MONTHS to get signed up on Slim-Fast.com since having the baby. The website contained errors at almost every mouse click. Every day I would make my shakes for breakfast and lunch - and loved them - but needed the added bonus of support and encouragement to get through it. Yes, I realize that it’s a ‘free service’ from the company, but if it’s offered, dammit, it should *work*. I’ve gone so far as sending emails (no response) and calling the customer support line (helpless). I’m done reaching out to try to get their product to work.
Now that the site is finally (somewhat) functional, I can’t even create a user ID. Trust me when I tell you I’ve completed all the fields marked in red. From the looks of the message board, no one from the company is keeping their customers informed or answering their questions. It seems that the community was very committed to the product, to their friendships online with other weight loss seekers, and to the message board and personal statistics. Several members complained that their weigh loss tracking data that had been online since 2001 had been erased, with no explanation given. With the current state of health the country is in, any effort to lose weight in a reasonable manner should be encouraged. Granted, Slim-Fast is not the healthiest way to go about it - just take a look what is IN some of that stuff! - but it’s a start.
I am sad to say that the Slim-Fast product website is the worst I’ve ever witnessed. They are losing customers, and not by the handful, or dozen, but by the thousands - and they don’t seem to care. Hell, all you people are FAT and need our product, so do you really have a choice? Why, yes we do! I’ve been looking at joining Jenny Craig, but money is tight and gas is expensive. In the meantime, I’ve stopped purchasing any Slim-Fast items. They just don’t get how business is supposed to work, and how it’s supposed to work on the web. The social part of it, the community of it. It’s about more than just your product.
P.S. - Unilever, once you get your act together, fire your back-end staff, hire a team that actually realizes that you should test your site before putting it live, and care about your customers … hire a *paid* community manager to help gain back the decades of trust you pissed away trying to be cheap.
Original post from the Reviews From The Radio blog. This post is an unpaid and unbiased personal review of the products discussed. Subscribe now for more opinionated goodness!
Technorati Tags: Slim Fast, Slim-Fast, Unilever, Jenny Craig
After seeing this article come through my reader this evening, I am having higher-than-normal hopes of Rick Springfield’s latest album, Venus In Overdrive, hitting some radio play. My disc is due to hit my mailbox on the 26th, and I’m sure I’ll have a review up here ASAP. Stay tuned… and all you non-believers, beware!!
Technorati Tags: Rick Springfield, Venus In Overdrive
My Flip Video Ultra is orange, realizing that my husband may have issue with using a pink one. With that stated, I love this little video camera! The resolution is 640 x 480 at 30 frames per second, and is more than sufficient if you are recording everyday memories (or even filming a video podcast).
When I first opened up the box, I was a bit startled to feel how light it is (without batteries). Even adding two AA batteries (included) didn’t make it much heavier. Also in the package was a soft black cloth carrying pouch and a silver wrist strap. What I found lacking was a software CD. Being I’m not a big fan of detailed directions, I busted out the Quick Start guide and found the ON switch. Turned on the Flip, pressed the big red record button on the back, and started directing my own movie. Easy-peasy. If you’ve ever worked any sort of MP3 player or iPod, the buttons are pretty familiar. Okay, now I had a movie, I just needed to figure out how to get it on my computer. On the side of the camera there was a slide button that pops out the USB dongle and plugs right into a PC or Mac. A quick double-click on my MacBook Pro of the mounted USB drive reveals that the software for using the Flip Video Ultra is ON the camera - that’s why there was no install CD. Brilliant. Now I don’t need to install software on other machines!
The software is pretty easy to use, and gives options for uploading to You Tube and AOL Video. Also available is sending video cards via email, but I haven’t tried that option yet. I did upload a quick test video to You Tube (below), and it was super easy. It did take a few minutes on my end for the video to resize and compress before uploading to You Tube, but as it turns out it sent it right up in the correct format. If you’ve ever used You Tube before you know if you upload a video in the ‘wrong’ format it takes awhile for it to be converted on their end and the video to show up. Now the processing for that is done locally, and the end result is that the video goes right into publication. If you are a little more handy with video editing and the file system, you can bypass the Flip Video software completely and pull the .AVI files right to your computer.
A benefit I’ve found to the camera is that it has a zoom you can use it during recording. While our digital camera can record MPEG4 videos at 320 x 240, you cannot zoom during recording. It’s meant to be a camera, not a video recorder, so it’s even nice to have the feature. The colors from the Flip Video Ultra come through nice, and filming indoors near a widow provides more than enough light. I plan on filming in different environments (outside, indoors at night, etc.) to see how it holds up.
