Most of you will remember playing Top Trumps from when you were kids. Well, today I came across this Geek Trumps gave with really tickled me. The game follows the usual Top Trumps format, but this time the cards contain characters and personalities who most geeks will be familiar with. With attributes like “Special Skills” and “Geek Power” these geeks almost sound like superheros. Hours of fun with your mates (well, with some of them anyway). I can think of a few people I could get these for, but I’m not convinced I’d ever get a Christmas gift from them again …

If you’re looking for Christmas gift ideas, have a look at some of the other products on that website. From Meerkat Mugs to Solar Powered Fairy Lights Jars, you’re bound to find something for the whole family. And, if you order soon and use the coupon code TENNEROFF40 you can get £10 off orders over £40 and free UK shipping.

The 8th September arrived, my wife spent the day at home .. but no TV. No problem, I dropped them an email to find out what was going on, but they phoned the next day just as the TV arrived on our doorstep. All was great, I had a friend coming over a few days later to help me put it up so we left the TV all boxed up.

The following week, Peter came over to help me get it on the wall. While unpacking the box I noticed that the packing was all crushed and out of place, but I didn’t think anything of it until the TV was up on the wall and we saw this:

The screen was cracked in a number of places. It looked like it had suffered a blow or pressure to the centre of the screen as well as a pressure fracture in the top right hand corner. I was annoyed but not too perturbed as I was sure Beyond Television would put things right in a few days. How wrong I was!

Here’s the sequence of events from that point on:

• Wednesday 14th – Sent email to Beyond explaining the situation and requesting a replacement.
• Thursday 15th – Received stock email from Matt outlining their returns policy, but no real action taken, so I phoned him up and was told he would look into replacement.
• Friday 16th – Phoned at lunchtime, but Matt on a call, so I left my details for him to call back. Phoned again after a couple of hours, but Matt was still unavailable, left my details again. Phoned a third time at 5:30 and spoke to Matt who told me he hadn’t managed to find which of their two couriers delivered it and that I would have to wait till Monday for him to start processing the return. He would call me as soon as he sorted it in the morning.
• Monday 19th – Phoned at midday. Was told Matt was out of the office, would return in 10-15 minutes. Phoned at 1:45 .. Was told Matt was still out, would get back to be before 14:00. The girl I spoke to promised to call me back at 14:00 if he wasn’t in, but she never did. Matt called at 14:30 and promised a resolution by 5:00pm. Matt called at 5:45 where it was decided that he would refund the broken TV while we purchased a new one.

So at this point we’ve been almost a week without our TV, had been chasing Beyond Television for days, but it looked like there was light at the end of the tunnel … So we proceeded to reorder the TV off their website, and I actually called Matt on Tuesday to give him our order number where he confirmed it all looked fine and that he had booked the collection for the broken TV.

On Wednesday, exactly one week since I emailed Beyond Television with my problem, I receive an email from Matt informing me that to ship my replacement TV I would have to pay the courier charge of £87.88. As you can imagine I was flabbergasted. I immediately called him up and got told that although Beyond Television had covered the courier charge for the first TV, they would not cover it for the replacement. I argued that this was against what they said in their Terms and Conditions, went against Consumer Protection legislation, but he blankly refused to ship the replacement unless I paid the charge. At every juncture he kept repeating that most customers cancel their order when they are told of this charge, which I interpreted as them being unwilling to deal any further with my case.

At this point, I was sick of his rude behaviour; tired of all the delays, so I cancelled my order, bought a TV from Amazon and had it hanging in my living room 3 days later!

That was not quite the end of it of course. Beyond Television still have the money I paid them, not for 1 TV, but for 2 (one of which STILL hasn’t been collected and is waiting broken in my living room)! I emailed them this week asking for a refund and was informed I would receive it in a few days. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have received any refund unless I asked for it.

