Now I Can't Guarantee This For Everyone...

OK, so this is a cop out for my daily blog post but I thought it was note worthy.

I'm not ashamed to say I get a fair number of thank you emails and great feedback for ScreenCastsOnline, but this one gave me a rosy glow and I thought I'd share it with you!

Greetings Don,

I just wanted to say a few things about the show before I give you a show suggestion. I have been following the show for some time now and because of the wonderful lessons you have put together, I was able to apply and hired at my the Apple store as a product specialist. Thank you so much for putting together such amazing and professional content every week. It has made all the difference in my life as a novice mac user to a product specialist now training for creative genius.

The author is a regular viewer who I've exchanged emails with a couple of times and I cleared it with him before publishing. 

As I say, I can't guarantee to get everyone a job in the Apple store and I'm sure the ScreenCastsOnline contribution was only part of the whole equation, but it's nice to know that the show can make a real difference!

YTC003 - Apple Remote & Pixelmator Playlist

A quick review of the new Apple Remote and some news about the new Pixelmator playlist on the ScreenCastsOnline YouTube channel.

Excuse the freeze frame! YouTube only allows you to select one of three frames as a thumbnail, and if the default is no good (as in this case!) it takes several hours for it to be replaced.

Time to apply for partner status to get over this problem :-)

Please feel free to watch the video on the blog, but if you click through to YouTube (just click on the YouTube symbol in the corner of the embedded video) , you can see the HD version plus all the other videos on the ScreenCastsOnline channel.

Am I abusing you...

I sent out a tweet this morning that was a blatant ad for the special offer on ScreenCastsOnline membership.

No question - it was an ad and I even ended the tweet with the flippant comment "End of commercial"

The reason for posting - a completely spur of the moment decision. I've been running a special discount all month and this is the last week of the offer. The tweet was not premeditated, I just thought it marked a point in time and some people might find it useful.

I had no complaints, in fact I had one thank you!

Unexpectedly, the tweet has been retweeted several times - thanks for that!

I did several other unrelated tweets but then, half jokingly, my buddy Jonathan Cost from the Mac Tips Daily podcast sent me a tweet saying:

Careful don, with all of the Twitter ad controversy this week, somebody is bound to say 'he didn't tag it with #ads' so I can filter. I'm unfollowing him!

This got me thinking!

Now I'm really not overly concerned about people un-following me, really, I'm not.

OK, so just a little bit!

I'm really more concerned with people thinking I might be abusing my twitter stream by overly self promoting the content I'm creating?

In the early days, I had a real beef with people who posted blog links to Twitter. I saw it as inappropriate and un-necessary as that's what RSS was for wasn't it? I've long since changed my opinion on that, as I tend to use my RSS reader less and less and have become more reliant on real time notifications of blog posts by people I follow.

But back to my case, yes, I usually post a link to my daily blog post each day, and whenever a new show is published, I link to that too. And usually that's it. The bulk of the of my weekly tweeting is helping people out with queries (both ScreenCastsOnline related and not), spouting some opinion, reposting interesting tweets and conversing with lots and lots of people.

Now I've started to create YouTube Video Comments on my ScreenCastsOnline YouTube channel and I'm in the process of publishing a new one for today.

Do I tweet links to those too?

Do I tag them with #ads as Jonathan suggests, so you can filter them out (not sure how you'd do that actually!)

Do I move all my tweeting of personal links to my @sconline twitter account? I nearly posted a tweet announcing I was going to do that, but decided on writing this blog post instead. That would mean that all the people following @donmcallister would then have to follow @sconline as well?

My gut feeling is that I have the balance right and don't abuse those following my twitter stream, and I genuinely feel that the majority of people who follow me on Twitter, really don't mind the personal links, in fact, that's why some of them follow me in the first place?

Do I need to start tagging with #ads or should I just carry on and accept that those that really don't like the limited "self promotion" aspect of my Twitter stream should just unfollow me?

Thoughts? 

ProCare Update...

So, I set off to the Apple Liverpool One store with my broken MacBook and my sorry tale of difficulties with the ProCare system as mentioned in my previous postings.

What would be in store? (No pun intended!)

Well, my Genius appointment was on time and I was met by a very enthusiastic and cheerful Apple Genius called James. He took one look at the fractured MacBook screen and eloquently described the composition of the LED panel. He then gently took me down the path to explain that the fault could only have been caused by some form of impact to the screen, even though there was no visible damage to the case.

And no, it wasn't covered by AppleCare.

D'oh!

Couldn't really argue with him as the fracture did look like it could only be caused in that way.

Strike one to Apple

Ah! But what about the issues I had with ProCare.

The email I'd sent into Apple had been noted on the AppleCare ticket I'd raised, so James wanted to know what the  issue was. I explained that the ProCare link on the Apple website didn't take me to a login page to enter my ProCare number but just to a normal login page. Hence, I was unable to book an earlier appointment.

Ha!

James responded with a double whammy. 

First, the login page doesn't ask for your ProCare account number, it asks for the Apple ID associated with your ProCare account. Eh! There's no visual feedback or any indicator on the login page, hence my assumption that the ProCare link hadn't worked. On checking, James confirmed that the Genius appointment had actually been linked with my ProCare account.

Secondly, the ProCare doesn't give you earlier appointments, it extends the available appointment period out by 14 days instead of just a couple of days.

Hmmm..

Second point I'm happy with but on reflection, the UI design and workflow process of the ProCare link doeesn't give you any feedback that your ProCare account has been acknowledged, so I do think thats a definite error on Apples part.

James advised me to provide my feedback via the Apple feedback page.

Ah! But the main link from the ProCare page on the Apple website is definitely borked! See:

One to me I think!

James responded with a remark that some changes were afoot with the booking system so that may be the cause of that. As it's a back end system that appears to be broken, I didn't labour the point but I would hope this gets reported back up to corporate my the store staff.

OK, so there are some issues with ProCare but I have to say that the staff in the Apple store were extremely courteous and friendly, and very helpful.

So I booked the MacBook in for a repair and should get it back fairly speedily because of the ProCare account.

On the way out, I stopped by to checkout the 27" iMac again - they've moved the big iMac from the edge tables to the centre tables since I was last there. It's made a huge difference to the problems of reflections of the glossy screen in the store. Good move!

I wanted to ask about using the 27" iMac as a display.....

But perhaps I'll leave that for another blog post! 

Who says we don't complain...

Following on from a comment on yesterdays post:

Don your issue is quite serious when you consider the money you have paid out, why is it that 'Mac heads' never complain but just make a lame excuse when Apple fail miserably with their customer service?

It got me thinking!

I was just going to wander in and just mention to the instore staff my problems - no big deal! 

But as the commenter says, it's quite a serious matter when a customer facing system craps out, especially when you've paid good money for it.

So I emailed Apple this morning to tell them of my problems and hopefully get the ProCare system up and running again.  I checked again this morning and both systems that I tried yesterday were still not working.

Will let you know how I get on.