The only thing I see lacking is a stabilizer for those times my hands are full (with the baby) and the camera is shaking around a bit. You can tell from the video below that moving around quickly causes the auto zoom to freak out a bit, but it recovers extremely fast. I will be feeding my Flip a steady diet of rechargeable batteries because my family has a long history of electronic devices eating through AA batteries.
The size of the Flip Video Ultra is roughly the same size as my cell phone (HTC Mogul) and iPod Video, although I think it weighs less than both. I am finding this is the perfect video camera for moms, or anyone that likes to capture quick memories and not lug around huge cameras. It slips into my purse (with my phone and iPod) and is ready in under 5 seconds to record the next America’s Funnies Video winner.
Okay, I’m off to make more super videos!
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Original post from the Reviews From The Radio blog. This post is an unpaid and unbiased personal review of the products discussed. Subscribe now for more opinionated goodness!
Technorati Tags: flip video ultra, reviews, video camera
It’s no secret in my house that I cannot live without my dishwasher. When it broke beyond repair a few years back, I was not the happiest person having to wait two weeks to have a new one delivered. The dishwasher and washer/dryer are in a tie for #2, with the coffee maker taking the #1 spot in our house for favorite modern luxury. With that said, I really should have been paying closer attention to what I put into the dishwasher.
I should also tell you that I’m cheap. Frugal, yes, but most definitely cheap. I am brand loyal to maybe a dozen items, but mainly if I think I can get a product for $0.45 cheaper, I’ll do it, or wait for my favorite brand to go on sale. Some things transcend the Scrooge in me, and I will purchase it regardless of sales. Cascade Complete is now one of them.
Strange thing, a few weeks back I was starting to notice that the dishwasher smelled like chemicals and so did all the plasticware coming out of it. Things like the baby’s sippy cups, the only baby bottle we own, and the large straws we use for our Six Flags soda cups (we get $0.99 refills all season long with the cup at the park). Nothing is more disgusting than taking a sip of Coke on a hot day just to find that the straw makes the soda taste like chemicals and you have to toss the entire drink. I had gotten Sun Light dishwasher detergent on sale, but it was making everything I washed with it TASTE bad.
Then, the way that Karma works for me, I received an offer to try out Electrasol and Cascade Complete - how could I say no? I was honestly having an issue with the dishwasher, and this was the perfect time to try something new. A head-to-head comparison of the two, with the brand I had in my cabinet as a third. I thought there would be no difference. I was wrong.
I’ve been using all three now for a few weeks. I got my mom in on the test since she’s been staying with us and helping with dishes after dinner. To our surprise, not only does the Cascade Complete not make my plasticware smell like chemicals, it gets the dishes clean without spots. An added bonus, the dishes are DRY when I open the dishwasher and I don’t have to spend time drying them off by hand before I put them away. That may sound like a little thing, but when you’ve got a baby crying for breakfast, taking an extra 10 minutes to dry dishes (that are supposed to be dry!) every morning is a pain. The Electrasol cleaned the dishes well, but depending on how well I rinsed the plates or how much glassware there was determined how many spots showed up. Plus, I almost always had water left on the plastic (not really the glasses or plates). My Sun Light, forget it. Every time I run the dishwasher with it, I can smell the chemicals in my kitchen. My only problem is now, I have two half-used bottles of dishwasher detergent that I really don’t want to use.
What stared out as a fun experiment turned out to make me into a brand-loyal customer. I guess “Cascade Recommended” is printed inside my dishwasher’s soap dispenser for a reason!
Cascade Complete:
- Pros: No chemical smell, clean dishes well, leaves no spots, removed some coffee stains from inside the dishwasher!
- Cons: Costs about 10% more than the bargain brands.
Electrasol:
- Pros: Cleans dishes well.
- Cons: Slight chemical smell, leaves plasticware wet even after ‘dry cycle’ in dishwasher.
Sun Light:
- Pros: Costs the least out of most major brands.
- Cons: Leaves plastic smelling strongly of chemicals!
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Original post from the Reviews From The Radio blog. This post is an unpaid and unbiased personal review of the products discussed. Disclaimer: The Cascade and Electrasol were gifted to me to be able to write the review. The Sun Light was already in my cabinet. My dishwasher is a Whirlpool QuietTouch II.
Technorati Tags: Cascade, Electrasol, Sun Light, dishwasher detergent
Here you’ll find items for moms (or any woman really!) - some are friends of the SV Moms Blog, and some items are from the blog moms themselves. From funky ice cream sandwich molds (I am getting these!) to mesh baby slings, all are favs!
