Doodle Pad Archive - August, 2008

Future Shop has a reputation among my circle of friends as an indifferent big box retailer with sometimes poor after sales support. When I heard about a new "concept" store attempting to be customer centric my curiosity was piqued. Hoping that old proverb about curiosity and dead cats was on summer vacation I accepted an invitation to last night's unveiling party of the newly redesigned Future Shop at Park Royal.

The new store concept is a "Hub" where customers can see products in a bit of context and talk to product experts who aren't on commission. The hub, appropriately located in the center of the store, has four sections corresponding to different facets of lifestyle: Living, Playing, Working, and "On the Go". Each section has product displayed "Ikea" style (i.e., setup the way you might find in a home much tidier than mine). The store also contains an Apple store, staffed by Apple staff.

The new Future Shop "Hub" concept at Park Royal
Photo by penmachine

This was the first opening of any type I got to attend as "media", and I got the full attention of one of the Future Shop employees who'll be staffing the hub.

Back in July a bunch of Vancouver bloggers were approached to test drive a Zune. No, I wasn't one of them, but I have a friend who is one of them: A Zune for Me, and they could pick a friend to come along for the ride (Witness the ChatThreads logo at the bottom). Last week I received mine.

It's one of the fancier boxes I've received a product in, reminding me more of a medal case than electronic device packaging. I didn't get the fancy headphones or AC adaptor that Marina did, just the Zune, headphones, USB cable, and some manuals.

Thank god I'd been following some of the other Zune blog entries. The Zune doesn't come charged and there is no obvious indication that you need to charge it before use. I stumbled around for a bit until that little factoid bubbled to the surface.

Getting started with the Zune was one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had with an electronics device. There's no software included, you to download it from a website. Before you can download the Zune software, you have to sign up for their social website. This has nothing what-so-ever to do with getting started, it's completely irrelevant to getting started and a waste of time (I've actually forgotten the account and password already). When you finally get the software installed, and your Zune is charged, it wants you to update the firmware. More waiting. And when all that is done, the real frustration happens ….

My biggest mp3 player usage is podcasting, so that was the first thing I tried configuring. I now know where the Sony programmers - my vote for worst designers of all time - went after Sony discontinued their mini-disc players. The Zune software is obtuse. I suspect it's probably easier if you're starting from scratch, but I have an existing set of files/directories set up with Juice. It appears Zune follows in the Microsoft tradition of not playing well with others, it sure sucks at importing files. The Zune software does understands how to download podcasts and life became simpler using it as my podcast downloader. God help me when I try to import my music, I certainly don't want to re-rip everything.

More to come.

It's the end of an era in North Vancouver's Upper Lonsdale area, and a very sad day for me personally. Inn Cogneato, one of my all-time favourite restaurants on the North Shore, has closed.

I was a customer from the time it first opened and spent many a lazy Saturday or Sunday brunch enjoying good food and reading the current Wired Magazine. The menu was a kind of Iranian/North American fusion. Standard North American stuff with slight ingredient changes. They had the best bread! I think it was an Iranian flat bread (I've always called it "skate board" bread, if you've ever seen it you'll know why) made to rise.

As time went on the restaurant expanded, taking over the space next door. Wired Magazine was bought by Conde Nast and lost its soul so I moved on to other reading. I'm not sure if David was married before he opened Inn Cogneato but he certainly started his family while running it. When his son and daughter were born a prouder father you haven't seen. And along the way his wife, Salima, became involved with the "front of the house". You'd often see the kids playing in the back. In other words, it was a true neighbourhood restaurant where the owners and customers knew each other.

If Inn Cogneato had a problem, it was the portion sizes were large! Although I loved the place, I simply couldn't eat there as often as I liked if I wanted to fit into my pants! As it happened, I didn't make it in during their last few weeks and was caught completely by surprise that first week in August when I did head over for a BLT and discovered the note on the door saying farewell.

Best wishes David and Salima on your life post-Inn Cogneato. And thank you for all the wonderful food you served. You'll be missed.

Sometimes on my walks I'm very inward focused, other times I'm taking in what's around me. It was on one of these latter style walks I noticed the advertisement next to this athletics store:

Is it just me, or does a sports medicine advertisement for knees and feet next to a store selling running shoes and holding running clinics seem on par with stomach pump ads at a restaurant? Inquiring minds wonder how much new business this brings in!