Upgrades

iPod in Sony Store, more Digital Prints problems, Treo problems

This all started yesterday when my Treo stopped charging (again). I got an "X" over the battery icon and everytime I connect it to the charger, it won't charge. I did a battery disconnect reset last time but now I can't seem to get it to work (more detail on this post at Treocentral). So I brought it to a Sprint Store to have them look at it.

I can say my experience at a Sprint store is never a pleasant one. It's either a long wait on the line, or like what happened yesterday. I first went to a Sprint Store on 48th St and 5th Ave. It was quick, no line, but I also got nothing done. Apparently their tech was offline (I guess their Techs need broadband connection to work?), so I was sent to the Lexington Ave store to have them look at it.

I had to wait til after work to do that because the Lexington Ave store is a bit away from my work place. So after work I went there, and they told me it would take them 45 minutes to take a look at my phone. It was 5:53 when I left the store. I didn't realize at the time that the store closes at 7PM. So I decide to walk around Manhattan, as I am still getting famliar with working in the city.

If you follow my digital prints comparison, you might notice I haven't mention anything about Duane Reade, one of companies I plan to get prints from. That's because as of today, I still didn't get any prints from them yet. They seem to have a lot of problems with their photo printers. I went to the store on 6th Ave and 57th St and was told that their photo printer is down. This is third time I heard that from 3 different stores. This totally erase the convenience factor out of digital printing locally.

After visiting Duane Reade, I went to the Sony Store right underneath their Sony Wonder Tech Lab on 56th St and Madison. I hanged around for a bit, checking out their VGF-AP1L MP3 HD player (btw, that player sucks compare to an iPod). While I was playing around with the MP3 player, I heard a woman asked the guard/salesperson about where to buy an iPod. At first, the guard said Sony has a MP3 player line that does exactly the same thing as the iPod. But when the woman pressed about where to purchase an iPod, the guard slyly said he had no idea. I am sure the guards get asked that a lot, lol.

Anyway, I decided to head back to the Sprint store to pick up my Treo. When I came to the door, I found it was locked. I saw people still in there but then I realized that it was 3 minutes past 7PM and they have closed up. I had tap on the door several times and finally got the security guard to give me my phone back from their tech and relay the msg (damn, they coulda just let me in, I wasn't gonna stay long anyway) that the connector was bent and that's why I can't charge.

Bent???? First of all, I got my phone to charge yesterday night after manually draining it (I had it play a Kinoma video file and let it looped for nearly 2 hrs), so I can guarantee it's not the connector.  The techs in there are either brain dead or don't know a single thing that they are doing. I am also pissed that the sales rep didn't relay the proper info to the tech (I specifically said that I couldn't charge because of the "X" over the battery icon, not a physical dmg to the phone). If I really wanted, I coulda popped open the phone and disconnect the battery and reconnect it myself to fix the problem. I just can't believe they have such incompetent people working there. That is really frustrating. I really thought about leaving Sprint at that moment and going w/ another company. But I hate T-Mobile because they have no service in my house and I already have a plan w/ Cingular for my mom. I really thought about Verizon but then I found that Sprint has a New For You Upgrades and I am less than a month away from qualifying. So I just might have to stick w/ them until then... So I can get the Treo 650!!!

Digital Prints Review: Winkflash

I must admit this came as a surprise to me. I have never heard of Winkflash before, yet, they are one of the top digital printing company.

I found Winkflash from a search on Google. From the price they list, 16 cents per picture and 99 cents flat rate shipping, they are the cheapest of all the companies that I tried in this review. But there website had some problems. First, when you create an album, there is a max of 17 characters for the album name. That's not a lot. You can have A date and a place, but nothing more descriptive than that. Then there is their non-IE Java upload tool. In concept, that should work great for Firefox users like me. But for whatever the reason (Firefox or Java), the tool always hangs whether I try to upload the whole set of picture or just one picture. I had to default back to the one pic per Javascript upload that everyone uses. It's not too bad for 19 pics, but beyond that and it becomes a problem.

