When the Playstation 2 launched in October of 2000, I didn’t have enough money to pick one up. By the time that Christmas rolled around (and I did have enough money), the console was sold out everywhere (except for Ebay for thousands of dollars) and I blissfully spent my money on something else. To this date, I still don’t own a Playstation 2 (although I borrow my girlfriend’s console from time to time).

The more things change, the more they stay the same. It’s 2005 and Microsoft has released their Xbox 360 console and guess what? It’s sold out everywhere.

Microsoft has been very ambitious with their launch of the Xbox 360 opting for a worldwide launch in the span of a month (by contrast, the Playstation 2 launched in April in Japan and in October in North America). Unfortunately, this means that demand is far outweighing supply.

Most retailers’ websites say that consoles won’t be in stock until February or March of 2006. Microsoft contends that it’s shipping out new units each week, although few gamers have seen light of the new shipments.

I’m not sure what Microsoft’s goal was for their launch, but in my limited knowledge of marketing and economics, it doesn’t sound like a good idea.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Microsoft is playing a dangerous game with the patience of people wanting to get an Xbox 360 before Christmas. One only has to look at the comments on popular Microsoft blogger sites like Major Nelson’s and John Porcaro to figure this one out. For instance, a small post by Major Nelson about a Madden demo generates (to date) 179 253 comments, the majority of those being negative.

Microsoft’s ambitious worldwide launch might work against their console in the new wave of the console wars. If the retailers are truthful and most orders won’t be fulfilled until February or March 2006, then Microsoft might actually have a hard time selling those units. Why? Well for one, they’ll have pissed off customers on their hands. I don’t know of anyone that loves Microsoft (except for the people that work there), most people tolerate their existence because they have to, but love Microsoft; no way. Making customers angry will just drive them to another product. Secondly, even if you’ve saved your money after the Christmas season waiting for a new console, who says that you’re going to buy an Xbox? If the retailer’s time frame is correct, why not wait for the Nintendo Revolution or just hold out for the Playstation 3 which are literally around the corner from February/March 2006.

One other thing, I commend Major Nelson and John Porcaro on their blog. If it weren’t for them, we’d have no information from Microsoft about the Xbox 360 and Microsoft’s supply issues. Unfortunately, this is not enough. Not everyone reads these blogs. As I stood in line at Best Buy on the 22nd, I realized something. Most of the people that were standing in line weren’t hard core gamers; instead they were moms, dads, grandmothers and grandfathers sent on a fools errand to try to get one of these things as a gift. They don’t read blogs (hell, most of them didn’t know the difference between the core system and the premium system) and if they did, they certainly wouldn’t read gamer specific blogs like Major Nelson and John Porcaro. In their case, the information that they get about the Xbox is…nothing. What does this equate to? More pissed of customers.

I’m sure that Nintendo and Sony (especially Sony after their DRM debacle) are viewing this launch with great interest. Hopefully, they are taking notes on how not to piss of their customers.

My friend Billy posted a comment with some exciting news about the fight against DRM. Billy works for the Las Vegas library district and they’ve started pulling all of the CDs with DRM on them. They’ve also refused to buy any CDs that have DRM technology on them.

That’s gotta hurt the record labels that insist on punishing their customers that buy CDs with DRM laden crap. This is fantastic news.

I wonder who I have to talk to, to convince Oregon library districts to do the same…hrrmm…

As Billy puts it, “You piss off your customer enought and they stop buying your product.” It’s that simple.

About 3 years ago, I joined Bally Total Fitness. I chose Bally’s for a few reasons. For starters, at the time, there weren’t a lot of other clubs in the Portland metro area (24 Hour Fitness, LA Fitness, etc.) so my options were limited. Secondly, I knew someone that worked at the gym that used to be up the street from me (I since then have moved).

I’m lucky enough to get reimbursed for some of my dues through my company. Every December, I have to fill out an expense reimbursement form with my monthly dues on them. This should be easy right? Unfortunately, it’s a battle each and every time.

First of all, their website is horrible. Let’s count the ways. First, as a web developer that is interested in standards based development, I can see that their site break rules left and right.

No DOCTYPE is defined, deprecated elements are used, tables are used for layout instead of CSS (in their defense, this site uses tables for layout but I’m working on a CSS version layout), inline Javascript functions are defined on the page instead of in separate files.