It’s been a frustrating experience, but also an eye-opening one. The Internet is a great equaliser amongst online retailers and customer service is pretty much the only differenciator between one company and another. My experience with Beyond Television indicates that some companies still don’t get it. Poor customer service will kill them in the long run and while I wish them all the luck they deserve in the future, I for one, will never try to buy from them again, and I will certainly warn others about my experience there.

I was thinking this as I was browsing through the website of Spirinet, a firm in the U.S. that specialises in IT Support. They can support companies across the whole of the U.S. and Canada because they have the right tools at their display. They even provide IT Outsourcing Services where they can handle all your IT needs, leaving you to focus on your core competencies (and thereby reducing the cost of your overheads).

Spirinet also provide cloud services like application hosting, voice over IP and email hosting which means that you can benefit from their services without having to go out and buy new equipment, Again, remote access tools mean that these services can be provided in an economically efficient manner, once again reducing costs.

Interesting model. I wonder if there are many similar providers this side of the pond.

And all hard disks have a life time. This lifetime is called MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) and is usually measures in hundred of thousands of hours. In fact, most modern disks can usually go quite a few years without an issue. But they don’t last forever. One day a disk will fail, and if you don’t have a backup, your goose could be well and truly cooked.

Luckily there are companies out there that can help you in a situation like this. They focus on the recovery of your data from disks that are no longer readable. One such company is called Data Clinic and they specialise predominantly in Data recovery services. They can recover data from hard disks which have been damaged by a variety of different scenarios. Your disk could have been damaged by firmware corruption or circuit board malfunction. Or it could have logical errors, or even been subjected to a head crash. Data Clinic will take your hard disk, investigate the cause of the failure in their labs, and then endeavour to recover as much data as possible.

It’s definitely a site you need to know about. You may not need it today, you may not need it tomorrow; but sooner or later one of your disks may fail with some critical data on it and you’re going to need someone to recover it. You can even find them on Twitter or on Facebook. Bookmark them today!

Today I came across the website of a company called IPSCOT who specialise in Industrial Dispensing Equipment. They supply equipment for dispensing materials like liquid epoxy and other hard-to-handle fluids. The one thing that struck me about their website was how specialised it was, a field that I knew very little about. I couldn’t tell you the difference between a sandpiper pump or a chemical dispenser from any other equipment I came across in an assembly line. Still, from their website, you get the idea that they are confident in what they deliver, even though their website is a bit light on the detail.

And I suppose this confidence is the reason we turn to experts when we have a problem in a field we’re not totally comfortable with. Just like IPSCOT has successfully delivered a number of solutions in the fluid handling and dispensing field, so the experts we use every day, doctors, teachers, accountants and others; would have a track record of delivering success or helping their clients achieve success.

So, here’s the question, do you put your trust in experts? Or do you view them with a sense of bewilderment and concern? I’m sure there are people in both camps!

So, why not let a professional firm design your logo for you? The reality is that a professional company will have the experience and tools necessary to make your logo stand out from the competition. They can also guide you through the trademarking your logo, something that can be tricky. Yes, it’s easy to create a logo using the clipart that comes with Word for Windows, but hundreds of companies out there are doing exactly the same thing and you want to differentiate your company other companies.

Investing in getting a Logo Design Company to build your logo is really an investment in your company’s future. Remember, appearances matter and your logo is the first thing that your clients and suppliers will see of you.

So, a couple of days ago I posted about Poker Stars, one of the largest poker websites in the world that has a base right here in the Isle of Man. I’ve been reading up about them, just to find out a bit what’s going on and there’s some interesting information around. For example, did you know they’ve been around since 2001, a good 10 years? They were originally a Costa Rican company before moving to the Isle of Man. They also have a local presence in a number of countries, including France, where poker is both legal and popular. They even hold a world record, which they set in 2009, having held the biggest online tournament ever. The tournament entry fee was $1, and the record number of people reached was 149,196.