But that's pretty much where my complaints end. I ordered the prints on Friday, and it came the following Monday. That's a ridiculously fast turnaround time, at 99 cents no less. Looking at the pictures, I can't find anything to complain about. The colors are accurate. The pictures are sharp. And it came in a glossy finish. What more can I say?

Simply put, Winkflash is for someone that is looking for a bargain but not at the cost of quality. It may not be as convenient as printing locally, but you save a lot of money. And since it came so quickly, you probably wouldn't even notice the wait.

Pros:
-cheapest of the bunch (16 cents per print)
-99 cents flat rate shipping
-good quality
-quick turnaround time

Cons:
-bad upload interface
-limited characters for album name

Score: 9/10

Digital Prints Review: Eckerd

If CVS photos is like watching a movie in the theater, Eckerd photos is like buying a bootleg of that movie, but paying for the same price as a movie ticket.

I went to Eckerd right after CVS. I called ahead to find out if they can do digital enhancements. On the phone, the tech said yes. When I got there, I found the real story.

Eckerd doesn't have a Kiosk like CVS. Instead, they have a 2 piece setup. They have a "portable tablet", or whatever ancient relative you may call it. It was basically a big round tablet with a small 5 inch or so LCD display. It has buttons next to and below the LCD. This whole piece have a big cable connected to it which contains the CD ROM drive/Printer (not 100% sure if printer is part of it or maybe another piece hidden elsewhere). Really old school is the only way to describe it.

I gave the tech the CD ROM and she put the disc in the machine. As the pictures are coming up, I asked her about digital enhancements, like adjusting the brightness and contrast, and that's when she told me that she can only do limited picture adjustments. And guess what, those adjustments are really the ink adjustments because all she can do is set the Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow values. Totally useless. In the end, I told to leave them at default values. So she sent the photos for process and told me it would take about 10 minutes (even though the machine said 8).

10 minutes later, I have the photos in my hands, just like I had from CVS. But upon closer inspection, the quality of the photos are nowhere even close to good. First off, and it's the biggest problem. The left edge of every photo has a shade of cyan on it. The right edge of the every photo has a shade of magenta on it. It's as if the printer nozzles are not adjusted properly. I am not sure if they can fix this but this should have been fixed or adjusted before it gets to the customer. Then looking at the details of the photo, the yellow are too intense. You don't see any flesh tones at all. It gave an over exposed effect even though the original wasn't. All colors are about a shade or 2 lighter than the actual color. That is totally unacceptable.

If force to choose between CVS and Eckerd, I would definitely choose CVS. The quality is simply so much more better but the price is the same. Yes, Eckerd does offer their prints in gloss photo paper from Fuji (Fuji Printpix paper). But the gloss isn't even all that shiny. Definitely not worth going for just because of gloss alone.

Pros:
-get your pictures on the spot (10 minutes for 20 pics)
-glossy paper

Cons:
-left and right border left w/ a shade of magenta and cyan
-color inaccuracy (yellow too intense)
-high cost per print (29 cents)

Score: 4/10

Digital Prints Review: CVS

CVS, with all the problems I had w/ their first photo printing machine, was miraculously painless w/ their new machine.

First off, I had the CVS employee do the whole setup process. This time I got the manager of the technician that I talked to last time. She is much more knowledgeable than the technician. She breeze right thru the setup process. I told her I wanted a duplicated of the last picture. She did that w/ just a couple of extra taps on the keyboardless kiosk. After that, she sent the pictures for printing. This specific step is password protected and this is where you need a technician in order for your pictures to be printed. In reality, anyone can do this so they should give that password to all their employees so customers aren't stuck waiting for the technian to come back (like what happened to me).

Their new machine is very similar to their old machine. There are 2 main differences. The first one is there are 2 printers built into the kiosk instead of one like their old machine. Hopefully, the machine can work w/ one printer even if the other one breaks down (again, like what happened to me w/ the first machine). The second one is the printers are installed outward, so the customers can see the pictures "plop out", one at a time into each individual tray below. It took about 5 minutes, and I got my set of prints in my hands.

