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Submission + - Is Best Buy Really Going Out of Business Gradually? (forbes.com) 1

Cutting_Crew writes: As we all know brick and mortar stores have been closing left and right recently. We had CompUSA, Borders and Circuit City all close its doors within the last 4 years.

According to what I think is a great a great article on Forbes.com , it is spelled out pretty clearly why Best Buy is next in line to shut its doors for good. Some of the reasons highlighted include a 40% drop is Best Buy stock in 2011, lack of vision regarding their online services, management too concerned with store sales instead of margins and blatant disregard for quality customer service.

The best quote for me over on page 3 regarding the shortage of products for some people who had ordered online for the Christmas holidays highlights the overall issue.

"The situation that Best Buy “encountered” has “affected redemption” of some orders. Best Buy doesn’t fill online orders, it seems. Rather, customers “redeem” them. So it’s the customers, not Best Buy, who have the problem. And those customers haven’t been left hanging; they’ve only been “affected” in efforts to “redeem” their orders. It’s not as if the company did anything wrong, or, indeed, anything at all."

Submission + - How NOT To Treat Your Customers

FSWKU writes: Courtesy of Penny-Arcade, Paul Christoforo of Ocean Marketing provides a perfect example of what not to do when interacting with customers, especially if you are doing so on behalf of another company. Name dropping, an ego trip worthy of Charlie Sheen, and even what appears to be a promise to commit libel. Other outlets are already picking up the story and running with it.

Comment Re:Once You Know... (Score 2) 559

The big difference for me is in turnaround time. If I place an order with Newegg, it's generally shipped the same business day... ordering from Amazon usually has a week turnaround for the free (non-Prime) shipping. Adding to that, a lot of the items on Newegg have free shipping as well, not free shipping on orders over $25, just plain old free shipping.
Cloud

Submission + - Law: Students, Teachers Can't Be Facebook Friends

An anonymous reader writes: Teachers can be friendly with their students, but they can’t be their friends, at least when it comes to social networks such as Facebook. State Governor Jay Nixon has signed Senate Bill 54, which goes into effect on August 28, 2011 in the state of Missouri. In other words, later this month it will be illegal for students and teachers to be friends online.

Comment Re:Kid Friendly? (Score 1) 295

I'd say that Captain America is not that kid friendly (YMMV of course). This is set in WWII, so there's gunfights, people being shot, and quite a bit of death. There are energy weapons that vaporize people, and at least one person falling through a propeller that turns into a fine mist.

Comment Re:Poor Liddle Microsoft Troll (Score 1) 312

if your kids are doing illegal activities, they deserve to get caught. how can you defend a kid smoking pot? i'll be happy if google runs their image analysis on every photo posted and automatically reports it to the police if it sees someone smoking illegal drugs, or drinking underage, along with gps info so cops can teach them a lesson. seriously, however cool it is to do drugs, it is still very harmful to you. and we should be trying to prevent kids from falling into the vicious cycle of drugs>poverty>prostitution>drugs and so on.

Right! Drugs ruins lives... just ask Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bloomberg, etc...Look how they've fallen into poverty. I can't speak to their use of prostitutes.

The most dangerous thing about most drugs is what will happen to you if you're arrested with them. Fucking drug warrior morons who believe that drugs are illegal because they're dangerous, and they're dangerous because they're illegal.

Submission + - Terry Pratchett Considers Assisted Suicide Process (boingboing.net)

cHALiTO writes: "Beloved science fiction and fantasy writer Terry Pratchett has terminal early-onset Alzheimer's. He's determined to have the option of choosing the time and place of his death, rather than enduring the potentially horrific drawn-out death that Alzheimer's sometimes brings. But Britain bans assisted suicide, and Pratchett is campaigning to have the law changed. As part of this, he has visited Switzerland's Dignitas clinic, an assisted suicide facility, with a BBC camera crew, as part of a documentary will include Britain's first televised suicide. Pratchett took home Dignitas's assisted suicide consent forms."

Submission + - NYC Resistor: DIY hackers doing awesome things (motherboard.tv)

HansonMB writes: Founded by a handful of friends who wanted a place to tinker with electronics and meet like-minded hackers for good, NYC Resistor. has blossomed into one of the country’s most influential hackerspaces. On any given Thursday night, their cozy, cluttered loft workshop is crawling with a diverse crowd of hardcore tinkerers and curious newcomers. Throwing some caution and many user warranties to the wind, they’re there to build, refine, break and share everything from toy robots to intricate paper sculpture to open source musical instruments.
IT

Submission + - A letter on behalf of the world's PC fixers (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: "PC Pro's Steve Cassidy has written a letter on behalf of all the put-upon techies who've ever been called by a friend to fix their PC. His bile is directed at a friend who put a DVD bought on holiday into their laptop, and then wondered what went wrong.

"Once you stuck that DVD in there and started saying 'yes, OK' to every resulting dialog box, you sank the whole thing," Cassidy writes. "It doesn’t take 10 minutes to sort that out; it requires a complete machine reload to properly guarantee the infection is history."

"No, there is no neat and handy way I’ve been keeping secret that allows you to retain your extensive collection of stolen software licences loaded on that laptop. I do disaster recovery, not disaster participation.""

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