I have had a blog for long time now since last 5 years now on different platforms. Initially I was blogging on hosted blogs including this one. Then I moved to my own hosted blog. Then came the business of life and the realization that no point in just rerepeating the same stories on my blog which has been blogged 101 time before, so I moved to Twitter because of the ease of tweeting.

Now I see Posterous is making it easy for people to blog straight from email. For me writing an email comes easy then writing and formatting a blog post. Hence I am going to give Posterous a try. We will see how it goes.

This afternoon I got an email from Plaxo about how it’s going to stop offering free service to it’s Customers using Microsoft Outlook plug-in.

Fair enough but not really! My first reaction “Ah! Crap”. I have been a faithful customer to Plaxo for quite some years now [nearly since they started their services] and do rely on their services solely for address book sync. between different computers and to remind me of important birth dates. Plaxo was offering it’s premium services all this time but it’s premium services never struck a bell with me! I just could not see any value in it’s premium services [I can get a free de-duper thanks! and I prefer to send personalized email on a friend’s birthday].

It’s more irritating as they are now making a tool that was free for nearly 4-5 years that I can remember into a paid tool without really adding any additional value. Not a smart move [as far as retaining and converting your existing customers go] and I am seeing that a lot of people on Twitter already either deleting Plaxo accounts or finding alternatives including myself during this month. I am not saying that Plaxo decision is stupid as I am sure people running the company are smart people and this decision was not taken lightly, but where does it leave me as a customer. If they haven’t convinced me in last 4 years to convert to a premium account, this move definitely is not going to push me into that decision.

So Plaxo, thanks for your services so far but even with discounts you fail to convince me that why I should pay $US 47.95/year for sync. my address book. I have not looked for alternatives yet, but one that comes to my mind straight away is MobileMe which I can get for $ AUD 99/year I believe for address book sync. and 20GB of storage space.

On the other hand, this is a fantastic opportunity for cloud based storage companies such as Sugarsync to offer address book sync. services along with offerings. If there is a company that is fast enough to take the advantage, there will be enough customers cutting loose with Plaxo between now and the end of the month!

Is there any service that is reliable, trustworthy that you can recommend?

I am a new Macbook Pro owner and I bought it from Apple Store, Chadstone.

Although I still admire Apple’s customer service then most of it’s competitor’s, this time round I did not service to the best I was expecting. on a scale of 10, I would think my experience would qualify for 4 [ I have high expectation].

In the remarks to the Apple Survey that I recent after few days of shopping there, below is what I said:

– When I call, I am always told that the stock is available and once I get to the store, no stocks for the items
– The Customer Service Experience this time round was not the best compared to previous time
– The Sales Consultant was in a rush to brush me off and did not seem interested in understanding my requirements
– Sales Guy was not even looking straight into my eyes but was wondering on the walls in the store

I am sure the business of the store makes it difficult to focus and give attention to the customers they want, but personal attention is one reason, I travel 55 kms across the city to get to the Apple store!

I hope I have a better experience next time.

This week I bought the new Shiny 15″ Macbook Pro.

I have been a PC all my life till I got my iPhone.

So I will like to share some of my findings in this post and I will keep on adding any interesting notes using Friendfeed. Do share your thoughts too.

I read an article on live blogging using Friendfeed and I wanted to try it.

This is what I feel when people are constantly talking about economy and when I know that they don’t really understand the topic “Economy”. Also constantly being negative does not help!

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Get rid of recession, focus on what you can do and do it!