The photos are overall, pretty good. The photos are printed on Kodak Xtralife Paper w/ a matted finish. There wasn't any options for a glossy finish so people that are looking for the traditional glossy photo look should look elsewhere. However, the details are sharp and the colors are very accurate.

At 29 cents per print, it's actually one of the highest price per print. The good news is since there are no shipping charges, it still comes out as a decent bargain when printing 20 photos. You also get your photos on the spot instead of waiting for days for them to be mailed to you. I would easily recommend this service to anyone that can't stand to wait days for their prints. Just heed my two warnings. One, make sure the technician is there when u want to use the kiosk (better yet, just give ur memory card or CD ROM to the tech). Two, do any color adjustments at home w/ your fav photo editing software (it can take forever if u do it in the store). I recommend Picasa because it's free.

Pros:
-sharp, color accurate pictures
-get your pictures right away

Cons:
-no option for glossy finish
-high price

Score: 8/10

And the rest...

So I just received photos from the last 2 digital printing company, Shutterfly and PhotoWorks. It took exactly 6 days for the photos to arrive to my house. While it did took long, Shutterfly at first glance, w/o comparing to others, looked very good. But it falters just like the rest in pictures that lack proper lighting (the indoor pictures).

PhotoWorks is definitely lacking in both delivery time and quality, as a lot of the photos have a slight pinkish hue. The pictures are also softer than others, even the outdoor shots where there are sufficient lighting.

I uploaded some of my AutoShow Photos to Flickr, which is a pretty cool photo sharing web site. I heard about it months ago but never had time to play around w/ it. Now is as good a time as any, so I opened a free acct w/ them today, and you should be able to see it somewhere on my site here. The problem w/ them is that they only let you upload 10 megs per month. I wonder since I joined on the 31st of the month, will I get another 10 megs of space tomorrow...

Received prints from CVS, Eckerd, and WinkFlash

Wanted to do a full review of each of the three services today, but kinda tired. Will probably write about them tomorrow. Here's a sneak peak though. CVS and Eckerd were quick and painless (especially CVS w/ their new machine). But I was really surprised w/ Winkflash because I ordered them on Friday, along w/ all the other online print companies, and they came in today (they are the first one). They also have the lowest price per print and shipping cost was just 99 cents. Winkflash seems to be leading in the comparison so far. Let's see when the rest shows up.

Digital Prints Review

Having gone thru that nightmare of trying to get digital prints, and not even coming out w/ prints at the end, I decided to do a review of digital prints services. Here are the companies I will do a comparison on:

Shutterfly
Photoworks
Winkflash
Kodak Gallery (formerly Ofoto)
CVS
Eckerds
Duane Reade

I will also print at home using my Canon i320 to see how much better the professional services are compare to printing at home. Also, I will give CVS one more chance to see how the new machine they installed yesterday fare.

I personally have used Ofoto in the past and like their service a lot. But I didn't do a huge amount of printing from them because it was pretty expensive back then (I think 59 cents per print or some ridiculous amount like that). Shipping charges was another reason why I didn't order too many prints.

I will rate each of the services base on three areas: service, quality, and price. The Avg of the 3 would be the final score of the service. I will also list several pros and cons of each service. This would be very similar to what I use to do at Edgereview, if you have any read the articles that I used to write. I should have the reviews and a conclusion sometime next week (pending the turnaround time of the online services).

Digital Prints Chaos

Who would have thought printing pictures from a digital camera would be this difficult? Last week, I took pictures of me and my former co-workers at Independence so that we can remember all the fun we had working there. It's been over a week and I still haven't been able to get prints. Here is why:

I noticed the pharmacies in my neighborhood, CVS, Duane Reade, and Eckerds, are accepting digital prints. So I called them up for price per print. Guess what, all of them cost exactly 29 cents per print (price fixing?).

