So Misguided

I’m sure there are many reasons but this is the one presenting itself to me today.

I have been sent an xml file created in Word. A file that really wants to open in Word despite my best efforts. The good news is that Microsoft Office recognizes that I’m on a Mac and there’s a converter that I can download and then I’ll be able to open the document. Do I want to do that?

Yes, I do.

I click the link to download the converter. But I come to a page where I find out I have to download the upgrade, install, then download the converter. Ok.

So I’m downloading the upgrade. This is all taking too much time. I’m having to read a lot of text to make sure I’m doing this correctly. The text suggest that I might want to print the page for future reference. That’s not promising.

Happily once clicking the download link, I get another page of instructions.

“In the File Download dialog box, do one of the following:”

Mmmm, that looks like important instructions? Ones that should be legible at all costs. Perhaps the most important text on the page. Here’s what I see.

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like Microsoft should be better at this. 

I discovered the DailyMile widget on Caleb Keiter’s blog yesterday and think it is a very cool social tool for training, which seems to be a rather lonely exercise for most of my friends.

You can get training answers, can train with your friends, meet people in your area and find races. I loved watching James’ triathlons. (Note the “watching” part.) And I think the summer boys should get onto this tool and train together. Where’s the race this year? What happened to the boys’ weekends? The fishing? The racing? The sunburns?

Looks fun. So fun I might consider running ... maybe across the street to get some nachos. Can this thing track calories?

I love it. I AdHack it.

There’s something about dance video commercials that totally capture my interest. If saw Drench in a story, I’d think of this guy. It would make me happy. I would have good associations. Check it out.

Source: Thanks Dan!

Well, well, well.

Valentine’s Day is full of advertisements for chocolate. I’m not sure why the two seem to go hand in hand. I suppose there’s a huge amount of sexiness to chocolate.

In a very apt promotional moment, a couple of us at AdHack decided to do our own chocolate Valentine’s Day advertising.

This ad from Giant Ant Media had enough of my office mates squirming that James and I decided to do a press release for AdHack.

Here is the ad that James and I created.

See it full size ad here.

And although this ad wasn’t for AdHack assignment #4 (the Valentine’s Day edition), I think this ad is equally sexy and deserves mention. It was part of a previous AdHack assignment on your favourite kitchen tools.

See the ad at full size.

I think it’s appropriate for Valentine’s, it’s even called “Potted Love”.

The creators Turner-Riggs, describe the concept as follows:

All-Clad’s ads are very serious: they emphasize professional-grade products for hard-core chefs. We are observing that tradition but obviously subverting it, too. It’s shocking (and I am dying laughing as I type this) but the production quality is still high, in typical All-Clad fashion.

So far the press release has been picked up by Adland in Denmark.

Are you an AdHacker? Today is the day to talk about it. Get some chocolate love on for AdHack.

Never heard of AdHack? It’s a do-it-yourself advertising community for people who think that most advertising sucks and that they could do a better job. Here’s the public site. And if you’re interested in making ads, you can be invited behind the curtain to the private site (shhhhh).

UPDATE:
And another article on Valentine’s advertising and AdHack--on Trendhunter.com

Anyone got PictBridge working on their Brother printer?
I keep getting the Needs More Memory error when I connect directly to the printer with a cable or with my USB card reader.

Any tips?

Anyone try printing on photo paper? How did it work?
Printing on paper is ok but there’s a screen (dot pattern that is visible)

Anyone get the wireless working? Is there some trick?

Brother Canada has a new line of colour laser printers and I am a lucky guinea pig who is testing the Brother HL-4070CDW colour laser printer.

#1 Tip: Word of Mouth marketing works if you have a product name that is easy to remember and easy to share.
HL-4070CDW.

Oh well, I can’t change the name. I can tell you about the experience.

According to Brother Canada, the HL-4070CDW is a colour laser printer for business use.

True. The HL-4070CDW is a good business printer.

It’s perfect at what it does:

* Prints documents quickly
* Prints in colour beautifully
* Prints double sided

This is definitely a business printer. If you have a home office and do a lot of printing, this is the printer for you.

It’s quite a bit larger than a standard personal printer, but it’s much smaller than a standard business printer. (Here it is next to my HP psc 1200 series inkjet printer.)

Is it the HL-4070CDW a good printer for me?

* This is a big printer. It’s heavy and takes up a fair share of desk space (like half the desk, it needs its own table)
* You need to install the driver, this is not plug and play, it’s plug, read the instructions, try once, read the instructions more carefully, try again.

What’s the promise of the Brother HL-4070CDW colour laser printer?