Next we move the account information section. There is a link that reads “Show me my account information.” The link is a Javascript popup window (this is a classic abuse of a popup window) that has a form with two fields; membership number and last name. Can you see the security flaw here? They gladly give out account information (albeit very limited) to anyone that can match the two criteria. Think this is hard to come by? Think again; both the membership number and your full name are printed on your gym card. If you lose it, anyone can easily type in the information into the website and away they go. That’s like printing your PIN number on your ATM card.

The information that is listed in the membership information screen is less than useless (maybe that’s why they use such shoddy security). I can make a payment and I can see when my next payment is; and that’s pretty much it. Nowhere on here can I get an itemized list of my monthly dues for the year.

Not finding any pertinent information on their site, my next option is to contact them. Right under the “Show me my account information” link is an extremely useless bit of text. It reads “Please contact member services if you have any questions about your account.” That’s it. No number, no nothing.

The CTO/CIO responsible for web application development needs to run, not walk, to the store to get Steve Krug’s book Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. These amateurish mistakes can be easily solved by reading and applying the Steve’s knowledge in web usability.

Since, no number is listed for Member Services, I have to look for one. There is a Contact Us link at the bottom of the page, which is one of the saving graces of the website and it usually appears on every page.

I click on the Member Services link on the contact form (one click too many) and I’m given 3 ways to contact them. Mailing address, email, and a telephone number. One quick look at the telephone number and I see that it’s not a toll free number (1-562-484-2980). Why oh why is the telephone number not a toll free number?

If I’m not pissed yet, I certainly am now. However, I want my money so I call the number. It’s busy. You read that right. It’s busy. This is 2005, no one should ever get a busy signal when attempting to call customer service for a national company.

So I wait 15 minutes and try again. This time, I’m given the standard “All agents are busy” stuff. Fine, I’ll wait. I end up waiting 30 minutes (on a toll call) to talk to someone (which could have all been resolved by having the information on the website). When I finally get someone on the line, she tells me that she has to print out the information (all 3 years worth – for some reason they can’t do it on yearly basis, which is absurd) and send it to me via snail mail.

For a minute, I thank the heavens because I believe that I have invented time travel and have ended up in the year 1987. Unfortunately, my visions of being richer than Bill Gates vanish as the words sink in. She has to mail it to me. No fax, no email, no nothin’.

By now, my calm has seriously been damaged and I want to reach through the phone and strangle the lady. How can a corporation be so incompetent?

I’m glad my membership expires this month, because I’m certainly not going to renew it.

Let this be yet another lesson, if you piss off your customer, they will go to a competitor’s product.

I watched the X3 (X-MEN 3) teaser online the other day and it was stunningly…boring. I don’t think I’ve ever been so underwhelmed to watch a sequel as I have with this movie (I lied, that doesn’t count the Harry Pooter (yes, I misspelled his name on purpose) movies but then again, I don’t like any of those).

Granted, this is only a teaser trailer, but if the trailer is any indication of the movie, then the word formulaic would be an understatement.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Magneto and his bunch are bad and do bad things, the X-MEN are good and fight Magneto and his bunch. Humans want to kill all mutants and therefore Magneto wants to kill them first; because of this the X-MEN have to protect the defenseless humans.

Didn’t we see that in 1 and 2?

Work is still continuing on migrating this site from ASP.NET to Ruby on Rails. The reasons why aren’t really the basis for this post, so I’ll exclude them from it.

The majority of Ruby on Rails sites run on Linux or a form of UNIX, so I figured that I would take the plunge and do so as well. I consider myself to be a pretty accomplished Windows administrator, but in the realm of Linux, I’m but a wee young lad.

With that in mind, I’m browsing Amazon.com to see if there are any books that might help to soothe the learning pains.

In addition to learning Linux (the right way), I’m also interested in learning Linux web servers the right way as well. Probably the most popular web server for Linux is the Apache server, but I know that LightTPD is starting to gain ground especially amongst Ruby on Rails developers.

Imagine my surprise when I couldn’t find any books on LightTPD. Now, I know that this is a fairly new web server, but I’m used to technical books being written on alpha and beta releases, so it was quite a surprise.

Too bad I don’t know more about it or I would write my own. I think it would sell like hotcakes (if written right).