Well, all things being equal, I thought it would be easiest if I went to the one that is closest to my house, which happens to be CVS. That's where the nightmare began. I went there on Sunday, 3/20/05. I spotted a Kodak digital prints machine. Next to it is a speaker that annoying repeats how "easy" it is to get digital prints from the machine. Let me explain how untrue that statement is. First off, the machine is somewhat straight forward, but a lot of the options like picture enhancement and number of copies to order (I wanted 7 sets) are completely hidden. I completed the whole process and upload my pictures (btw, their machine was already 1/2 broken cuz I can only upload pictures to it from CD, as the Memorystick slot is defective) w/o even being able to select how many pictures I want and also to brighten some of the pictures that didnt' have enough light.

I did all this w/o realizing that their "Photo Technician" is not around. When I asked a sales clerk, she said the tech will be back in 15 minutes or so. I know that working as a customer service in my previous job that that is not always the case. 15 minutes can mean 1/2 hr or longer, depending on when the clerk actually want to show up. Besides, I was late to my friend's house, so I decide to come back on another day.

I was relative busy  during the week (restaurants, etc.) so I didn't go back to CVS til Wed. The tech was there this time and I found out from her that I need to inform a tech on the same day that I requested for prints, or else the pictures I upload into the machine gets deleted overnight. Great, so I have to do it over again. Then I did just that, and this time I asked the tech how to do photo enhancements and order multiple prints. I have to double tap on each specific picture to open up a separate menu which lets you do enhancements and select prints. And she sounded annoyed that I didn't know how to operate it. Hello? It's my first time using the machine and there should be brochures or leaflets next to the machine to explain how to use the machine. I didn't see any. She might know it by heart because she has to help tons of people but she didn't have show that attitude. I always take my time to show my customers how to use an ATM in my previous job because there are really people out there that never had to use an ATM machine in their life before.

Anyway, getting back to topic, I re-did the order and found out that the machine can only take an order of 100 prints or less. That's stupid. On a standard digital camera w/ a huge memory card, you can easily store over 100 pics in one card. It's dumb to set the limit to a 100. In my case, I didn't have 100 pictures, just 19 x 7 sets = 133. So I had to separate it into 2 orders. The tech gave me a envelope to fill out. Why? I know the envelop state it's for digital prints. But all this info I already entered into the machine. The machine should just print a label and the tech can just stick it onto the envelop when the pictures are ready. That's another problem w/ the Kodak machine. Anway, this whole process took like 15 minutes because of the 100 picture limit and the digital enhancements. I could have done the enhancements at home, but I thought that their machine can do a better job. I was wrong. Really wrong. First off, their machine is nothing more than a PC running Win 2K w/ a nice photo printer and a touchscreen interface. In fact, you can see Windows loading up the various messages that you are not suppose to see while you are in the ordering process. What makes the machine a real problem is how slow it is. I swear it is must be a Pentium 3 800Mhz or something like that, because it was already slow in responding to touchscreen commands (could be too little ram or too many apps in background too). So guess how long it takes for a P3 to do digital enhancements to brighten up and adjust the contrast of a picture? Forever! Well, not really, but took like 15 secs per picture. I could have done this at my home in like 2 seconds. That's unacceptable.

After what felt like an eternity, I finally finished. I asked the tech how long it takes for me to get my pictures. That's when the tech told me the machine started to act up and I have to come back tomorrow. So I did. The next day, I went back to CVS and found out from another tech that the machine I was using on Wed has completely broken down and was replaced. The pictures I uploaded into the old machine wasn't transferred to the new machine. So this is where I am at. Almost 1 week after, and I have no nothing to show for all the time I spent at CVS.

To sum it up, Here are problems that I had w/ digital prints at CVS:

Photo Technicians not always there.
Photo Technicians not very helpful.
Kodak machine had a defective memory card reader.
Kodak machine is very slow (Pentium 3 for photo enhancements?).
Kodak machine has a 100 pictures limit.
Kodak machine has a bad user interface (hidden options).
There were no brochures or leaflets to explain how to use the machine.