If you’ve never been been to Poker Stars, it’s a place where you can play poker for play money or real cash, They have a selection of different poker games, and they also have guides and instructions on how to play all their different games, in case you’re looking to learn. The thing about Poker Stars is that they’re not a casino so you’re not playing against the house; you’re only playing against other players, putting your wits and skills against real people from around the world. Poker Stars gets it’s revenue from hosting poker games between players by collecting a rake from each real money pot. There is absolutely no charge to participate in their play money poker games, so they’re a good way to learn how to play.

It’s interesting to see how many poker sites have come and gone over the years, so it’s good to see a company that has stood the test of time and seems to be growing from strength to strength. Check them out if you want to try your hand at poker.

I have a friend who works with Poker Stars here in the Isle of Man. They’re one of the bigger players in the online poker market and probably one of the biggest, if not THE biggest online gaming company in the Isle of Man at the moment. The interesting thing about our conversations is that it shows me a whole different perspective on technology; the challenges of gaming, poker in this case, are really quite different to what I’m used to.

Take scale, for example. I picked some interesting numbers off their article on Wikipedia. As of September 2010, Poker Stars had dealt 50 billion hands of poker. They have upwards of 300,000 simultaneous hands during their busiest periods. Building an infrastructure and application architectures to handle that sort of scale can be a pretty interesting challenge. Then there’s the question of security; as you can imagine, a poker site is a pretty lucrative target for the malicious type. Not only do they hold payment information and cash for individual players, but interfering with the games can net loads of cash for the malicious types out there. So keeping their perimeters and internal systems secure feels like a massive task, certainly not one I would like to be responsible for. And there are other technical challenges besides those.

Poker Stars host a variety of poker games, namely Texas holdem poker, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo (8 or Better), Stud, Stud Hi/Lo (8 or Better), Razz, Five-card draw, Deuce to Seven Triple Draw, Deuce to Seven Single Draw and Badugi. I’ll be perfectly honest, I can just about manage standard poker, so don’t really hold a hope in hell of winning any of those. But I’m always happy to learn new games, so I might get someone to show me when they have some time. Who knows, I may even strike gold

So, where would you find the best deal for your phone? Well, the reality is that there are a choice of different options out there, so the best thing to do is to find somewhere that can give you access to a choice of them. Here’s a site that helps you sell your mobile and get the best deal. Here’s some advice from the site:

To get the best price your mobile must be in good shape. Cleaning it up, putting the factory settings back, and erasing personal details must be done. Then have the battery put in, it must be the original one and charged fully, otherwise full payment may not be obtained. Remember, normal wear signs are alright but major damage is not.

One thing to always keep in mind is that selling your phone online is the environmental thing to do. Yes, you can throw it in the bin, but it will end up in a landfill somewhere, seeping dangerous chemicals into the ground. This way, your phone will get used again, whether it’s the complete phone or parts of it. So, not only do you get cash for your phone, but you also get to save the planet!

There is an easier way to find a unique gift though. Enter NotOnTheHighStreet.com, a website dedicated to bringing you the best and brightest ideas from dedicated retailers who are dedicated to turning up with some of the most spectacular and unique products around. They work with small independent retailers around the country who provide them with a host of unique products. I had a look at their Christmas Gifts section to see if I can get any ideas that might work for me.

First of all, what about the babies? Well, I’m sure they would love this stripy crocheted bunny:

We’d obviously have to get two of them, the twins have only just turned one and they’re not very good at sharing yet

Then there’s Arthur. I must say I did spend some time perusing the site, until I finally came across world jigsaw puzzle:

Here’s into his countries and continents at the moment and having a puzzle to build and complete will help reinforce what he’s learning.

And what would I get Camille? Well, there’s a huge choice of things that would be just great for her, but the one I loved was this silver starfish charm bracelet:

There are loads of choices and I’ll certainly be back to look at their range of products. Maybe as we get closer to Christmas …