This is what the Brother Canada website says (I’ll bold the key features):

The fast, compact and Wi-Fi certified HL-4070CDW is designed for outstanding business performance. It produces brilliant business colour documents at up to 21 pages per minute. With up to 2400x600 dpi print quality, you can produce bold, eye-catching reports, brochures, and presentations right from your desktop. The HL-4070CDW naturally makes your work more effective. Its automatic two-sided printing saves paper and reduces costs. A USB direct interface allows direct PictBridge and USB flash memory drive printing. A unique front-loading consumable system makes replacing consumables a breeze. Powerful, user-friendly software and connectivity including USB, parallel, Ethernet (cables not included) and an 802.11 b/g wireless connection provide a seamless printing experience for your business.
$629.99

For $629.99, this is a great printer.

* It’s fast.
* It does colour.
* It prints nicely.
* It’s quiet.

So one more time, is it a good printer for me? I have a home office and I run my own company out of shared office space. I need to do high-quality printing on occasion. I print agendas for clients, I print project reports for people I need to impress, I print presentation handouts, I like printing photos. I work in a wireless environment. I work on a Mac. I hate reading instructions, I want things to be intuitive.

These were my pitfalls:

* I couldn’t get the wireless working and that was a big selling feature for me.
* The printer is cumbersome.
* Unpacking this printer took much longer than I hoped. Lots of packaging, lots of tabs to pull and set-up steps that seemed stupid. I had to pull out all these little tabs and pieces of paper--why were they there in the first place?
* The setup was no “Mac” experience--the packaging is not sexy, the set up required carefully reading of the manual. On a positive note, there were instructions for Mac and for PC. THANK YOU!
* The USB connection works great, but I would have been pissed if I didn’t have the appropriate cables already. This is a batteries-not-included experience.
* It only prints.
* It’s not clear how many prints you get on the toner cartridges. Toner cartridges cost $74.99 to $159.99.

Again, this is a business printer. In retrospect, I need a printer, fax, scanner, and copier so this printer might not be the perfect choice for me. Thankfully Brother also offers Multi-function Centres, multi-function printer, scanner, copiers.

Overall, good experience. Thank you Brother Canada.

Vanessa’s Gingerbread Cottage Bed and Breakfast is a very cute bed and breakfast in Victoria, British Columbia.

My mom and I spent two nights there and I’ll never forget the incredible breakfasts I had. 

Ayala Sender is a perfumer here in Vancouver, BC.

We met at Portobello West, which is a great craft market that happens the last Sunday of every month.

At some point I registered for Ayala’s newsletter. I dream of making the most intoxicating perfume. And, I just won a contest for a copy of the video Perfume. Thank you Ayala.

My prize arrived in the mail today, along with an email announcement about Ayala’s new website. See how beautiful perfume can be.

http://www.ayalamoriel.com

You can see exactly how the different forms and concentrations are packaged and the beautiful colours of the perfumes.

Each fragrance has a description and review that will taunt you. And you can now order online.

Ayala Moriel Parfums
http://www.AyalaMoriel.com/

Also check out the SmellyBlog: http://SmellyBlog.com/

James has been working on a project called AdHack, which is a do-it-yourself advertising community. AdHack came to be because the mechanisms for creating compelling testimonials, print ads, web ads, product reviews, etc. are at our finger tips. In fact, they are fully within our hot little mitts. Companies can create great ads, but those ads often act in support of word-of-mouth recommendations from our peers.

For example, I recently decided to open an ING Direct account. I want those high interest rates that the commercials promise. But I’m skeptical of the company. Are they legit? I own too many “As Seen On TV” products that don’t live up to the hype so I’m hesitant to believe TV. Are the interest rates really the rates broadcast? How does it work when there are no branches? The question list is quite long so although the commercials reinforce brand awareness, they don’t compel me to try the service. What compels me is word of mouth--comments from my friend who has her mortgage with ING. Her good experience becomes my action item--go get an ING Direct account. The commerical supports my action but the real driving force is the experience of my trusted advisor, my friend.

AdHack is a community that lets people share their experiences. It’s the intermediary between company-produced commericals and peer-produced product/service reviews. It’s like an ad agency for the people, by the people.

Last week I created a quick video book review of Audrey Hepburn: The Paramount Years. My friend Kate blogged about the video as an example of a great idea for product reviewers. She’s absolutely right. And, it’s a great example of a way to participate in AdHack.com.

All of that is a long-winded way to say that Kate talked about creating video product reviews of laptop bags, and I created a video review of my Victorinox laptop bag. (Victorinox are the makers of SwissArmy knife.)